Searching for Comfort and Cures ...

A list member writes:
I rarely post but do read. I am trying to find something - maybe comfort in someone else's messages. But I do not find it. Instead I find many others just like me. I do not understand how time keeps passing. I am afraid I might forget my loved one's face or other details. I sleep too much - it is my only escape, but then I have awful dreams.

Your post came in on my birthday so I did not have the chance to read it – I was avoiding the computer and family and friends by working extremely long hours at work that day (14 hours), then coming home and doing some chores,until I fell, exhausted in to bed. I can sleep for 5-6 hours at the best,any other time I spend in bed would be just laying there with my eyes open or closed … and that’s something I can’t handle. Too much time to dwell on things and become too grief-stricken. Even with medication for my depression, it is a difficult fight. I’ve found that spending too much time in bed makes me more vulnerable.

I remember when my father died and I signed up for a grief group at ahospital. Certainly with as many people who die and all of the loved ones who are left to survive in this world with hearts so shattered, and all the medical knowledge that has developed over the years…certainly, I felt, there would be some answers or direction at such a group. Someone must be able to help me “fix” the situation – bring my father back, turn back time and find a cure, or help me stop hurting so badly. It was a journey, this death and grief and loss stuff, that I did not choose to take and did not want to take. Certainly someone must have developed an alternative for people like me!

I don’t think I consciously thought all of this at the time, but as I signed up for the class, I think I truly was hoping for a lot more than I got. What I found was six other people in the midst of their grief, too, all NOT wanting to be there, but desperately needing to be there, just like me. And two counselors, minus any magic wands for curing anyone, who kindly were available to listen and to explain some of the generalities of the grief cycle and some of the more common affects of grief. It was held in a room decorated simply and beautifully for people in grief – there were no optional doors to go into rooms for those of us who didn’t WANT to be in grief.

I did find comfort in knowing I was not alone and not going crazy. I did find some understanding of the grief cycle which helped me understand a little more about what I was feeling when my feelings were rocking back and forth and indescribable. And I made a couple of new, temporary friends with whom I could relate.

My father was still dead. And I still missed him.

I also found myself joining some divorce support groups when shortly thereafter my 20 year marriage went belly up and my husband left with another woman to start a new life without me. I think I was still hoping for someone to take over the steering wheel of my life and help me do the right things, say the right things, to bring my husband back, put our family back together, and take away the loss, the anger, the worry and anxiety, the huge sadness that had clouded over and enveloped my life so suddenly.

Instead, again, I found many, many others like myself, trying to make sense of something that wasn’t really sensible; trying to find a cure for a pain for which their wasn’t any medication or magic words to heal. But I did find people with whom I could relate. And again, I found friends who understood me and whom I could understand.

Again, when I lost my beloved son last January and my boyfriend eight months later, I sought a magic cure. Perhaps with all the people going through this grief thing, someone knows something – maybe some secret path you can travel or religion you should practice or book you can read or something you can order where things will be better again – where I can have my loved ones back or find some special relief from all this pain.

There are no magic words or special remedies.

We are dropped, often without warning into a deep, dark pit called Grief. It is confusing and dark and cold and scary. The only way out of the pit is to travel a journey. First we have to find the door in the dark. We find there are others in the pit, as scared and confused as we are. But we also hear whispers of the door that leads out and onto the path. As one person finds the door, he or she whispers back and says, This way. One by one, we all stumble around, following the whispers to the door, remembering to whisper to those behind us, too, so they can find their way.

Outside the door, we discover there are many paths actually for us to chose from. None lead backward to the life we have known. All lead forward into the unknown. Each path has its own branches, detours, hills and valleys to navigate. We hear the whispers of others ahead. Some have chosen a quieter,slow path. Some have chosen a winding path. Some a path that requires climbing hills right from the start and others chose a path that begins with a downwards slope. We have to chose our own, but we do find some comfort, as human beings, knowing that there are others on the same journey as us, and someeeven following the same paths as us, if even for a while.

We reach out and accept the hands of strangers who are ahead of us and let them help us up a rocky incline. We reach back and offer our hand to those behind us.

I am so sorry for the loss of your beloved. I just want you to know I am on this journey with you and it appears we both started about the same timein our lives.

Here is my hand.

Love and hugs,
Sandi