My Grief

 

Here is a question I struggle with a great deal:  What does grief look like?  Is it meant to look exactly the same for everyone?  Does it come in different sizes and different forms?  Does it go in and out of fashion like styles?  How do I, as a new widow, still lively enough to want to live fully and well, deal with loss?  What is my identity now?

So many questions follow the one question, which is circular and always comes back around: What does grief look like?

I don't think it's one size fits all.

I don't think there is a time limit on how long one might grieve, long nor short.

I don't think my grief will look like yours, nor yours look like mine.  

All of this has been coming at me this month pretty hard.  Why now? 

Well for one thing, I'm conscious of the passage of time.  While it feels like forever on the one hand, in fact it's been a relatively short period of time.  I'm a week away from noting the third month of my widowhood.  

And then I came face to face the other day with a woman who was widowed a few months prior to my own widowhood.  One who cried quietly every Sunday on the front row at church.  Whose hair, previously immaculately groomed and coiffed, was no longer coiffed nor so immaculate.  Who seemed to have withered and faded, losing weight.  (Just a note here that I don't think anything in this world has ever, ever taken away my appetite.  I'm not the fading, withering type of woman.)  She looked me in the eye and asked, "How are you?"  She seemed genuinely pleased to see me.  But there was a great sadness all about her eyes.  And I could see that she couldn't bear to mention my loss because it reminded her too deeply of her loss.  Her sadness had no room for anyone else to be sad.  I'm not faulting her mind you.  Her grief is her own to deal with as she must.

But afterwards, on my way home, I compared it to mine, because heavens help me, I apparently carry a measuring stick around with me everywhere in all situations to measure all things to see how I am not measuring up.

I have contemplated so many things in these last two months, once the shock of it all began to fade.

There was the fact that my body will insist on being alive. That was something unexpected.  And I've no more answers about how to deal with it than I had at the time I wrote the post I shared with you all. 

Another was that despite experiencing loss, I'd rediscovered and experienced the thrills of possibility.  Call them dreams, call them fantasies, but all sorts of possibilities have occurred to me.  Of things I might do.  Of places I might go.  Of things I might feel one day in the future.  Of how I might live my life.  

And then there is the discovering of who I am in this season of life.  I have lost my husband.  I have shed family relations that have burdened, embarrassed, and shamed me which shuts down two more roles: daughter and sister.  Mind you the role of sister is not really that much of a loss...but daughter is one I still struggle with, even while distancing myself hard.  I won't go into all that guilt and complexity of feeling.  I am a grandmother, a mother, a writer.  But most of all, I am a woman...And that bears quite a bit of thinking about.  

What kind of woman am I?  Right now: sometimes scared, anxious, uncertain.  

What kind of woman do I want to be?  Attractive.   Friendly and open and pleasant.  Introverted but adventurous.  Creative. Encouraging.  Joyful. 

And there's the part of the puzzle that seems to not quite fit.  Can one be joyful and grieve at the same time?  Does one cancel out the other?

The other night, I sat and wrote in my journal about this struggle, this place I find myself in.  

Here's where I compare myself to others.  I don't turn to John's empty chair and feel startled at its emptiness anymore.  I don't miss his weight in the bed.  I've accepted the fact that he will not be returning.  And because it's only been three months since he passed, I've been afraid that those things might mean I didn't love him as fully as I supposed, nor as well as I should have.  Because surely, only three months in, I would still feel those things sharply?  Does acceptance equate to a lack of feeling, or simply a practical nature?  Does it signify an inadequate amount of grief?

How do you define grief?  

Do I miss him?  I miss him every single day.  It's not the first thing in the morning nor the last thing at night anymore.   Those times come occasionally but not all the time.  I've put routines in place that are mine and they ground me, I suppose.  

No, it's not the empty chair or the fact that I now sleep in the middle of the bed.   It's not because I walked in the backdoor one day and said "Right...it's time to put those shoes in the donation bag..." instead of leaving them where he'd left them last.  

It's not because I have ceased to cry, because I still do at times.  

It's not my lack of anger that defines me or my grief either.  I'm not mad. His brother is mad and he keeps telling me that he knows I am mad as well, but I'm not.  I'm not.  I know it's a natural part of the grieving process, but I can't find any anger in my spirit.  

The truth is my deepest and biggest emotion is an overwhelming gratitude.  I am grateful for so very many things.  The fact that I had him in my life.  That our love was a true one.  That we made it through the difficult things as a couple, not as two individuals who were simply used to one another. That he was a genuinely good man, one whom I felt the greatest respect and admiration for despite the sometimes less than admirable things he might have said or done.  I'm grateful that I have so few regrets about my own behavior.  Grateful he held my feet to the fire and made sure I held his there as well, so that we didn't fail to be the better people we both wanted to be.  Grateful he loved my children and allowed me to love his so that we truly became family.  Grateful we saw past faults and warts and saw deep inside one another.  Grateful that the last day of his life was such a joyful one despite the circumstances, despite the coming end of everything for me.

And most of all, I am so very grateful that he loved me and never left me doubting it, which is quite a feat given my propensity to assume that no one could possibly love me.

There's an old story from my past that I used to tell and it's worth repeating just now.   One vacation many years ago, I had gone to pan for gold in a mountain town.  The owner sat on his front porch and watched all these strangers panning his sleuths.  Someone shouted, "I think I've found some!"  He sat forward in his rocking chair and said, "If you THINK you've found some, you haven't.  When you shout, 'I've found some!' without thinking about it, then you will KNOW you've found gold."

I found gold.  

And what is there to cry about in the light of that?  

Maybe my grief looks like understanding what real love looked and felt and tasted like.  Maybe my grief looks like gratitude.  

Loss and Possibility

 

This is where I am here in June.  I have experienced a loss, a great loss, and yet I am so very aware that there are all sorts of possibilities before me.  It's a weird balance to walk between grief and joy, between old identity and new unformed self, between now and a future that is so vast and unknown before me that it scares and thrills me all at once.

As I came into May, once I began to be aware of life still life-ing all around me, it was hard to remain in the fog of grieving on a permanent basis.  Oh, there is still grief and it comes upon me unexpectedly at some point in most days, but it's not devastating.  It's not consuming misery.  It's just an awareness that there is a huge void in my life, that John's presence was large in my life.  I was happy to sit on the sidelines for the most part, to observe quietly and share what I observed with him.

A Time to Dance

Ecclesiastes 3 has always been one of my favorite passages.  The whole book is a favorite of mine, but most especially Chapter 3:1-8. 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace." 

Those verses speak of all the things of life in my opinion.  I find them very comforting at most any time but of late I've found them reminders to of hope because for everything we might experience in life there is an opposite that balances all.  

True to Myself

 

There was a place in my life where I didn't like who I was.   I'd say the shocking things that no one else would say just to see people react, to draw attention to myself.  I didn't want their attention, yet I felt compelled to get it just the same.  I was too loud.  Prone to exaggerate. Intent on disguising all that I wasn't by pretending to be someone much bolder, badder, and funnier.  Acting and behaving in ways that made me uncomfortable, that felt false to who I truly was underneath, but I thought if I acted more like those around me then I'd not feel so lost and alone and so very much on the outside of the window looking in at everyone else.  

There comes a point in every life where we have to own who we are inside and who we are pretending to be.

Love, Intimacy and Desire

I've been reading an absolutely lovely book by a female Christian writer widowed after 46 years.  She talks of the great love she and her husband shared.  I too have spoken of the depth of love John and I had, how good (and normal) our marriage was.

She mentions many of the emotions and feelings I myself have experienced.  But one thing is noticeably missing.  It is missing in most dialogues about widowhood.  Perhaps because for many of us it is such a powerfully intimate subject, and for some even taboo.  

Promises I'm Making for June

June is always a busy month.  The kids are newly home for the summer, there are umpteen birthdays starting the last week of May (8 total), and somehow a new season always spurs many new projects.  It will be hard to hold myself to promises but I plan to keep as many as I possibly can.  And if you want to check how I did in May, then look right here at the updates. 

1.  I promise to find something nice and cool and comfortable to wear around the house.  I've been wearing jeans and t-shirts which is fine for the cooler days of spring but now that we're in the hotter days?  Nope!  I have some 'capris' I bought last summer that fit badly then and don't fit any better now.  They were actually made for someone about 4 feet 5 inches not 5 feet 3 inches.  And the size tag is a straight up liar.  I crammed into them last year but this year, I'm not planning to be that uncomfortable.

Identity Crisis

 

I've shared before that when Katie left home at 18, I found myself in a long spell of grief.  It was completely unexpected.  I'd been parenting for over 30 years, and I thought I was more than ready to lose that role of full-time parent.  I started out excited about the time ahead.  And then I was hit by the runaway car called grief which nearly debilitated me for two full years.  

I didn't know what to do with myself!  All those plans I'd made for the day when I would not be on call 24/7 mattered no longer.  I lost my footing.  It was totally unexpected and it took me by surprise.

Six weeks into losing John, I can tell you that I find myself in a similar place now.  

Making Changes 1% At A Time

 

I floated through the last of March and the first part of April as though I were lost in a fog and I was.  I realized in mid-April I needed to stop and just 'be' so to speak, whatever form 'being' took at the time.  Tears, making relational decisions, attempting social occasions and church solo, dealing with paperwork and appointments, and finally determining what I wanted beyond John's NOT being gone, which is not an option I can choose.

I realized I could re-establish some routines in my life and ground myself somewhat better.  I started with the Friday and Monday house blessings, those two days of the week when my house is most prone to be untidy and need real attention.  I like going into the weekend with it clean and neat and I like coming out of the weekend well rested and ready to set things to rights for the week ahead.  

Wisdoms I Need

 

Grief work always causes us to revisit underlying grief.  ~ Liz (in the comments of this post)

She is so right!  I recognized the truth of it as soon as I read that statement.  I had wondered why I kept dwelling on so many hurts, long past and more recent, things I'd normally have thought little about.  But even the slightest grief has been like a new pang in my soul.  I needed that "Ah ha!" moment she gave me when she chose to share that.

Grief is a magnet that will pick up all the little pieces of grief.  And it has made it more difficult for me to discern exactly what I'm grieving at times.

Sorrow upon Sorrow

 

The thing I've found about grief is that it has a way of dredging up all the past griefs, ones I'd thought were long dealt with and forgotten.  

The need of a girl for her mother...

The desire to be an aunt...

Today, as I was leaving church, a young woman came and stopped directly in front of me.   I stood looking at her, sure I knew her, sure she was family, but not quite recognizing her.  I said "Hi..." a little hesitantly.  Something about her face kept nagging at me that she was someone I knew well.  It was my niece.  We hugged long and deep.  She is 30 years old.   I have had only the briefest moments of contact with her.

Promises for May

 

1.  Life is too short to eat food that isn't good.   I don't mean spoiled food, but food that is lacking in taste or texture, or a recipe that didn't turn out and feels like punishment when I force myself to eat it or the leftovers of it which haven't improved.  I did that too often in April and I've made up my mind that if I'm going to consume 'x' number of calories each day, then the food I eat shall (a) taste good (b) be something I genuinely enjoy (c) and look forward to eating.  

I've had ill luck of late with things I crammed into the freezer before John died.  WHY did I save those things thinking they'd taste better later?  

Closed Doors

 

John has been gone a month at the time I'm writing this.  One month ago today, I kissed his forehead and walked out of the room leaving his physical body, my dearest friend and great love, behind.  I realize now that I was in a state of shock.  Operating normally enough on the surface but reeling with sorrow underneath.  Holding myself together for the sake of my children, but bereft.  Probably not hiding it very well though I supposed at the time that I was.

But two things happened that I have not shared.  Two other griefs, which are wrapped up in losing my beloved.  The Sunday morning of his last day, when I'd been told he'd passed away, before I went in to see him and he miraculously regained consciousness, one of the first people I called was my brother.   I told him John had died. "Well Terri, it's going to happen to all of us at some point.  I'm sorry."    I asked him to please let Mama know.  

Coffee Chat: How I'm Really Doing

 

Dear Friends, 

I'm going to change the pattern of posting on you all for a little bit.  I feel the need to not be a writer but to be open and honest about how I feel just now.

No great revelation to any of you, I'm sure, that I'm grieving.  

Grief for me might look different than it looks for someone else.  I am not wailing and gnashing my teeth.  I do cry at times.  Little things, little tears.  And one stormy evening of wrestling with the real pain of grief and loss and longing to turn back time.  Those 34 years of John were far too short!  They went too quickly.  I wanted more.  I thought we'd have more.

Architect of My Soul

 

This evening on the way home from a day of appointment, errands, and a family visit, I finally put in the CD of John's music that he'd recorded and put in our safety deposit box.  I found myself singing along, smiling, raising a hand in worship at times, and thinking deeply about what a journey a life can be.  What we are truly building as we go along living is a Soul, that mysterious inner being that is so connected to heart and mind.  With the building of our Soul, we become our own three-in-one self.    

Hard Things

Fact of Life:  When you lose your husband, the world expects you to step up and adult even if you don't want to, don't feel like it, are anxious about it, or dread it because it's dang hard stuff you must do.

And it sucks.

But you get up each day, and you do it anyway, because no one else can do it for you.  Oh, they can... 

But how selfish to expect anyone else to stop their lives to do it for me simply because I feel lazy or low, or fearful, or whatever else emotion I might cough up.   I mean, they all have things they must deal with and attend to and face their own loss at the same time...surely, I can do just as much. 

Reflections on Loss

 

Does Loss count as a big emotion?  By definition it is not. The emotional response to loss is grief.  You grieve over a lost mate, a lost pet, a lost job, a major change in life, losing anything that you valued or held dear.  Grief is the big emotion.  But purportedly loss is what has happened to you, not what you feel.  So.

I cannot determine if I am numb, or if this past year, all the conversations John and I had, all the things we did to secure our future, my future, so prepared me for what lay ahead that I've accepted easily that I am now alone.  I have discovered what it is to experience loss of someone who was so much a part of my life that I truly felt he breathed out and I breathed in.  

This New Season

 

In March, as I worked through big emotions and sorrow, I wrote out the posts and pre-scheduled them to publish.  I finished them a week before John died.   Since then, I've been doing a lot of writing.  The two posts published on this blog and on Blue House Journal about John's passing, posts for April, daily writings in my journal.

Writing being the cathartic exercise that it always has been for me; I'm finding my way as I go into this new season of life alone mostly by writing, not by word or book.  I don't know what it is I feel.  I'm having to stop and exam it as I go.  

Promises for April

 

1.  I promise to start reaching OUT to people when they are reaching out to me.  John and I tended to be selfish with our time together.  There's no one there for me now.  I'm not slighting my children.  They are being so supportive and would happily fit me into their lives even more than they did in the past.  But they have their lives.   I owe it to John, I owe it to them, and most of all I owe it to me, to not give in to the easy thing.  I need a new support system; one I'll build for myself.  I need to be open to people and stop thinking everyone is highly suspect and likely to hurt me.

2.   I promise to choose carefully who I allow to enter into my life.  That may sound contrary to the first promise but it's really an extension to it.  I attract needy people.  People are attracted to my co-dependent nature.  I want HEALTHY personal relationships in my life, not someone who will reduce me, use me, trap me in their dependency.  

Big Emotions, Pt. 3: Sorrow

Sorrow sits at the bottom of the deep river of all unplumbed emotions.  Grief, despair, hopelessness, anger, shame, hurt...They are all mixed up in sorrow and get dredged up to cloud the water and alter the current's flow.  This river has a power of its own, moving at will along the path it carves.

Many times, when I lie down to sleep, when I just start to drift, I see a very real flood behind my eyelids, sweeping me along with it, sometimes confined within riverbanks, sometimes spreading rapidly across the landscape of life. I have no control whatsoever over my vessel, swept along without any way to stop it or slow it, completely vulnerable to the whims of the water beneath me. 

Sorrow, I know.  

Big Emotions Pt. 2: Shame

 

When I first began this journey, it began with a dream in which I appeared unclothed before a crowd.  I walked without any embarrassment or sense of shame, quite at home in my own skin.

But the most often experienced emotion I've felt over the past few years has been shame.  I've written about it both in my journal and here.  I've examined it until I have felt I was going to go mad.  I've ignored it only to have it rear up and strike at me hard.   

In Week Three of The Artist's Way, two of the emotions we examine more closely are anger and shame.  Today I want to delve into the emotion of shame as I have experienced it.