Nearly six years ago, I found myself in a support group for young widows. After learning so many of their stories and frustrations, all the while living my own, one thought kept occurring to me: human beings have dealt with grief for as long as human beings have been human beings. How on earth do we not have this down by now? How is it that so many family members and friends and employers and oft visited grocery store clerks have no idea what to do with or say to someone so shattered by a death?
I don't have that answer, but five days before the sixth anniversary of my late husband's death, a friend of mine was killed under circumstances so similar, any description is beyond words-- even for someone who loves to weave them together in their most effective form. I didn't get to grieve only my friend because his death ripped open a still very tender scar, and so many stored away memories oozed into the center of my focus. When my friend's widow posted a raw response to the well-meaning, I felt her pain, her torment, and I felt again my own. I remembered, why? Why? Why don't people understand this?
Let us look over this Mythical Grief, and let us not flinch.
Hallmark condolences are comforting.
These are "He's in a better place."
"I know how you feel," when no, you do not.
"Everything happens for a reason."
"She wouldn't want you to be suffering (crying, hurting, GRIEVING.)"
And any sentence that begins with, "At least..." (You are still young, you will find someone else. You had a long life together. He isn't suffering anymore. You still have children. You didn't have children. ANY sentence that begins with "At least..."
Please, for the love of whatever the fuck you find sacred, stop it. Just stop it! Understand this one like someone's very broken heart depends on it: You cannot make someone feel better about losing to death, so do not try!! Think about that. Really think about it. You do not have that power! No one does. There is also this: words that comfort one grieving person will be a dagger to another. Words that comforted the bereaved yesterday will be acidic today. So, just stop. Your job is quite simple: just be there. Just be there with no expectations, just listen without judgment, just move your body when you see an opportunity to be helpful (like washing dishes), and just be there again when everyone disappears. They will disappear fairly quickly.
There are stages of grief.
Oh, bullshit and fuck you. Ha! That's not even the anger stage talking there. That's the after so many years of hearing so many people mindlessly regurgitate that horseshit, you learn Mama was right-- your face actually can get stuck that way, and it really, really, sucks to run into things all the time because you are staring at your own damn eyebrows stage. Seriously. It's a thing.
"Stages" implies one part leads to another part in a progression that leads to an end. Where does one start on this nonsense? Let's see. I accepted my late husband's death. When a hole blew open in the atmosphere and abruptly sucked me out of life as I knew it, my soul hemorrhaged his permanent absence. Then one morning I heard his footsteps cross the kitchen floor. He was making coffee! I jumped up and must have been into a half a dozen steps before I realized it was a dream. I had to accept his death again that day. Honestly, I don't know how many times I have accepted his death. Grief is not a clean linear process. It is messy, and it is chaotic. It is also permanent, and that is okay.
You need to move on, you need closure.
I don't know who comes up with this poppycock but a damn fool. Or,.. maybe it has been said so much that it has lost all context and therefore truth. You see, finding answers, seeing a conviction, moving, etc.-- those things are more like finishing chapters. There is no "closure," and there is no "moving on," because grief does not end. Grief does change. When a person is ripped from your life and their existence, the injury to your being can be so great, so damaging, that it forever remains a wound sensitive to changes and memories.
Also, we are talking about a whole human being who is just gone. He was there, and then he was gone. She made life make sense, and then she disappeared. That is sad, and that sadness is powerful. The bereaved move forward in life --they might find a better job, or they might remarry, or they might pick up a craft or hobby that makes them happy-- but really, they have simply learned to live with that sadness. Maybe even most days, they no longer feel it. Maybe sometimes it is just a sting. Maybe sometimes it comes out in gut-wrenching sobs. These people are not "stuck" in grief. These people have been touched by death, and it is okay that they know it. It is okay that they don't forget that whole human being who is now just gone. It is okay that sometimes they really miss that whole human being, regardless of what their life looks like now. We should let go of the idea that:
The first year is the hardest
That has already been covered, but it bears repeating because it is the point. Grief does not follow a neat and predictable outline. It does not follow a path to a finish line, or a cure, and that means when someone believes the first year is the hardest, then they have an expectation of the first anniversary which only leads them to one helluva rude awakening. The second year is a different kind of hard, and for some, harder. This is right about the time one surveys the real damage, begins to clear away the debris, and faces the assumption that it is time, ready or not, to rebuild. A widowed friend of mine once pointed out to me that in all the movies about widows she and I have seen, the widow falls in love again right about a year later and that's all, the end, happily ever after. What a crock of shit. Can a widow fall in love again and be happy? Yes. (Hi! There is one right here!) But, see above about moving on and closure.
I wrote this today because my friend's widow posted a very raw Facebook response to the well-meaning but hurtful comments being said to her over and over again. I knew better, but I looked at the comments under her post. Even though she said, basically, stop saying these things to me because I am seriously wounded, and I understand that you mean well, but these comments are hurting me-- sure enough, person after person posted a hallmark condolence in response: "Oh, but it's true! He wouldn't want you to be so upset!"
There are stages of grief.
Oh, bullshit and fuck you. Ha! That's not even the anger stage talking there. That's the after so many years of hearing so many people mindlessly regurgitate that horseshit, you learn Mama was right-- your face actually can get stuck that way, and it really, really, sucks to run into things all the time because you are staring at your own damn eyebrows stage. Seriously. It's a thing.
"Stages" implies one part leads to another part in a progression that leads to an end. Where does one start on this nonsense? Let's see. I accepted my late husband's death. When a hole blew open in the atmosphere and abruptly sucked me out of life as I knew it, my soul hemorrhaged his permanent absence. Then one morning I heard his footsteps cross the kitchen floor. He was making coffee! I jumped up and must have been into a half a dozen steps before I realized it was a dream. I had to accept his death again that day. Honestly, I don't know how many times I have accepted his death. Grief is not a clean linear process. It is messy, and it is chaotic. It is also permanent, and that is okay.
You need to move on, you need closure.
I don't know who comes up with this poppycock but a damn fool. Or,.. maybe it has been said so much that it has lost all context and therefore truth. You see, finding answers, seeing a conviction, moving, etc.-- those things are more like finishing chapters. There is no "closure," and there is no "moving on," because grief does not end. Grief does change. When a person is ripped from your life and their existence, the injury to your being can be so great, so damaging, that it forever remains a wound sensitive to changes and memories.
 |
| Gone. |
The first year is the hardest
That has already been covered, but it bears repeating because it is the point. Grief does not follow a neat and predictable outline. It does not follow a path to a finish line, or a cure, and that means when someone believes the first year is the hardest, then they have an expectation of the first anniversary which only leads them to one helluva rude awakening. The second year is a different kind of hard, and for some, harder. This is right about the time one surveys the real damage, begins to clear away the debris, and faces the assumption that it is time, ready or not, to rebuild. A widowed friend of mine once pointed out to me that in all the movies about widows she and I have seen, the widow falls in love again right about a year later and that's all, the end, happily ever after. What a crock of shit. Can a widow fall in love again and be happy? Yes. (Hi! There is one right here!) But, see above about moving on and closure.
I wrote this today because my friend's widow posted a very raw Facebook response to the well-meaning but hurtful comments being said to her over and over again. I knew better, but I looked at the comments under her post. Even though she said, basically, stop saying these things to me because I am seriously wounded, and I understand that you mean well, but these comments are hurting me-- sure enough, person after person posted a hallmark condolence in response: "Oh, but it's true! He wouldn't want you to be so upset!"
 |
| And I just couldn't even anymore. |
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