What's the Point? You're Going to do it Anyway - Soaking in Grief

[mbbh]

In case you didn't know, I am a very tenacious person. I am persistent (sometimes to a fault) and I have even been called "stubborn." (I know, hard to to believe, right?) One thing John use to say to me when we had a disagreement (okay, an argument), was, "I don't know why I am even saying anything to you. What's the point? You're going to do it anyway." It was usually at that point in our disagreement that we would both stop, laugh, and roll our eyes at each other. He knew about my persistence. At times during this journey, I have felt anything but tenacious, but then I remember, "You're going to do it anyway," which if I take a different twist on it, it loosely translates into, "The feelings are going to come. You're going to get through it anyway." The difference now is I don't laugh when I say that to myself and I don't roll my eyes about it.

I have learned a few things over the past 9 months about a topic I didn't sign up to learn about: Grief of losing one's spouse. I know this experience is limited and I am still early in this new life, so I do not pretend to know more than anyone else about this course. I realize I am in the infancy stage of this life of grief, but bear with me. As much as I would give anything and do anything to have John here, well and whole, my new reality doesn't afford me that opportunity. This is so for all of us here. One thing I have come to realize is that living into and with grief is never easy, no matter the loss.

Everyone's journey is different. For me, I find that finding time for stillness and allowing the grief to come as it makes itself known lowers the episodes of overwhelming pain that take over. Allowing myself to soak in important feelings, allowing them to seep into, from and through my spirit, somehow makes a difference. It doesn't eliminate the pain of grief, but instead of taking a sprint and a diving straight into the pool of hopelessness and despair, stepping into the shallow end and slowly wading into the waters doesn't leave me drowning or banging my head on the bottom of the pool. I still take a dive in sometimes because it is as if I am being shoved off of a high dive, but when I am able to slow down, it helps me.

Don't get me wrong. Some days are absolutely heart-wrenching. When a tsunami of emotions hits out of the blue, I feel fortunate just to hold on tight and eventually tread the waters of loss. Big storms hit hard and one is not always able to prepare and even when one does prepare, the unpredictability of the storm rocks our world. But the good news is this: Waters recede and the gift of resting in the warmth of the sun is revealed. It comes again, but each storm packs a lighter punch, in general, and we tap into resilience in order to survive.

Grieving any loss is hard work, but it is truly a gift from a Power higher than ourselves that people find new purpose, new meaning, and new ways of being. I didn't ask for this new life and God knows, I wish it weren't so, but it is so... and while I have no idea what good will come from my experiences, I rest in the assurance that it will, indeed, come. Through struggle and pain, a person can emerge with life anew. I don't know the who, what, when, why nor how that will emerge in my life. I don't think it is necessary for me to know today or even tomorrow or the next day. I just hold tight to the threads of hope and faith that this pain will not always be this intense and that eventually, those threads will be woven into a rope of strength and resilience and maybe even a strand of stubbornness. May it be so.

 

Peace,

Mary Beth

[iPraiseHim]

Wow, I agree and spoken with style and Grace. I'm a widower (2.5 years) and I'm learning similar things. It has just taken me a little longer to accept and come to terms with it.  I am also, tenacious and stubborn and know there is a reason and meaning in a this.  I trust the Lord to sort out the details.  I am thankful for your sharing.  It helps us who can not pen as eloquently as you have what this grief journey and healing is all about.  Shalom---George

[Gwenivere]

I truly hope that your journey continues to bring you some moments of comfort or at least a break from the overwhelming grief.  I know in my first year I had a hard time like most, but I seemed to function I had some kind of shock protection and adopted a dog that kept me busy thru puppydom.  My 2nd year is tougher, probably the reality of it I can't deny in any way.  As I approach my 3rd I am struggling more than I ever anticipated.  But that is my path.  My biggest obstacle was asking why us so soon?  I have accepted biology has its own agenda.  

You write beautifully and with the hope that can be easily lost.  I know your words will help many beginning this journey we didn't sign up for.  I hope you keep sharing your feelings and observations.  Even tho I have lost my way again, people need to see just how unique this is for each of us.  Balance.  There are tough posts to read and others uplifting, like yours.

[mbbh]

I have moments of insight, like today. Then there are days that I can barely move. I have heard from many that the second year has a different set of losses and I am afraid of that being true. It is a cycle and a journey none of us can escape. Peace to you, Gwen and George.

[kayc]

11 hours ago, mbbh said:

I am a very tenacious person. I am persistent (sometimes to a fault) and I have even been called "stubborn.

Hmm, seems we're cut from the same cloth!
 

 

11 hours ago, mbbh said:

For me, I find that finding time for stillness and allowing the grief to come as it makes itself known lowers the episodes of overwhelming pain that take over.

I had plenty of alone time so I didn't have to "make time", it was always just there.  As long as we don't try to drown it out with activities, we have the time to allow ourselves to be with our grief...it doesn't go anywhere.

12 hours ago, mbbh said:

I don't think it is necessary for me to know today or even tomorrow or the next day.

I still hold to the "take one day at a time", it is enough.  Any more than that is too much for me.

12 hours ago, mbbh said:

I just hold tight to the threads of hope and faith that this pain will not always be this intense

It won't stay in the same intensity.  As we process our grief, it begins to subside.  It does take doing our "grief work"...

12 hours ago, mbbh said:

eventually, those threads will be woven into a rope of strength and resilience and maybe even a strand of stubbornness. May it be so.

May it be so.

[TomPB]

Good thoughts and true.

For me, what was best now causes most pain. Sunday was our best day, so now it's the worst. Yesterday was painful.

People have told me that being able to enjoy happy memories of Susan is what will allow me to have some peace, and it makes sense to me. However my problem is that it seems impossible. When I think of some loving, cute, playful etc thing she did my throat involuntarily - not a choice! - constricts and I either cry or struggle to not cry, with the pain of the loss. To make it worse, it seems every day I remember another loving thng she did. It is hard to imagine that can change, but yeah, a day, or a second, at a time.  

[Eagle-96]

11 minutes ago, TomPB said:

Good thoughts and true.

For me, what was best now causes most pain. Sunday was our best day, so now it's the worst. Yesterday was painful.

People have told me that being able to enjoy happy memories of Susan is what will allow me to have some peace, and it makes sense to me. However my problem is that it seems impossible. When I think of some loving, cute, playful etc thing she did my throat involuntarily - not a choice! - constricts and I either cry or struggle to not cry, with the pain of the loss. To make it worse, it seems every day I remember another loving thng she did. It is hard to imagine that can change, but yeah, a day, or a second, at a time.  

Easier said than done is an understatement. I got a pan out yesterday to make a pizza and saw a cooling rack we had bought together and BAM, there were the waterworks. No rhyme or reason to when I cry or what will bring it on. I never, in a million years, thought I would one day be able to say a cooling rack brought me to tears. Such is our new lives.

[TomPB]

6 minutes ago, Eagle-96 said:

Easier said than done is an understatement. I got a pan out yesterday to make a pizza and saw a cooling rack we had bought together and BAM, there were the waterworks. No rhyme or reason to when I cry or what will bring it on. I never, in a million years, thought I would one day be able to say a cooling rack brought me to tears. Such is our new lives.

Susan was the holiday cookie maker, for family, friends, work, and us. Now when I get out a pan and see her cookie making stuff and think "never again"...

[Eagle-96]

21 hours ago, TomPB said:

Susan was the holiday cookie maker, for family, friends, work, and us. Now when I get out a pan and see her cookie making stuff and think "never again"...

Ahh, holiday cookies. What was once probably a wonderful treasured memory for you has been reduced to a sad memory much like so many other things in our lives. Holidays are gonna be really tough for me. Lori always decorated the house for fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She liked the decorations but one day told me that she really went all out because she knew I liked it. We always bought ornaments from vacations and an ornament with the year on it every year. Putting decorations up was really something we looked forward to. This Friday would have been the day for our ceramic pumpkins and fall decorations to go out. I'm getting the lump in my throat just typing this. I just don't think I have it in me to decorate this year. I probably won't put a tree up at Christmas. It's just too hard. 

[mbbh]

Tom, you said it best. "What was best now causes most pain." Absolutely. This slippery sloped, winding, crooked, rocky, hilly path we are on never ceases to amaze me yet always surprises me. I have stopped trying to hold back tears and I let them caress my cheeks, come from that deep place of wailing and generally take on any form they wish. That lump in or throats that goes to the pit of my stomach is always there. Sometimes it is more powerful than others. 

[TomPB]

1 hour ago, Eagle-96 said:

Ahh, holiday cookies. What was once probably a wonderful treasured memory for you has been reduced to a sad memory much like so many other things in our lives. Holidays are gonna be really tough for me. Lori always decorated the house for fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She liked the decorations but one day told me that she really went all out because she knew I liked it. We always bought ornaments from vacations and an ornament with the year on it every year. Putting decorations up was really something we looked forward to. This Friday would have been the day for our ceramic pumpkins and fall decorations to go out. I'm getting the lump in my throat just tying this. I just don't think I have it in me to decorate this year. I probably won't put a tree up at Christmas. It's just too hard. 

OMG Sean so many parallels. Susan loved Christmas and put out a lot of decorations. I OTOH was not so interested and would basically agree to hanging a few favorite ornaments. She called me the "?Scrooge". As I've gone through our stuff I've come upon the decorations. I don't know if I'll use them at all but I sure can't bring myself to throw them out. Yes, holidays are going to be hard.

[TomPB]

31 minutes ago, mbbh said:

Tom, you said it best. "What was best now causes most pain." Absolutely. This slippery sloped, winding, crooke, rocky, hilly path we are on never ceases to amaze me yet always surprises me. I have stopped trying to hold back tears and I let them caress my cheeks, come from that deep place of wailing and generally take on any form they wish. That lump in or throats that goes to the pit of my stomach is always there. Sometimes it is more powerful than others. 

...and in the big picture, Susan's incredible loving sweetness makes everything harder. If we'd lived together but been more distant I think this would be easier. My grief counselor has me writing letters to her, and she suggested one should be "Susan you made it too dam good!"

[kayc]

George and I always took a drive in the fall to gather leaves for an autumn bouquet.    After he died, I couldn't do that alone.  Instead I bought some fake leaves and put that bouquet out every year.  It IS hard.  I couldn't have done a Christmas tree either but for my kids...my son went out and chopped one down and brought it home and set it up.  My daughter got me to join in decorating it with her.  I couldn't have done it otherwise.  It was hard.  Seeing his ornaments...  I put up his stocking and we each wrote something to him and put them inside...not to be read, they were for him.

Now it's become part of my Christmas tradition to put up the tree and stockings as kind of a memorial to him.  I invite him to join me in enjoying it.  I feel he's with me doing just that.  He loved all the holidays, the festivities, he had such a zest for life, such exuberance!    I hate to take the tree down and put away the decorations every year. It's my tradition now to do it for him, even though I'm alone, even though no one else sees it.

[Frussell918]

I am just beginning the second year of a life that I don't want to have. I have tried, that's tried, to make the decision that I am going to move forward, not to forget her, but to live with her inside me. I hear her tell me time and again to stop, and listen to her.

I had a dream, and in the dream my wife took my hand and asked me "Why are you sad?", "Because you're not here.", I replied. She placed her other hand over mine and said, "But you have Emilee and Brandon, it will be okay." She then proceeded to turn to dust and blew away. I was so sad I fell apart all day, the next day. It was one of the last dreams I've had with her. I'm trying to take her advise, it's hard and sometimes I crumble to the ground. Most of the time, I can function. I have sold our house, because there is no "ours" anymore. I have a new job, same occupation, new employer. These are decisions that were hard to make, but I made them, and they are what is right for my family and me.

I can tell you that I am going to do my best to listen to what my wife has told me. "Don't be sad, you have Emilee and Brandon, it will be okay". I know its hard to do, but listen to your loved one. What would they say to you right now? I can't tell you what to feel, or how to deal with your sorrow, but I know what I am going to do. I'm going to miss her with all my heart, love her to heaven and back, and know that I have my son and daughter to help me try to live the best that I can, with her inside my heart.

May god bless each and every one of you that reads my post. You are, by far, the strongest people, I have never met.

 

[iPraiseHim]

Welcome to the club that none of us wanted to join.  we are all here to share our grief, learn how to cope with grief and learn tools that will help all of us to grow.  All of our lives were drastically changed and few people outside of our world truly understand who we really are or want we deal with. 

Personally, I am weak.  My strength comes from leaning on Christ.  This fellowship of travelers and survivors help all those who want or care to be helped.  There is not a day goes by that I don't deeply grieve and miss my beloved wife, Rose Anne.  Life is so different now and yet she is a part of me and intertwined in my heart and soul.  I imagine it is the same with you. We all face this one day and sometimes just one moment at a time.  Welcome fellow traveler. - Shalom  

[kayc]

Frussell,

I appreciate your post, you show you are taking as positive approach to this as you can, it is indeed a hard journey to learn to do.  I am glad you have your Emilee and Brandon.  I have two children also but don't get to see them often, so I hope yours are close to you.  It does indeed help to have someone to live for...I have my dog and cat and that is incentive for me, I have to continue for them.  I probably will never be without a pet because I need that.

I, like you, am very thankful we have this site.

[Margm]

I'm glad you found this site.  I found it after three days.  I have never tried to go back and read that note because it would open the scar tissue that is very tenuous at best.  Next month will be two years and I still look to the sky and say "I cannot believe you left me."  My memory is very selective too.  I do block out things that I might have to remember one day.  I think we are to face our grief and I really don't know how to keep from facing it.  I do stupid things like not watching anything on TV that has the year 2015 in it.  I think I'll quit now.  I do go on too much sometimes.

[kevin]

Two years seems to be a re-adjustment time limit on this journey(maybe acceptance is better word)....I don't decide or avoid too much anymore, house is slowly changing, promised Angela's car to Granddaughter upon graduation(still two years away)....I too have a Rose colored memory recall...all smiles.....little chilly this morning...have good day...

[kayc]

I don't think there's a time limit, everyone is different, took me three years just to process it, not sure how long to "accept", I hated that term, but it doesn't mean "go along with" or "like" it just means the reality has set in, we no longer think they're walking in the door, we realize it.

[iPraiseHim]

At almost 31 months, I still find waves of grief and heart pangs from missing my beloved, Rose Anne.  I am thankful that it is not as intense as the first year but I'm still adjusting.  Life continues to march forward although sometimes my heart wants to linger in the past when we were still "one". I miss the sense that I knew that I knew we loved each other. The loneliness of being separated physically and mentally is the toughest to deal with.  The heart acceptance of life just takes time.

I was single and lonely for  most of my adult life before we met.  The moment I first saw her, I knew she was special.  I cherished every day we spent together for almost twenty six years.  I still cherish her in my heart and soul.  She helped me to become a better person.  Now, it is learning to adjust life to what it is now and pursuing hopes and dreams that  are rekindled. (Soaring in the skies)

MartyT,  "Grief Healing Discussion Group" is the perfect name to describe what we go through as we travel this roller-coaster grief journey. The tools, fellowship, sharing and caring, for all who care to come is the mainstay for us who experience this grief in life.  Thank you.  Shalom 

[Margm]

And George, you provide us all with a lot of healing prayers.  Whether people believe in them or not, you believe in them, I believe in them and the rest are covered whether they want to be or not.  Thank you for being who you are and Thanks to your mate for being there with you for 26 years.  There are never enough years.  If I had had 150 years with Billy, it would not have been enough.  He is me.  

[KATPILOT]

4 hours ago, iPraiseHim said:

She helped me to become a better person.  Now, it is learning to adjust life to what it is now and pursuing hopes and dreams that  are rekindled. (Soaring in the skies)

I know what you mean George. Kathy made me a better person. No one else could ever have gotten to me like that but I took away those lessons she taught me and try to hold onto them still. By my third year of being widowed I started to notice I was slipping back into some old behavior patterns. I didn't have her with me any longer to give me reason to try harder. I became angry with my lazy self for I knew I was a better person than who I was returning to. I stopped the trend and held on to why I liked being who she helped me become.

Now I am changing again. I am with a person who elevates me even higher for it comes with understanding what love and beauty is.   And I want it.    I look across a room at my new wife and wonder where I will be tomorrow. When I was a younger man I hated change. Now I embrace it and I love how life keeps evolving around me.

I remember a saying I first came upon in those early weeks of my grief's journey.  It said in part that I will survive until I survive and one day I will find myself alive again. I find myself now still very much alive.

Yes George the best way to honor Rose Anne is to let her see you growing in life.  We must never give up for one day we will discover that we are indeed alive again and that can put a big smile on your face even if it comes with a tear in your eye.

[KATPILOT]

3 hours ago, Marg M said:

He is me

I love that cause it is so true.

Some time in the past I looked in the mirror after months of tears and I didn't even recognize the face as being me. Years after that I looked in the mirror and realized that I looked different. I was a product of Steve and Kathy. She changed my face. Grief changed my face but I don't mind the mileage. It spoke to a man in love with an angel. Somehow I see her in my own image.

Or do you think that years of grief made me go mad?

[scba]

20 hours ago, iPraiseHim said:

The loneliness of being separated physically and mentally is the toughest to deal with. 

Right.

Shalom

[Cookie]

22 hours ago, KATPILOT said:

I love that cause it is so true.

Some time in the past I looked in the mirror after months of tears and I didn't even recognize the face as being me. Years after that I looked in the mirror and realized that I looked different. I was a product of Steve and Kathy. She changed my face. Grief changed my face but I don't mind the mileage. It spoke to a man in love with an angel. Somehow I see her in my own image.

Or do you think that years of grief made me go mad?

No, you're not mad; you said it just right.....