From my own experience as a widow of four years, not only writing about grief the last several years but talking with others — often times people don’t understand the sometimes messy, non-linear and very individual grief process. There is no set way to do it. However, I’ve found the best way to “do it” is to take it day by day, sometimes moment by moment. No expectations, no hard and fast rules, just do what works to get yourself through it and into a better place emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
The Kubler-Ross Model defines the stages as follows: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Even Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated that not everyone always experiences all of these stages nor are they experienced in a clear, linear fashion. Kulber-Ross talked about the above stages in relation to someone who is dying, and also those who have lost a loved one. However, these stages of grief can also be linked to a situation which involves a real or perceived lack of control over one’s life.
In the end, it’s interesting how we each handle life’s “smackdowns”.
Sometimes you just want to rush through the grief process. There’s confusion, pain, fear and a pulling inside, wanting to hide. Just take it slow and let life unfold gently, doing the best you can without making yourself do anything new until you’re ready.
Sometimes people aren’t sure what to say to someone who has suffered a bereavement. When you are the one who has suffered the loss of a loved one — at times you don’t know what will help to ease your pain either. Some days, there’s nothing that will help. Today I found a wonderful blog posting by Terry Rush, and I found his way of speaking to those who have suffered loss to be wonderfully caring and profound. The link is below.
http://terryrush.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-to-say-to-those-who-grieve.html
A thought. Have you ever considered grief good in any way, shape or form? For three and a half years you’re locked in combat with yourself, and the world around you as it changes. In time all things adapt, and somehow we open our eyes and learn something different, that you are indeed changed by your grief experience and you are therefore, different; newer, stronger, wiser and hopefully more loving and compassionate. Should we thank grief for allowing us to experience all that is different in our world? Have we in the grief process evolved into who we were meant to be? We got a push or a shove on this journey…has it turned out in any way more than you could ever have envisioned for yourself?
I came upon an interesting post today at http://theviewfromhere.wordpress.com
It brought up the subject of funerals, death and dying….and being honest with kids. My thoughts on the matter are it’s thought provoking — trying to give kids information without giving them too much information to scare them, but be honest. I never wanted my kids to feel they’re prohibited from asking questions they need to be answered.
We all handle/filter the death process differently, but I tend to agree that kids need the truth, as hard as it is sometimes. At my mother-in-law’s funeral, my then 9 year old wanted to play one last song for his grandmother, and he did this while 3 tears dropped onto his fiddle at the gravesite. When his dad passed away a year later and we scattered his ashes, my son played another song, but up in our field behind our house. It was his way to say a final goodbye, but we all know know that is only the beginning of the grief process.
copyright 2008
My husband was ill ten months with cancer when I had the dream. I had been taking care of his needs for almost eleven months, and even though some days there seemed to be progress, in hindsight I see it was really a steady progression on a downhill curve.
One night I had a dream I was upstairs in our two story house and looked out my youngest son’s window, which faces a large back field. I could see a large machine coming inexorably closer and closer toward the house. It made a terrible racket, almost like a threshing sound. With fear, I knew that it was going to come into the house through the back, into the kitchen and to the corner of the living room where my husband sat. I tried to call out and warn everyone, but I couldn’t speak. I ran downstairs, hearing it get closer and closer.
When I got down to the living room, my husband’s chair, where he always sat in the corner, was totally gone. The machine had come through the back of the house as I’d feared and swept him and his chair away. It continued around the front of the house and across the side yard.
I heard my youngest son talking out side to a friend of my husband’s, and the talk was normal, as if nothing had occurred. I wanted to cry out, but it was no use. When I awoke, I knew with certainty my husband was going to die.
I never told him about that dream. I couldn’t talk to him about it. I was afraid to acknowledge what I knew it meant. I was doing the best I could to keep my husband alive, but in my dreaming state, I knew he was going to die.
That day was the first time I acknowledged the truth of his impending death. That afternoon our regular hospice nurse arrived, and my husband asked her quietly, without fanfare, how much time she thought he had. I just stared at him, not saying a word. She said based on her experience, probably two or three weeks. I went into a numb state. I was not expecting him to confront his own death and mortality in this manner. And yet, it was only natural he would know the end was near. I had been denying it to myself.
When the nurse left, I walked outside with her. I told her of the dream I’d had. She put her arms around me in my distress. I faced the truth that he was going to die.
That week, my husband refused to let me put any of the protein rich formula I had been preparing for him, into the enteral pump, his only source of nutrition. I tried to argue with him, but he was quietly adamant. I still see the expression on his face. He simply said, “No more.” That was it. That was his way of telling me this is the end. Two weeks later he died. It wasn’t discussed, we didn’t’ tell the kids he no longer wished to receive the little sustenance his stomach could take. It was just done. Should we have discussed it with the kids? I don’t know. We talked with them about everything else. Most importantly, their father continually told him how much he loved them.
The last week is a mixed collection of jumbled memory. My husband didn’t sleep well, since he dozed on and off all day. He developed a bed sore that we were trying to cope with, but had to be incredibly sore. His focused turned inward. There was little verbal communication, and I stayed by his side most of the time. At night, he would be awake at two or three in the morning, and he’d drink cups of water at a time. It was amazing, considering he hadn’t been able to drink or eat in three months or more. He became incredibly weak, and I could no longer lift him to help him onto the commode, even as light as he had become. My heart cried inside, but there was nothing I could do, except love the man I had married twenty years before. I was exhausted, and knew I couldn’t take anymore. I wished for him to go to sleep and asked God to take him. His passing was relatively peaceful, but I always wondered if it would have been easier if we had talked more about him dying.
Elaine Williams copyright 2008
After my husband’s death, I enclosed myself in an emotional shell. A hard cased, untouchable cocoon of nothingness. I wanted to be numb, I wanted to be left alone. Many days my self-imposed prison made me want to be loved by someone. Some days I lived and breathed by rote. God kept me breathing when maybe I took that for granted. It sank in one morning when I woke and asked myself what do I do with the rest of my life. I decided I probably had another forty years to go. Where do I go from here?
I felt an overwhelming disinterest in life and living. I had three boys, so I put one foot in front of the other and took care of the things that needed doing. My kids were my first priority. I was and am so blessed to have them. And yet, I felt bad that they lost their father. My youngest was ten, and I just wanted to fold up some days and hide in a corner for sadness. But I didn’t. I decided, subconsciously, my children needed me more to be straight and unbroken then I needed to crumple.
I avoided people sometimes because I didn’t want to talk about and therefore confront my grief. I didn’t know who I was anymore, now that I was alone. And I felt very alone and isolated, even from family. Isolating myself, I just wanted to be left alone. Sometimes others didn’t know what to say. It’s just the way it was.
I read with gratitude the cards and letters friends and family sent. Many of them wrote about how much my husband had meant to them, and expressed their sorrow at his passing. Those were the letters that meant so much.
I understood acquaintances awkwardness with my grief, but there was nothing I could do, beyond trying to alleviate their unease with my own sense of caring.
Gradually I grew into my life, a new life where I carved a niche for myself. Over time, I grew to enjoy living again. Some days when I thought I had progressed so very far, I would suddenly go into a depressive state of mind. I hated when that happened and tried to think analyze why it happened, but some days it just came unbidden and pulled me down.
At about three and a half years after my husband’s passing, I began to feel a noticeable lightening of my spirit, as if I’d suddenly found new purpose in my life. I had been doing some dating, and had reached the point where I decided to empower myself by not dating men who were not in the same space mentally and emotionally as I was.
By four years, I knew I had made it on my own this long, I would continue to be alone until the right partner came along. No more rushing into dead end relationships. My writing career took on new life, giving me a sense of purpose once more. I truly began to enjoy my life as I developed new friendships and took on interesting job endeavors.
The little whine inside me that protested my circumstances, became quiet and almost content. Somehow, I had skipped over some milestones in the last several years and made my life my own. I am proud of myself for where I have gone and where I will go. It’s been an interesting journey, and totally unpredictable, a journey I expect to get better with each day.
Forgiveness is part of the process. I went through a time I was angry that my husband died….it felt like he left everything in my lap, what was left of our life had changed. I had three boys without a father, my youngest being 11. I just felt like everything had been dumped on me. When I faced up to these feelings and got over feeling guilty about them, I realized this was just part of the grief process I had to get through. I forgave myself, understood it was okay, and I didn’t dwell on it but moved ahead with my life.
When you’re in the midst of grief, some days something as simple as the words of a song can touch you very deeply and bring the tears of memory to your eyes.
Powered by WordPress.com
