Tuesday, September 11, 2012
It's less than two weeks to the first anniversary - September 23rd.
I'm learning the hard way that the anniversary isn't the only difficult day. There are many firsts and lasts leading up to it. I must admit that this is something I never thought about in past years when I talked to people who had lost the love of their life. What did I think - that there was a blip surrounded by normal days?
Yesterday I had a very good walk and talk with someone I met once in one of the Hospice walking groups - a member of the Secret Society of Grievers, as I call them. It's the club no one wants to belong to. Of course not all members are at the same stage - some lost their loved one twenty years ago. And some did not completely adore their spouse so their experiences are quite different. But a common bond can link people surprisingly fast.
I like talking to people in this group. You don't have to put on a brave or shallow front and say you're fine. Anything you say is okay. Feelings that don't get pent up are less likely to burst forth, so visiting becomes refreshingly relaxed. Often we don't even talk about grieving. But this woman - I'll call her Andrea - and I did. Although she is coming up to her second year anniversary, also in September, I'm learning that, according to many, second year grieving isn't all that much different from the first. People often talk about the second Christmas being harder, because the first was a blur.
There are some interesting similarities between us. She spent her first Christmas in Abbotsford. So did I. September 3rd is a big day for her - it was the day her husband went into Hospice. The 3rd was when Glenn and I went to the Saanich Fair, a year ago. For me that day is almost as monumental as the day he died. It's the day I think of him as mobile - even though technically he was able to walk right up until the night he went into hospital on September 8th. But it was our last fun outing, when he made it all the way around the fairgrounds with his walker, sat in the shade and had an ice cream cone, and got such a kick out of watching the sheep in the show ring. Later that week we would be in the doctor's office, all three of us laughing uproariously at his imitations of the sheeps' baahing. Glenn - amazing person that he was - became more and more comical toward the end. I was grateful that a friend took me flying on September 3rd this year because it kept my mind off the fair.
Andrea and I talked about friends we lost during this experience. Who knows the reasons why - they don't know what to say, they can't face their own mortality, they can't relate to you as a single person, they lack compassion, etc. The reason doesn't matter to me. It just is. So let them go. We talked about people's different reactions and the things they say. As I've said before, I noticed early on that it took just seconds to tell if a person, whether a longtime friend or an acquaintance met on the street or a business person in an office, had compassion or not. Some feign it - you can tell. Some don't even try. Some have compassion oozing from their pores. Some are just curious and want to know what happened.
On our first visit Andrea had talked about what a useless statement it is to say to a grieving person, "If there's anything I can do..." "You don't know what you need!" she said. And there is that underlying feeling you get that they hope you don't ask.
For me, I just wanted to be rescued and looked after. I wanted someone to take me away from this horrid nightmare to... where? Outer space? Back down to earth a bit, I wanted them to recognize that if I told them about a problem, I was asking for help. I just didn't want to come right out and ask.
Anyway, it got me thinking, 'What should people say?" Frankly, I don't know. I don't even know what I'd say to myself. Often it didn't matter as long as it was sincere. A simple 'sorry' or 'I don't know what to say' is just fine. So, I guess how something is said can be as important as the words.
Andrea talked also about actions. When she heard that a friend was making sandwiches to take to Hospice, she went to the store and bought more food and went along. How incredibly difficult that must have been for her to walk into that building where her husband took his last breath.
I told her about an outstanding example of action from my friend Shannon. That was the day I was going to the cemetery some months after Glenn passed away. I understood, wrongly, that I had to pick up his ashes and was very stressed about it. The ashes were a weird thing for me. I didn't want to look at them; I sure didn't want to pick them up and feel the weight. Glenn was a whole walking, talking, smiling, breathing person ... reduced to this. Shannon said she would go with me. Furthermore she would pick me up. When I said that I would drive to her place, which made sense because it was on the way, she said no. She would pick me up and that was that. It turned out well in the end because I didn't have to take the ashes after all. The main thing was that she took complete charge. I didn't have to think or do anything. It was absolutely the right thing for her to have done. Where/how did she get such knowledge? Everyone should be so lucky as to have a friend like Shannon. I have been very fortunate.
This month is another roller coaster ride, the biggest in months. I don't know where my head is at, so to speak, but it's all over the place.
Interesting timing that I borrowed a book from a neighbour in which the author talks about the death of his wife. I 'lost it' while reading these lines this morning -
"Real love hurts; real love makes you totally vulnerable and open; real love will take you far beyond yourself; and therefore real love will devastate you. I kept thinking, if love does not shatter you, you do not know love. We had both been practicing the wound of love, and I was shattered. Looking back on it, it seems to me that in that simple and direct moment, we both died."
Amen to that.
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