Grief in the Long Term
Even a pen has a lifespan, I think to myself just as mine has run out of ink in the middle of writing a sentence. The pen doesn’t come back the following season like the leaves on the poplar tree outside my bedroom window will come back in the spring… ~ From “The Jim and Dan Stories” ~ by Colleen
During my husband’s study for his master’s degree in counseling, he did an internship with Hospice and helped to facilitate a grief group. Knowing my experience and interest in the grief process, he invited me to be a part of the group. I would have appreciated a support group after I lost my brothers, but it had been 3 years since their deaths, a little late for that sort of thing, I thought. Even so, my husband encouraged me to participate, thinking that I could be of help to others who had more recently lost loved ones, and eventually, I agreed.
Our first meeting – a small group of all women except for my husband – was held at the local library. For introductions, we were directed to go around the room and share with the group a little about ourselves and why we were there. I should have known when I had to hold back the tears while listening to other people’s stories that sharing wasn’t going to be easy, but I was still surprised to discover when it was my turn to speak that, even after 3 years, I couldn’t be counted on to articulate losing my brothers without falling apart.
How is this going to help others, I wondered? What happened to my open book philosophy of taking death and grief out of the closet? I could go to the Radford University class that was using my book as part of their grief and loss curriculum and talk about the book, what it was like losing my brothers, how I got through it. But on this day and with this group, I couldn’t seem to state the facts, form the tragic words, or even use their names without losing it. I felt like an alcoholic admitting a disease that I had thought I was in remission of. Hello, my name is Colleen and I lost 2 brothers. Jim died in a violent machine shop accident. I watched my brother Dan die of liver failure.
Ah, is this what they mean when they say that you can come to accept losing a loved one but that you never really get over it? It was a rude awakening to remember again that Jim and Dan are really gone and then to speak it out loud to others. But I learned a good lesson that day: There comes a point in the grief process when it’s not a good idea to pick at an old wound.
November 23rd, 2005 10:22 am
Hello Michele sent me…she always seems to send me here! lol
November 23rd, 2005 11:07 am
Hi Colleen. Thanks for your visit today. Very thought-provoking post, in light of the holidays especially. I’ve lost a few loved ones myself around this time. It brings a smile to my face though to think of how they always seemed to hang on through Thanksgiving. Bittersweet.
November 23rd, 2005 3:42 pm
I do not think the pain ever really leaves us. We just learn to live with it and become good at tucking it away. When it comes to the surface.. the pain can be as acute as it ever was. Our only consolation is that others too live with grief. In sharing we find comfort.
To feel grief is to have loved.
November 23rd, 2005 7:24 pm
Hi Col, Today I touched on the issue of “control” at PPP of View. After going through the pain of losing our brothers and having our dad so sick after his accident, control is, I do think, what is at the heart of grief. If we knew how to really “let go” and “let be” – as the poplar tree does so effortlessly give up her leaves, we’d be closer to surrendering our pain (easier said than done and I’m not even close to being there yet).
November 23rd, 2005 9:53 pm
It’s true, a cut heals faster if the scab is left intact, if the tissue is left to regenerate beneath. Even if we pick the scab, the cut will eventually heal. It may take longer and the scar may be larger. It is something to think about in all our losses and pain.
November 24th, 2005 12:48 am
You’ve given me a lot to think about Coleen…but the thing is…everybody’s process is different, isn’t it? What works for one person might be completely wrong for another person….I certainly see the value of a Grief Group….I first was involved with the idea of the Group process, over 40 years ago…And it was a very very helpful time for me…but, a number of months after my mother died, (and I had been such a part of her whole process as well as all of my family’s process)…I found that I needed a rest from ‘Therapy’, Group, and/or Private…!
I told my therapist, at that time, that I needed to not look at all this under a microscope at this point…I needed to just ‘live through it’…whatever that meant….He was fine about that, and I just allowed myself the luxury of NOT trying to figure out all that was happening to me…but just to live…wherever that took me. That might not work for someone else, but it helped me, at that time….I have no idea if anything I’ve said is of any value to anyone else….and I apologize for taking up so much comment space…but, it’s ‘another country heard from’….(lol)..one other thing: I heard someone who had lost a parent in a very viloent way, tell how after years of therapy she asked her therapist..”When will this finally be over???” And her therapist answered. “When it’s over…” I thought that was incredibly profound.
November 24th, 2005 1:06 am
The other group members learned that lesson of humanity with you.
I’m finding that sometimes the revisiting can add a layer, as I progress through the series I’m posting on my father’s suicide 3 years ago and its aftermath. I approach the material from a different, more settled place now. (The circumstances were different. His death had not come as a surprise to me.)
November 24th, 2005 9:38 am
I encourage you to continue attending that group Colleen. I went to a support group for 2 years after Penny died and it was beneficial.
Never doubt that your words, your experiences, even your tears will help another person who is walking on the same path as you.
As you know, my sister was killed by a drunk driver. Even after 10 years, I get angry and sad when I hear someone was killed by a drunk driver. I have to change the channel when I see a mangled car or the topic on a TV show is on drunk driving or car accidents.
Time does make the loss bearable, but there will always be triggers, something that makes you cry, something that makes you feel like you’ve lost your loved one just yesterday.
What you’re feeling is normal. Just ride the emotions and it will pass and it will make you stronger.