Good grief, is there good grief?
It’s inevitable. We all deal with grief at some point in our lives. For some, many times. Often it comes with loss — of a parent, a child, a spouse. Too often it comes unexpectedly and certainly with no set of instructions. We must make our way as best we can.
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At this point in my life, I feel fortunate to have not faced the grief of loss too many times. My father died of prostate cancer over 40 years ago. I still miss that man. My mother slipped away quite peacefully at the age of 97. Here I am at 72. My husband, of 51 years, is 77. Grief may visit me at any time.
What I have experienced, or I should say witnessed, has been the grieving process several friends have gone through. Susan comes to mind, dealing with the death of her husband, Joe. The four of us had been friends for a long time. The day I was sworn into the Nebraska Legislature I invited them for a celebratory lunch. Joe was working so didn’t attend. Later that night, when I returned to my senate apartment, Susan had left a message: “Call, no matter how late.” She told me that an accident at work had claimed Joe’s life. For the next 8 years (all the time I was in office), every month Susan and I met for lunch, coffee or dinner. I listened, I cried with her and did what I could to support her. Slowly but surely, Susan worked through her grief and emerged strong and resilient. That was, in a way, good grief.
But then there’s Barb who I just met on the golf course a few days ago. We were paired up with her and her longtime friend. Barb lost her husband about a year ago from lung cancer. We three golfers were all about the same age, but Barb looked so much older. “I’m not eating much. I just get up in the morning and head for the couch to watch tv all day,” she admitted. She made no bones about it, and I could tell her friend was doing all she could to break that cycle. Barb didn’t have the energy to finish the round of golf, opting instead to just ride in the cart. At least the fresh air did her some good. Her friend was trying to help, but I wasn’t sure how ready Barb was to meet her grief and change her lifestyle. In this case, grief was not good.
It was similar with my friend, Lyn. We, too, had been friends since high school and exchanged birthday cards for over 50 years. After her divorce, Lyn moved to the city where her mother, Jean lived. They were very close so when Jean died, Lyn was devastated. When my annual birthday card didn’t arrive, at first I wasn’t concerned, but later suspected something amiss. Checking obituaries of the area, I discovered Lyn had died. She had no siblings or children. Her aunts lived in other towns and I had no contact information. The mortuary finally put me in touch with a relative who told me Lyn was found in her favorite tv chair, looking as if she’d just sat down for a nap. This once vibrant person, an accomplished musician, an active swimmer and avid reader, seemed to give up after her mother died. Her grief was not good.
Our friend Bob lost his wife, Kathy nearly a year ago. Kathy was one of my closest friends, and we did a lot as couples. For nearly 20 years, Kathy lived with MS, but it was pancreatic cancer that killed her. Bob was ever the supportive husband helping Kathy deal with her disability. But the speed with which the cancer took his wife left him reeling. Bob isn’t an overly outgoing person, but suddenly he was on our doorstep on a regular basis, talking for hours about Kathy and how much he missed her. Eventually his talks added another dimension, another person. Linda had also been a close personal friend of Bob and Kathy. In fact, Kathy apparently had once told Bob that if something happened to her, he should link up with Linda. Yes, they were doing things together. But one of Bob’s daughters was less than accepting of the situation. No judgment coming from us. However the outcome, the relationship was helping him heal. It was becoming good grief.
Clearly, there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Everyone meets it in their own unique way. My next door neighbor just a few weeks ago lost her husband, only 56, to a heart attack. As we have visited, I see and hear a lot of anger in her feelings. Tracy will be fine eventually, but where she is right now, with the anger of losing Jim, reminded me of the stages of grief that were identified so many years ago by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her years of work with terminally ill and dying patients. They can be applied to how we deal with grief as well: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. They don’t necessarily happen in that order, and again, there is no set of instructions or map that comes with them. Kubler-Ross even admitted that and cautioned that even acceptance comes with challenges: “Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being all right or okay with what has happened. This is not the case.”
In fact, it can be down right fearful as C.S. Lewis wrote dealing with the grief of losing his wife: “No one ever told me that grief felt like fear.”
So I think about my friends, my family, all of us, myself included, who sometime, somehow in our lives deal with the hurt and despair of grief. I hope in some small way I have helped my friends with their grieving process. Some lessons learned:
Listen. No need to search for the right words or sentiments. Just being there is quite enough. Susan has reflected often on those times we spent together and how grateful she was that I just listened.
Don’t judge or even offer an opinion. We could have done that with Bob, but to what end. To make him feel less inadequate or more lost than he already felt. His sharing his feelings with us, I think, gave him a level of comfort and acceptance that he needed.
Make yourself available. Unfortunately, sometimes distance doesn’t allow for that. I had phoned Lyn just a few weeks before her death. She seemed fine – just her usual lethargic self. But clearly there was something more going on. I wish now that I had probed deeper.
When appropriate, do offer words of support. A short visit, a phone call. Sometimes social media doesn’t seem appropriate, but with my next door neighbor, texting suits her just fine. A text to tell her I’m thinking of her has seemed to mean a lot to her.
Whatever and however one copes, for all of us I suspect it changes us forever, and perhaps the best we can do is remember advice given by David Kessler, who worked with Kubler-Ross and authored the book, “Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief.”
“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to be.”