How To Keep Coping?

[melina]

It's the weekend again. Normally I manage to get through these weekends with a few tears shed, but nothing major. But today has been overwhelmingly bad. I've been crying all day and can't seem to stop. I don't know what the problem is. The grief is swallowing me whole. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow as Sundays are usually worse than Saturdays.

Is it normal to suddenly have a utterly horrible day where nothing - absolutely nothing - helps? I'm coming up on 8 months and expected to be finished crying by now, or at least that I would be feeling much better.

Melina

[mfh]

We must not worry about what is normal. We just live in the moment. I have days like that and am coming up on a year next Sunday. Just allow your pain to be...

[HAP]

Dear Melina,

Two things:

When my wife was in the hospital I met a woman who had been through what I was going through then. Her husband kept talking about how she had helped him--and what I had to do to help my wife, but when he went away to make a phone call she told me, "You also have to do some things for you. When this is over--no matter what happens, you have to laugh again. Rent some really good comedies--something that will make you laugh. It sounds stupid, but it was how I survived--it kept me going even when things were really dark."

For the first few weeks after Jane died I ignored that advice--and it seemed to be fine. But then I had my first nasty meltdown. I felt like i was never going to laugh again--never going to smile again. That woman's words came back to me. I bought a copy of the original M*A*S*H* film and cued up the football game that is the climax of the film. Once it made me laugh. This time it made me smile--and that was a start. Last Sunday, when things were really dark, I put in The Blues Brothers. It took me away from the darkness for a couple of hours--and when I came up for air I had the energy to think about what I needed to do to try to break out of this. I went looking for this site and found it. But i don't think I would have come back to rational thought enough to realize what I needed without that healing laughter. I don't know what made you laugh before you lost your husband--and you may have to go back to something that was funny before you met him--that's what i had to do with Jane. I don't think I am ready for a comedy we saw together and really liked.

In another post, you talked about wanting to see him again and your uncertainty about the possibility. Neither Jane nor I were traditionally religious, though we had a deep faith in something greater than ourselves.

The night after her funeral my youngest brother and I sat up far into the night. At about 2:30 a.m. we were sitting in the living room. I saw a flash of light down the hallway. My brother had his back to that end of the house, but right after I saw that flash he said, "She's here...my back just went cold. I'm getting chills all over." I was feeling the same thing and said so. Then the room filled with the smell of frankincense--and we both smelled it. We kept no perfumes or incense in the house. There was no place for that smell to come from, but it was there all the same.

The house had felt empty since the night I came home from the hospital without her. Since that night the house has not felt quite so empty. Fifty-two days after she died i awoke to the smell of frankincense again. We both believed that 52 days after a death the soul moves on to start building a new body--or doing whatever it is that comes next. Sometimes when I am fighting off the blues I remember that night--and I know that she is ok--and that eventually I will be ok--different than I was--different than I am--but ok. I don't always remember that--but when I do, it helps.

The satirist Art Buchwald told a story about he and two other columnists after the death of John Kennedy. Buchwald said to the other two, "Will we ever laugh again?" And one of them replied, "We'll laugh again--we'll just never be young again."

This loss has changed us. We will never be young again in the sense that we now have knowledge that is fundamentally changing us in significant ways--that those without this experience do not understand. For a time, I expect to feel dead the way a caterpillar must feel dead after it enters the chrysalis. But eventually the time will come that that butterfly emerges. This time of testing and learning will be over. Who we will be, what we will be --and what we will do--is currently beyond our comprehension--just as the caterpillar cannot imagine what it is to be a butterfly.

But all learning is painful--especially learning that forces us to examine every aspect of who we are and what we believe--especially learning that comes from profound loss. And can there be any loss as profound as the love we have chosen and lost--not through inattention--but through death? Only the loss of a child could be worse--though I cannot say it is or isn't, having never experienced it as a parent. This is the pain we confront now--and it is more than enough to deal with.

But we will move through it. Others have done so--and they were just as human--just as overwhelmed--just as crushed--as we are now. The grief may swallow us for a time--may seem beyond our strength--but what others have done we can do. The only difference between those who have done so and us is that they have had a longer period of time to do it in. We just have to be patient with ourselves and with those around us.

A friend sent me a card two days before the three month anniversary of my wife's death. It had a small kitten clutching desperately to a slender bit of rope. The caption read: Some days...it's tougher to hang in there than others. She had written as part of her note, "Don't forget to lean on us."

One of your posts was, I think, the first I read here. What you wrote sang to me and gave me the strength to write my first post. This is a place where everyone seems to lean on each other. Today, it is your turn to lean.

Hope this helps.

HAP

[Guest Nicholas]

There is no "normal" or "not normal"; you can feel lousy at any time, after any period, you just have to accept this. How you cope with this depends on the individual - talk to family and friends, your doctor or counsellor, go for a walk, listen to music, meditate or whatever you feel comfortable with. If you feel like doing nothing at all other than crying and be alone, do that. It is a long journey.

Good luck

Nicholas

[melina]

The satirist Art Buchwald told a story about he and two other columnists after the death of John Kennedy. Buchwald said to the other two, "Will we ever laugh again?" And one of them replied, "We'll laugh again--we'll just never be young again."

Hap,

I think that's one of the hardest things. Yes, I'll probably laugh again one day, but having that feeling that I'll never be young again in the sense of looking ahead with happiness and expectation. With this experience of the death - the loss of someone who means everything to me, I feel there is nothing left to look forward to. There's just this burden of grief and also of being a single parent - even though my sons are in their twenties.

Thanks for your words - and thanks to everyone else who replied. It helps to know I'm not alone. I don't really have a social network that's helping me through this.

Melina

[HAP]

Dear Melina,

I feel the same way sometimes. But i am not sure that is entirely what Buchwald meant. That's the danger of quoting him out of context, I suppose. Two days ago I felt myself sliding into that hopelessness. I am still trying to get used to the new mouse on my computer. I tried to do a page sweep and ended up near the bottom of the groups page. There I found a group called New Beginnings. I went in and just read a few of the topics. I'm not ready for what they were talking about, But it was a relief to find people who were not just laughing again but were, in fact, "looking ahead with happiness and expectation."

Do I expect to get there any time soon? No. Jane and I found each other in our 30s. We had both given up on ever finding love. And we were terrified to discover each other in that copy room that morning. It took us two years to get to the point we could even go out socially together--we were that frightened we would find a way to screw this up. We had no children other than our students. We were each other's world--just as it seems you and your husband were to each other. And God this is harder than either she or I ever could have imagined. She said before she died--just before she went into the hospital--that if she died I was to go through her things and give them to whoever needed them within a couple of months. I periodically open a drawer with the idea that maybe this time I will be able to empty it. I fail nearly every time. And even when I succeed, the box never makes it out the door--and the temptation to unpack the box is still enormous.

Our failure was that we did not understand the process at anything beyond the theoretical level. Living this is unlike what you can read in any book.

But neither of our spouses would be happy with the thought of us becoming frozen in time. We are not ready to thaw yet. But spring will come. The crocuses are already out of the ground here, literally. My wife and I planted them years ago. And most years the bunnies eat them to the ground so that we only get a faint taste of what they are. This year they are a glorious show of purple and gold and white. And while the early flowers have not yet emerged in my soul, I know they are there--waiting for the fullness of time--and that once they emerge the ground will warm and I will again look ahead with happiness and expectation. It will be different. It will be colored by this experience. The innocence I knew before will never return. This new knowledge will put paid to that. Those same flowers reside within you. Otherwise your posts to others would not be as they are.

But the English poet William Blake saw experience as more valuable than innocence. Innocence is free. Experience exacts a sometimes heavy price. But it is the experience that prepares us for the work that still lies before us. And like a fine wine, we can only truly taste joy through an experienced palate. This is our time of vinegar.

It saddens me that you have no real social support. We all no doubt wish we could give you the real hug you need today. This electronic one will have to do.

HAP

[kayc]

I have a friend who likes to say, "It is what it is." I have come to echo that this year. There are some things we cannot change, and they just are what they are. Whatever your experience, it is your normal. It will take however long it will. You will have good days and bad days and it's pretty hard to predict either. I do know it takes a concerted effort to get through this, and our attitudes make a difference. I've tried really hard to have a positive attitude and focus, and I think it helps...I can't say as I've always been successful at that though. It is what it is.

[melina]

Thanks Kay,

I'm feeling a little better today for some reason. I guess I'll have to try to hold on to this moment when I get my next really bad day.

Melina

[HAP]

Dear Melina,

I can't tell you how glad I am to read you are feeling better today.

HAP