GRIEF: Grief Journeys - Heading for Dry Land

It's not a journey any of us plan to take or want to take. Most of us will resist going - some of us will beg and cry and scream and pray, asking God and everyone around us to show us how to do anything else, but to take this journey.

There are no magic solutions - no wands - no prescriptions or erasers to change the fact that a loss has occurred. And nothing to help us complete the journey any faster or easier. It's a day-by-day and minute-by-minute and step-by-step effort. It has no time line or mapped out trail, and only we, ourselves, will know when we have found the goal line.

We can delay the journey. We can take paths that lead off from the main trail and wander around a bit. We may even meet others on their own journeys, but the roads we take, though they may intersect and even follow along for a while here and there, are individual.

We can't go over it or around it. We can try to avoid it. We can delay it. We can even deny it for a while. But the only way through grief is to actually walk the journey THROUGH it.

We'll have to go through shock, and denial, bargaining, anger and blaming, and eventually, hopefully, we'll reach the acceptance stage. Some go through each stage quickly and quietly. Others experience a more roller coaster journey - back and forth, up and down, up to the top and then dropping down too quickly, sometimes swirling in a loop to the point of nausea. We might have walked through all the stages and even started to enter the acceptance stage only to find something tips the scales and send us right back to a previous stage. It can rock and roll back and forth, around and around, until we travel through all of it, understand it and process it. Even when we have processed it and reached the acceptance stage, we can find events in our lives that remind us that those scars are there.

I think of grief as a hole in the heart. A piece of what we loved or believed in is gone and will always be missing. It hurts terribly when that hole is first shot out, but the initial wave of shock paralyzes our nerve endings so we don't feel the pain so badly. In fact, some might look down at their chests and say, "I've been shot! I don't believe that I've been shot! Look, I'm bleeding so I must have been shot!"

I suspect that few people who have just had a hole shot through their chests feel much of anything except the pain and can think of little else but what has just happened to them. During the process of the other stages of grief, the body's natural rhythms and functions become greatly disturbed. Sleep, hunger, energy levels, moods, bodily eliminations, concentration, memory are all out of whack. You are more apt to incur or be aware of more aches and pains during this time and have less tolerance, your immunities are down and you are more susceptible to illness and infection, and you are more apt to have accidents and injury during this time of your life.

Some of the changes in our body and minds are emotional, some chemical. We need to make allowances for ourselves; we are entitled to feeling more depressed, more tired, less hungry, more restless, to lose track of time, to misplace things during the Grief Journey. It will pass. We will become stronger and healthier and things will get back on track in time.

We can do some simple things though to help ourselves on the journey. We can keep our activities curtailed, even extra driving of vehicles. We can cancel unnecessary appointments, pass on volunteer projects. We can lay down and close our eyes and rest when we can not sleep. We need to restrict fires and candles during the first few months to prevent the possibility of forgetting to extinquish them. We can take vitamin supplements and sip on water throughout the day when we have no appetite. We can take short walks around the block when we are feeling restless.

We can see a doctor if we begin to feel too depressed or too overwhelmed.

Part of the journey is telling our stories over and over again until we, ourselves, begin to absorb the reality of them. Unfortunately our family and friends will start to distance themselves from a never-ending pit of depression. They will hear the story once and know it; they will listen a time or two again to be helpful to you. But they will tire of hearing the same story over and over again.

We need lots of time to heal, but unless another person has been on the same type of journey before themselves, they may or may not have the level of endurance for listening to our vocal examinations of our feelings, our retelling of events over and over again.

We can, however, find ways to retell our stories and examine our feelings through councilors and journaling. Professionals will also offer you guidance on your journey. And you can retell your story a hundred times in the same way or a different way each time in a journal. Also, consider finding grief support groups for your type of loss. As I mentioned before, those who have been on a similar journey may have a better tolerance and understanding of your need to retell your story.

We will hate to be alone, but we won't have the energy to go out, or the internal drive to call someone. We are tired, exhausted and sad and want to cry, but sometimes it feels like the tears are stuck in our chests, making it difficult to breathe normally or deeply. Grief is a heavy pack to carry. Some of us climb into bed early or don't even get out of bed, trying to compensate for sleep that doesn't come easily during the night. Also while we are sleeping, we don't seem to feel what is going on for that period of time. Unfortunately, just like going on a drinking binge or doing drugs to cover up the pain, you wake up .. and there it still is, waiting to be dealt with.

Another nasty, but necessary plague during grief is that normal activities of daily living need to be accomplished - taking care of our children, bathing and dressing, preparing and eating meals, laundry, dishes, feeding and caring for our pets, paying bills, and returning to work. Grief takes out so much from your physical and mental system that just getting out of bed in the morning feels like ten times the work it did before. Try to keep things as simple as possible; accept help with the housework if offered. Take baby steps in resuming your life and pat yourself on the back frequently for those things you accomplish.

It is still hard for me to sit and record receipts and do paperwork. Money is tight and spending is scary. But it has to be done and I need, now more than ever, to be on top of my finances. I've set it up as a little game - I do 30-40 minutes of paperwork and then I will do something else away from the desk, such as vacuum one room of the house or load the dishwasher.

I keep a spiral notebook handy to keep grocery lists in, make lists of chores that need to be done, calls to make (with the numbers listed right there as well as the questions or topics I want to discuss), bills to be paid, thank you notes to be written, future dreams or goals, worries or concerns (write them down and carry them in the notebook so you don't have to carry them around in your head), things I might like to try or places to explore when I'm ready, unfinished projects I might like to resurrect when I have the time.

If you find yourself alone too much and feel the need for more social interaction, again a divorce recovery group or a grief support group may be a good thing to investigate. It will give you an outing, new people to meet in small doses who have similar situations, and a place to take off your mask and be yourself. You may learn some new tips for coping with life from others, too, or learn about resources that are available in your area that might be of help to you during this time.

Eventually you may want to try some new things, but be careful not to commit yourself to anything to wild or different or to make any drastic changes in your life - at least not at first. Don't change your job right now. Don't sell your house if you can avoid it. Don't start a serious dating relationship.

When you are ready, you might want to start a new exercise program - perhaps just start incorporating some extra walking into your day, again in baby steps. Go around the block during your lunch break. Go a little further each day. Check out exercise programs in your area (don't sign contracts yet until you know you are financially, physically and mentally ready to make such a commitment). Go to the library once or twice a month and browse through the books. Sit in on a new Bible study class or check out a new craft class. Invite a friend or two over to play a game of cards, a board game, or to watch a video with you.

The people you will meet, the friendships from the past that you activate, the new activities you try ... no, none of them are replacements for what you have lost. There is no replacement for someone we have loved and lost to death or divorce. In our society almost everything is fixable or replaceable. If our favorite doll's arm breaks, we can usually find a replacement arm at a garage sale or we can buy an entirely new doll who looks exactly the same. When a button falls off our favorite shirt, we can sew it back on. When we drop and break a favorite coffee cup, we can search and buy another cup to replace it ... maybe not exactly the same, but it will serve the same purpose and fill the empty spot on the shelf just fine.

But relationships are ended are not fixable, nor replaceable. Trying new things, meeting new people, going to new places will help you join the mainstream of life again, but you will find they don't fill in that "hole." As you journey through grief, the hole may shrink a little and not be so obviously gaping and painful, but it is still there. I think of it as scabbing over, like an exterior body wound. Bumps and friction can loosen the scab and sometimes remove it completely and the healing has to start again. Underneath the scab, I envision scar tissue developing. It's not got the same feeling to me; it's tighter and heavier than the normal tissue that was in its place before my trauma. It doesn't have the same flexibility or pliancy - I can feel it resist when I encounter other emotional struggles. And, for me, the bigger the loss, the bigger the hole, the longer the healing, the bigger the scar.

It doesn't heal overnight, or in a month, or even in a year's time for everyone. Each individual has to tread the grief path at their own pace. I believe I read that it can actually take 2-3 years to really recover from a divorce or death. We see people who are "look" and "sound" recovered much earlier than that, and, perhaps, some of them have successfully finished their grief journey much sooner than others. But many continue to work on issues quietly behind closed doors, at the end of their work days, on the weekends, when they find themselves alone or a situation comes up that brings their hurt and loss to the front of their minds. One of my councelor's suggested that the little fragments from the gun shot of divorce or death are so deeply embedded around the wound in us that it may take many years for all of them to work their way to the surface and be removed.

You won't heal unless you take steps to start making it happen.

You won't meet people unless you go out into the world again.

You aren't going to find your future soul-mate if you are sitting at home, isolated and lonely and sad.

You won't feel happy and healthy again unless you start vesting yourself in some good habits and in life itself.

Take time on your journey to realize that you don't always want to feel this way or life this way. Make some notes on how you can start, in small ways, to heal and improve yourself during this journey. Consider starting with medical or counseling help. Seek out recovery groups. Check out self-improvement books or tapes. Set a bedtime and a rising time and follow them, even if you are not sleeping soundly (eventually you will, and if not, do seek some professional assistance). Start eating more nutritious meals and snacks, even if they are small, and try eating at more routine times in your day. Cut back on refined sugars and other carbs which can give you a bit of a boost initially, but are usually followed by a decline of energy that can cause more tiredness and depression. Sip on water throughout your day. Get outdoors every day, rain or shine, for at least 15 minutes, if possible, or at least open your curtains and let natural light into your home. Get some physical exercise every day. Start reading a new book before bed. Look up a new word in the dictionary once a week. Put some music on while you do your household chores.
Staying in immobile grief does nothing to bring our loved ones back to us. But it does waste away the precious days we have left on this earth and prevents us from experiencing any new and different joys that may lie in our futures.
Healing won't bring our loved ones back to us either. At least, however, it allows us to function more fully and participate in life and better handle the loss we have experienced.

None of us wanted, most of us didn't even anticipate, having to take this grief journey.

I still cry. A lot. Sometimes in the shower, sometimes as I lay alone in my bed before sleep overtakes me.

Sometimes my eyes will well up while I'm at work staring into the computer monitor.

Sometimes I feel anxious and panicked, sometimes lonely and sad. Sometimes all these things at once. I have to keep repeating, "I am feeling these things because I have experienced some great losses and changes in my life. I have a right to feel these things. It is NORMAL to feel these things. This will pass."

I did not want my father to die. I did not want my father-in-law, my grandparents, my aunt, nor my friend to die. I did not want to get in an automobile accident and get injured. I did not want my husband to leave me for someone else. I did not want a divorce. I did not want my granddaughters to move half-way across the country with their mother. I did not want my granddaughters to lose their daddy. I did not want to lose my business and be unemployed. I did not want to be starting all over in every aspect of my life at my age. I did not want to fall down some stairs and dislocate my shoulder. I did not want my beautiful first-born son to have to endure so much pain and suffering and to die so young.

I did not want any of these things, and it certainly was a little more difficult to handle them in multiples and overlapping the way they did. But this is what life has presented. This is the way it is now. Saying I didn't want them to happen, over and over again, has not made them go away. This is reality. I don't like the way things have turned out, but I have to face reality. And then, in some small way, I need to do some of what needs to be done in an attempt to move forward.

So many changes forced upon us can be scary. Even one change can be scary ... like just coming home from work at night to an empty house or seeing an empty place at the dinner table. There's a multitude of minor and major changes that accompany a loss - sleeping alone at night, not having someone to talk to at the end of the day, cooking for less people, no one to help with the decision making or chores, maybe less money to have to stretch further. And it's difficult to deal with them all at once. The only way to get through the changes and come out on top is to deal with them one by one, starting to facilitate ways to deal with them slowly, continually.

I've read and heard from others on grief journeys that with time and work, things will get better. Never the same, but better. A lot will depend on the type of your loss. A lot will depend on you.

If you are divorced, the feelings for your ex-spouse may fade, even disappear with time. You may lose contact and never see each other again. Or if you have children, you may find yourself having to interact with your ex for years to come. Perhaps you'll develop a different type of friendship or learn how to conduct needed business in a brief, unemotional way. Sometimes the interaction can irritate the healing process and you'll find yourself, unexpectedly, returning to various states of grief or anger for a longer period of time.

A loss that occurs because of death has some other dimensions to it, especially the loss of a child. I'm just starting this journey and am quite unsure of the terrain I'm going to have to travel.

Those just starting the journey may feel that they have just been dropped into the middle of a storming, raging ocean of emotions, despair and disappointments, without so much as even a life preserver. They certainly can't comprehend that there may be land ahead. They can't do anything more than just battle to stay above the crashing waves.

Connecting with others who are on similar journeys can be encouraging. One who is further ahead in the healing process calls back to you, "I see a glimmer of land ahead!" Another one, even further ahead, shouts back, "I've landed on some solid ground!" It gives the rest of us that follow some hope. There are calmer seas ahead. There is land. We still will have some bumpy and frothy waves to deal with. We will still get smacked in the face with a sneaker wave and probably swallow a lot of salty water in the process. But if we keep trying, if we keep moving forward, eventually we'll be able to glance back and see how far we've come. And eventually, we, too, will spot dry land ahead. And someday, we, too, will land on solid ground.

I still love and miss my dad, and I've found that camping trips and Christmas bring a lump to my throat. But I think more of good memories now than dwelling on the painful loss. I've found that the losses and changes that have occurred since he died have tended to pull and strain and stress the scar tissue I have from his loss. And I still miss my grandparents, my aunt and my friend. Sometimes these will well up unexpectedly because so much was happening at once, I didn't get a chance to mourn each one separately and completely. I still miss my granddaughters, but I can write and email them and talk to them on the phone.I don't miss my ex-husband anymore. I have a new job. I still struggle with finances. I am in the beginning of the journey with the loss of my son and finding this journey may be the hardest, most difficult one I've ever experienced. I am also aware that my youngest child is on the edge of the nest, ready to spread her wings and fly off on her own. That will be yet another type of loss, another change to experience.

But I've seen the solid ground, even stepped on it a time or two before getting tossed back into the sea. I know it is more comfortable, more secure, a better place for me to be.

With one foot in front of the other, with one stroke after another, even if I have to stop and rest on the way, I am headed for dry land.