Coping with Grief

08 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by twocupslater in Uncategorized

If anyone knows how, please tell me.

Don’t get me wrong… I know that there are many, many ways to get through hard times. My faith in God, my family, a few close friends that I can confide in and at least one that I trust implicitly with everything in my head, good, bad, and ugly… I am extremely blessed in these areas, and these are the things that have helped me survive. I simply do not know where I would be now without them, but grief is a monster that won’t let go.

A couple of months after my mom died from complications of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, the song I Still Miss You by Keith Anderson came on the radio. Like so many things did so easily at the time, it smacked me across the face and twisted the knife. It still chokes me up when I hear it.

I’ve talked to friends, talked to myself

Talked to God, I’ve prayed like hell

But I still miss you

I’ve tried sober, I’ve tried drinking

I’ve been strong and I’ve been weak

and I still miss you

Two months after Mom died, I had no expectations that I was supposed to be anything but grieving. I can’t tell you how many times, how many different people, told me “The first year is the hardest…
it’ll get easier.” I knew that the first holiday would be hard, the first birthday (mine – no one cares about your birthday like your mother does), my daughter’s first *everything* – she was six months old when Mom died and so nearly all of her “firsts” were still ahead of us – I knew those would be gut-wrenching, and they were. The first Christmas was excruciating. When Mom’s birthday passed eleven months later, the grief was still overwhelming. The first anniversary of her death came and even though it was hard I had hope that I was finally going to be on the mend. Everyone said it would get easier, so it must be true.

Three years and three months later, I’m still waiting for it to get easier. I guess in a way it has, because I am able to function without the help of Zoloft, which was definitely not something I felt I could do that first year. I can sometimes sleep through the night without dreaming about her, waking up either in tears or with the weight of a herd of elephants on my chest. I can enjoy my daughter, whereas during the first year of her life I was mainly going through the motions, trying not to think about how much I wanted to share my daughter with my mother, and my mother with my daughter. Still, every time Ally does something new, cute, advanced, or destructive, the first person I want to call is Mom. Three years later, there is still the occasional moment where I reach for the phone before I remember that she’s not on the other end of it anymore. Three years later, when the world has moved on, I miss her more and not less.

Difficulty and tragedy have hit my family more than once since then. My dad, a year and a half ago, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Thankfully his treatment was successful and he is in
remission, though I have to admit that another Lymphoma diagnosis was more than enough to make me raise my hands to God and ask “Really?”

A few months later, my precious cousin lost her 2-year-old baby girl Reagan to Meningitis. There are no words that can describe that, and there is nothing in the world that can make it right.

But most devastating and difficult to cope with was the loss of my stepfather in February of this year. This event was not the most tragic, but by far the most difficult because Jim chose to take himself away from us. I know… I know that what I have been going through since Mom died doesn’t compare to what he had been going through. She was his entire world. He had no real family of his own and so her family, our family, was his family. His life was devoted to caring for her and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep her alive for the seven years we were not supposed to have with her. When she was diagnosed, he had spent decades creating something from nothing, financial security that would hold them for the rest of their lives and probably most of ours. In the following seven years,
seeking every avenue to make her better, that nest egg dwindled to nothing, and when she was gone, so was the money.

The market tanked and his development business went down with it. Jim had worked like a dog his entire life so that he and Mom would never have to worry, but he told me, when he called to tell me he was losing everything, that he didn’t regret it, he would do it all over again, and he was at peace. He was losing the home he’d built – literally – with his own two hands, the only *place* he’d ever truly loved. “I’m not angry at God, and I’m okay. I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done.”

A month later, on February 20th, he did the opposite, and took his own life.

I have always felt strongly that suicide is the most selfish act a person can commit. I have always heard stories about it and cringed, thinking I knew what kind of pain that will cause the people left behind. I did know what kind, I just didn’t understand how much.

On top of the pain of losing someone, which most everyone has experienced, there is also anger. I am angry with him for doing it. I’m angry with him for thinking that his own pain was enough to justify
intentionally inflicting it on us. Now, not only do we have to cope with losing Mom, but he forced us to cope with losing him, too. HE forced us. Mom fought for her own life, not for her sake but for ours. She said so in a note she wrote shortly before she died. “I have cried tears for my family’s pain…” She refused to give up until we gave her permission to let go. Jim didn’t give us the option.

In June we were going down to do the final clearing out of the house Jim had been moving into, and my three year old told me she wanted to see PawPaw. I told her that we weren’t going to see PawPaw today because he was in Heaven with Noni (my mom). My precious daughter’s eyes welled up with tears and she started to cry and said “I want to go see Noni and PawPaw in heaven, too.”

I know he was suffering. I know that for a man like him to do what he did, his suffering was beyond endurance. I know this, I understand it, and many people have made it a point to remind me of it, but still, I’m angry.

There is guilt, too. I knew he had struggled and I knew that there was nothing substantial that I could do. But at least a thousand times since that Sunday afternoon when my brother called to tell me, I’ve  wondered what if? What if I’d called him that morning? He probably wouldn’t have answered the phone, I know this because other people had tried to call him. But what if he had? What if I could’ve told him one more time that I loved him, that I was praying for him, that anything I could do for him I would? Would that have changed his mind? Logically, probably not. Emotionally, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if one phone call could’ve changed his mind.

He’d been planning it for a while. This much we feel fairly sure about. His behavior even seven or eight months beforehand had caused more than one raised eyebrow. At least twice it prompted my husband to ask me, “Jim wouldn’t do anything stupid… would he?” My answer the first time was “No way.” The second time, I had to think about it, but I was still so certain in my heart that he loved us too much to hurt himself, and anyone who knew him knew that his positivity was relentless. He had many bad days after we lost Mom, but I never seriously considered the possibility that he would put himself first. There wasn’t much precedent for that in his life. I can’t think of many times when he put himself first, and the only one that comes to mind was his refusal to accept letting Mom go, when every doctor told us it was time, and I can’t blame him for that one.

As much as I thought a man like him would never do such a selfish thing, the truth is that a man like him could never be talked out of doing it once he’d made up his mind.

And even so, there is still anger, and there is still guilt.

And the grief that has not lessened any in the last three years for my mom is now compounded.

A month or so ago I had a dream about her, the first one I remembered vividly in a while. There were dozens of people at the lakehouse, cleaning it out, mourning. Mom was there, and the weight on my chest was present even in the dream. I looked at her and sighed, and said “This is all your fault, you know.” I woke up crying, angry at myself for blaming her.

I guess grieving feelings of anger and guilt are not limited to suicide.

I feel helpless, so hopeless,

It’s a door that never closes

No, I don’t know how to do this.

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