To those wracked with the pain of very fresh grief, that does not mean you will hurt like you hurt today for the rest of your lives. The intensity will lessen. The waves that now overwhelm will begin to come less often and with far less power. The pain you feel today, will one day become a dull ache. The ache will always be there, but it does not have to dominate your life.
Matter of fact, we want some of the pain to remain. The pain means the person is still remembered, loved and missed. We are not trying to forget, we are trying to learn to live without the physical presence of a loved one. The danger can be that we think we feel closer to our loved ones when we hurt, so we may tend to hold on to the hurt for fear of forgetting. It takes a while to realize that we can feel close and are still remembering even when we are not feeling as much pain as we once did.
There comes a time when we turn the corner in the way we cope with the loss. Often we will know when that happens. There may be something we cannot deal with now that we can suddenly face and may well want to face. It may come in a flash of realization. One woman said she was walking across the street after church to get in her car and it suddenly hit her that she had to decide right then whether to live or die. She decided to live again.
It may come after much struggle. We seem to sentence ourselves to some kind of length of time we should grieve. One man told me he could not begin any kind of living until at least two years had passed since his wife’s death. How he arrived at that length of time was a mystery to both of us. I watched closely and sure enough the second anniversary was his turning point.
I told one woman that in her own time and in her own way she would decide to live again. I explained that there might be something she could not deal with now that she would be able to deal with then. She said it was the desk in her den. She had a roll top desk which housed all of the family pictures. She said she would know she was ready when she could unlock it and clean it out. She called me late one night and told me to come to her house. I rushed there thinking something was wrong. She was standing in front of an open and cleaned roll top desk. She still says that was the night she turned the corner in coping with her grief.
I think we clean out our closets far too quickly. Family members seem to obsess on getting us to do so as soon as possible. They must feel that an empty closet doesn’t create memories and a full one does. I have known of cases where they cleaned out almost the whole house the day of the funeral. We need the freedom to deal with these possessions and treasures when and only when we feel like doing so. That is part of the grief process. I call it peeling the onion one layer at a time.
I remember a minister saying, “I planned to hear you speak today and then go by a friend’s house. Her husband died nine months ago, and she still has his golf clubs in the trunk of her car. I was going to go tell her it was time for her to remove those golf clubs. After hearing you today, I don’t think I will tell her that.” He walked away a few steps and then turned back to say, “By the way, why is it any of my business whether or not she ever takes those clubs out of her car?” Why indeed. Folks need the freedom to peel their onions in their own way and on their own schedule.
Copyright Doug Manning of In-Sight Books, Inc. Doug’s books, CDs and DVDs are available at www.insightbooks.com. Post originally published on Doug’s Blog at The Care Community www.thecarecommunity.com.
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