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Grief: Yes, There is Hope

December 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

A woman whose husband died six months ago contacted me to say she’s reading Grief: The Great Yearning and is finding comfort from knowing that what she is feeling, others have felt. She mentioned that some things I wrote were identical to things she wrote in her journal, which goes to show that grief is individual, and yet much is the same when it comes to losing a husband or a soul mate. The pain goes down so deep, it hits places in our psyches we didn’t even know existed.

The woman asked how I was doing, then posed the question that haunted me for years: “Is there hope for me?”

It’s hard to believe, when you are lost in the cyclone called grief, that there will ever come a time of peace. Since I had no such belief, I held tight to the belief of others that the pain will ebb, that I will find renewal. They kept telling me to be patient, that it takes three to five years, but around four years most people find a renewed interest in life. And so it is with me. I feel alive again. I still have an underlying sadness. I miss him, of course, and always will — I even cry for him occasionally, though the tears pass easily without lingering pain.

I am finding that certain songs, movies, days, memories, bring about an upsurge of grief, and apparently, from what others have experienced, this will be true for the rest of my life, but at least I feel as if I am alive. I felt disconnected from life for a long time, as if I too had died. And partly, that is true — the person I was when I was with him did die. But now I need to be the person I am when I am with me. I can no longer take him into the equation of my life. My being alive does not make his being dead any less significant, though oddly, his being dead does make my being alive more significant. I once loved deeply. I once was so connected to another human being that his death sent me reeling for years.

But now, I am me. Just me. Not a bad thing to be.

This change in me is obvious. I met someone on my walk today, someone I’d talked to sporadically over the past three and a half years. He stopped me, asked me how I became such a star. (Radiant, he meant.) He barely recognized me, even though I was wearing the same sort of comfortable and inelegant clothes I always wear when walking. In fact, he said at first he thought I was young enough to be my daughter. He hunched his shoulders forward to show me how I used to walk — like an old woman.

So yes, there is hope. If you’re still grieving or feeling unalive after suffering a significant loss, take heart. If I can find my way back to life, so can you. Just grieve, find comfort where you can, try new things, and be patient with yourself. The pain does ebb, and chances are, around the fourth or fifth-year anniversary, you will find a renewed interest in life. Until then, wishing you peace.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in being me, culture, grief, life. Tags: fourth year of grief, grief gets better, hope and grief, renewal after grief, there is hope for grief. 2 Comments »

The Return of the Sad Saturday

November 2, 2013 — Pat Bertram

My life mate/soul mate died on a Saturday, and for a couple of years, I had an upsurge of grief every Saturday even when I didn’t realize what day it was. (Somehow my body remembered.) It’s been a long time since I’ve had a grief upsurge and an even longer time since I’ve had a sad Saturday, but today I am tearful. I seldom dream about him, but early this morning I dreamt that someone we both knew had died. As we looked at the empty bed, he said, “It’s strange that she died right after I invited her to live with us.” I responded, “Maybe that’s what allowed her to die. Maybe the point of life is death.”

I woke then, and remembered that he was dead, and it made me sad. I haven’t been thinking about him much lately. I’ve been keeping myself busy, trying to build strength and rebuild my life, but this morning, my whole house-of-cards life came tumbling down.

I just now returned from a ramble in the desert, so the sadness has dissipated a bit, but all the pieces of my life are still in a heap at my feet. As the next few days progress, I’ll pick up the pieces one by one, and maybe this time the structure I build will have more permanence. Or not. No matter how good an attitude I have, no matter how much I become immersed in life-affirming activities, he is still dead and there isn’t anything I can do about it. I just have to continue on, realizing that my life has worth. I have worth.

At the beginning of my grief, I could not fathom ever being happy again, which was okay since somehow I didn’t think I had the right to be happy, but I no longer think that way. If our positions were reversed, I wouldn’t want him to spend his life mourning for me.

Still, it’s only natural to feel sad and to miss the person who meant more than anyone else, so I’ll remember him with sadness today, remember what he meant to me, remember his courage and his smile.

Tomorrow will be soon enough to go about the business of rebuilding my life and finding whatever happiness I can.

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Posted in grief, life. Tags: death, finding happiness after grief, loss, love, sad Saturday, sadness. 16 Comments »

A Leftover From Grief

November 1, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I met a man the other day who mourned his brother. Both men were divorced (no children), and when newly single, they rekindled the closeness of their youth. They lived within a few block from each other, worked in the same area, often had lunch together or got together in the evening. They rebuilt the car one of them had bought as a teenager, and they went to car shows to display their refurbished antique. One brother worked as a new car salesperson, and often won incredible trips and cruises, which the two of them took.

The man told me about his incredible pain after his brother’s death, and added, “I didn’t even know there was such pain.”

Many of us who have lost significant people in our lives have felt the same shock at discovering there was such pain. Most of us had experienced the death of others in our lives, but one particular death — in my case, the death of my life mate/soul mate — shocked us with the depth of pain we felt. Pain we didn’t even know existed.

If this pain was in us to experience, but could only be brought out by a significant loss, what else is in us that some sort of catalyst could bring to the surface? Is there a corresponding joy? Maybe a radiance or an intense glee that is hiding from us behind our usual stoic facades? We think we know who we are and of what we are capable, but we only know what we know. We can’t know what we don’t. So what is there we don’t know?

Intense grief brings us close to eternal truths, but are there other states (perhaps less painful ones) that can also bring us such wisdom?

For a long time now, I’ve had the feeling of wanting “more,” but I don’t know what that “more” is. I have a hunch the feeling is a leftover from grief, from the knowledge that as humans, we are so much more — can feel so much more — than we ever believed possible.

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Posted in grief, life. Tags: depth of grief, mourning a brother, shock at the pain of grief, wanting more. 3 Comments »

Excerpt From “Grief: The Great Yearning” — Day 214

October 30, 2013 — Pat Bertram

GTGYthmb I’ve come a long way in the three years since I wrote the following journal entry. I still don’t understand the nature of life or death. Still don’t understand the point of it all, but the questions don’t haunt me quite as much as they did during the first years after the death of my life mate/soul mate. I’m learning to live without him, learning even to want to live without him. Sometimes I see his death as freeing us — me — from the horrors of his dying, and I don’t want to waste the sacrifice he made.

I still yearn to talk to him, though. I miss talking to him, miss his insights, miss the neverending conversation. (“Neverending” is a misnomer — the conversation that began the day we met and continued for decades until he got too sick to hold up his end of the dialogue, did eventually end.) He was easy to talk to. He never misunderstood what I said. I could make a simple comment to him, and he understood it was a simple comment. He didn’t make a big issue out of it, just answered back appropriately. It seems now every remark I make to anyone becomes a major deal as I try to explain over and over again what I meant by the first remark. It’s exhausting.

I’m grateful we met and had so many years together. Grateful for all the words we spoke to each other. Grateful I once had someone to love. Grateful that when my time comes to die, he won’t be here to see me suffer. Grateful he won’t have to grieve for me or be tormented by unaswerable questions.

Excerpt from Grief: The Great Yearning

Day 214, Grief Journal

Life/death has me very confused. I still don’t see that a person lives after they are dead. What survives, if anything? The part of us we never knew—the un-sub-conscious? If so, how would we know who we were after we were dead? Is it just the energy in our bodies that is released? If so, for sure we would not know who we were.

On the other hand, without some sort of afterlife, life simply does not make sense. What’s the point of it all? To survive? For what—more survival until there is no more survival? To help others? Why? So they can survive? For what?

If there is life after death, what do you do with eternity? You have no ears to hear music, no eyes to read or watch a movie, no legs to walk, no hands to caress another, no mouth to talk, no brain to think. Sounds like a horror movie to me. And what will we do if Jeff and I meet again? Bask in each other’s light? That would get boring after a minute or two.

I guess it doesn’t really matter. Whether life ends or continues after death, this is where I am now. So what do I want from the rest of my life? I don’t know. I’ve never really wanted much. I never even wanted happiness—I thought other things were more important, such as truth. But now? I truly do not know what I want, except that which I cannot have. I yearn desperately to talk to Jeff—not about anything in particular, just to talk. It’s like a voice hunger, or a word hunger. A dozen times a day I think of something I want to say to him, to ask him, to marvel at. Sometimes I just want the feeling of connection. I still yearn to put my arms around him and protect him from what will happen, but it’s already happened, and anyway, my touch never had the power to heal.

I know I’m strong enough to handle this—after all, I am handling it—but I DON’T WANT TO!!

Click here to find out more about Grief: The Great Yearning

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: grief and gratitude, grief and healing, grief and searching for meaning, Grief: The Great Yearning, neverending conversation. Leave a Comment »

And So Grief Goes . . .

October 27, 2013 — Pat Bertram

When you lose a soul mate or any person who connects you to the world in a significant way, you are born into the world of grief. At first, like any infant, you count your age in days, then weeks, and finally months and years.

I am long past counting the days and weeks since the death of my life mate/soul mate, though I can figure it out. (In case you’re curious, I calculated that it’s been 1,310 days or 187 weeks.) I’m even past counting the months. Today is an anniversary of his death, but without stopping to figure it out, all I know is that it’s been more than three and a half years but less than four.

This is a significant development. People who have never had to deal with the death of such an important person in their lives were spooked by my counting the days for so long, thinking I was unhealthily obsessed with the past, but that wasn’t the case at all. The days were milestones, ways of proving to myself that I could get through my grief one day at a time. And I have mostly gone through it. The horrendous pain, angst, and confusion of those first months isn’t even a memory. I can’t imagine anymore what I went through, can’t imagine how anyone could go through such a series of losses and come out the other end stronger and able to face whatever traumas life has in store. (In my case, not only did I lose my life mate/soul mate, I lost shared hopes and dreams, my most devoted fan, my best friend, and my home.)

When I talk about my grief, people assume I mean I still mourn him. To me, grief is the process, the whole spectrum of grief-related advancements including healing and rebuilding one’s life. The spectrum flows from the deepest black of despair to the brightest white of joy. Mourning is the sadness, the tears, the screams, the soul-deep pain — the physical manifestation of grief. I am long past the soul-deep pain, but I am still a long way from joy, so although I seldom mourn him any more, I still consider myself a child of grief.

Someday, that too will pass. Grief has taught me what we already know: things change. I never thought I’d laugh again, never thought I could live again. And yet here I am, all these months later, laughing and enjoying myself on occasion. I never thought I could forget him, and yet he is not always on my mind. For so long, I couldn’t bear the thought of settling down anywhere when I leave here (I am temporarily staying with my 96-year-old father, looking after him so he can be as independent as possible). All I wanted was to keep on the move. Travel See what life has to offer. I still think of leading such a spontaneous and unsettled life, but I am also weighing the possibility of settling down. I used to fear stagnation, but I am surer of myself and my solitary place in the world, and I doubt I would stagnate. I would do . . . something.

And so grief goes . . .

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: anniversary of death, counting the days of grief, death of a soul mate, grief, grief at three years, grief vs mourning. 4 Comments »

Do the Dead Miss Us?

October 13, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I had an odd dream last night. The setting wasn’t very detailed — just a simple bed in the middle of an empty white room that my waking self doesn’t recognize. I was lying in the bed, the white sheet pulled up to my chest. My deceased life mate/soul mate walked into the room wearing only white underwear. I got the impression he was coming from somewhere else or someone else, and that we weren’t still together. He stopped by my feet, gave them an affectionate rub, then came around to the empty side of the bed. He bed lay on the bed on top of the sheet, cuddled up close to me, and said softly, “I miss you.”

I woke, and tears came to my eyes. I’ve been keeping myself busy lately, and haven’t been thinking about him much, and the dream reminded me how much I missed him. I lay in bed waiting for a full-blown grief upsurge, but after a minute or two, I simply went back to sleep.

This is the closest I’ve ever had to what I would consider a “visitation” dream, and it’s left wondering if it was some sort of real encounter.

In various updates about grief on this blog, I mention that I talk to him, and I always make a facetious remark about his silence, such as this comment in a letter to him I posted a few days ago: so far you’ve been mum about your situation. Just one more thing to hate—the silence of the grave. (Well, the silence of the funerary urn.)

Could the dream have been an attempt to contact me? I don’t really believe it, but still, this is the first of the handful of dreams I’ve had about him in the past three and a half years that ever mentioned how he might be feeling. Could it be that the dead miss us as much as we miss them? Could they be feeling as amputated as we do?

Whatever the truth of the dream, it adds one more facet to this strange and incomprehensible state we call grief.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: do the dead miss us?, do the dead visit us in dreams, dreaming of the dead, odd dream. 21 Comments »

Excerpt From “Grief: The Great Yearning” — Day 197

October 9, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’ve come a long way in the three years since I wrote the following letter. I still don’t understand the nature of life or death. Still don’t understand the point of it all, but I am embracing life, trying to create my own meaning out of small occurrences. I’m learning to live without him, learning even to want to live without him. Sometimes I see his death as freeing us — me — from the horrors of his dying, and I don’t want to waste the sacrifice he made.

I still wish I could go home to him when my current responsibilities come to an end, but even that desire is waning. It took me a long time to feel the truth — that he is gone from this earth, and I am here. I still miss him, and I probably always will, but I’m learning to be comfortable in my own skin again. When one of “our” things disappears from my life through attrition, it no longer pains me — they are merely things, not “us”.

I’m grateful we met and had so many years together. Grateful I once had someone to love. Grateful that when my time comes to die, he won’t be here to see me suffer. Grateful he won’t have to grieve for me.

Excerpt from Grief: The Great Yearning

Day 197, Dear Jeff,

It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I’ve been thinking about you. Are you glad you’re dead? You said you were ready to die, to be done with your suffering, yet at the very end you seemed reluctant to go.

I didn’t want to throw you away. Despite all the problems with your restlessness and the disorientation from the drugs, I wasn’t ready for you to leave me. I still am not. Nor do I want to go back to where we were that last year, waiting for you to die. We were both so miserable, but honestly, this is even worse. I can live without you. The problem is, I don’t want to, and I don’t see why I have to.

I want to come home. Please, can I come home? I have a good place to stay, but without you, I feel homeless. Sometimes I watch movies from your collection and imagine you’re watching with me, but that makes me cry because I know you’re not here. Your ashes are, but you’re not.

I broke a cup today, one more thing gone out of the life we shared. Our stuff is going to break, wear out, get used up. I’ll replace some of it, add new things, write new books, and it will dilute what we shared. Is there going to be anything left of “us”? I feel uncomfortable in this new skin, this new life, as if it’s not mine. As if I’m wearing clothes too big and too small all at the same time.

There’s so much I hate about your being gone—hate it for me and hate it for you. It might be easier if I knew you were glad to be dead, but so far you’ve been mum about your situation. Just one more thing to hate—the silence of the grave. (Well, the silence of the funerary urn.)

Adios, compadre. If you get a chance, let me know you’re okay.

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Click here to find Grief: The Great Yearning in print or on Kindle from Amazon.

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: grief and gratitude, grief and healing, grief and searching for meaning, grief work, Grief: The Great Yearning, letter to the dead. 9 Comments »

If You Are Sick Of Hearing About My Loss . . .

October 3, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Someone left a comment a couple of days ago saying she is tired of hearing about my loss and so is cancelling her subscription to this blog. To be honest, I don’t really blame her. I never expected the death of one man (my life mate/soul mate) to have such an impact on my life that I could feel the ripples of his absence three and a half years later. I certainly never expected to still be mentioning my loss after all this time (it seems a bit pathetic), but I can’t ignore the single most significant event of the past few years of my life. Everything I am, everything I will be stems from that loss.

Death is such an inhuman and inexplicable event that our brains scurry around trying to solve the enigma of a presence that has become an absence. Some people are lucky enough to believe in a benevolent God and a beatific afterlife. Others of us strive to find meaning, and if we don’t succeed in finding it, we have to create meaning.

For now, this blog is my meaning. Or rather, the means to my meaning. I was so stunned at all I felt after his death, so shocked at how little I understood such profound grief despite having lost a brother and my mother that I used this blog as a way of helping other bereft find their way through the labyrinth of pain. I wanted to let them know they are not crazy if they continue to feel grief long after their family and friends (and blog readers) have become tired of their sorrow. The truth is, we too get tired of our loss, but we have no choice but to continue our struggle to live.

And it is a struggle. I realized long ago that the only way I could make sense of his death is to do things that we wouldn’t have done together, or to do things that I wouldn’t/couldn’t have done while he lived. Even though I am no longer actively grieving and in fact am quite happy at times (I seldom cry any more, and if I do, it’s only for a moment or two), I still honor my loss with all that I am doing. I continue to blog about grief, take night walks with the local Sierra Club, travel a bit, write, amble in the snake-infested desert, and do things I am not necessarily comfortable doing.

Although it might seem as if I am still bemoaning my loss by continuing to mention his death, the truth is, I am not embracing loss. I am embracing life — my life. I’m still not convinced life is a gift — there is way too much pain in the world — but my loss is the means of my future gain. I will not waste the freedom his death brought to me. I will not waste the courage he bequeathed me. I will not waste what is left of my life, even though I have to continue alone.

It seems to me that my struggle to create a meaningful life is worth writing about. So, if you are sick of hearing about my loss, feel free to unfollow me, but I am going to continue to blog about my life, and my life includes his death.

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Posted in blogging, culture, grief. Tags: blogging to help with grief, creating meaning in our lives, embracing life, impact of grief, life after loss, three and a half years of grief. 36 Comments »

In the Company of Married Women

October 2, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I had lunch with some friends today, which would have been nice though not particularly significant if it weren’t that all the women were married. Since the death of my life mate/soul mate, most of my friends have been my fellow bereft — my sisters in sorrow — but gradually I’ve been meeting women who are still coupled. Today was the first time I found myself in the company of only married women.

I was actually okay — no tears — but it did make me sad to listen to these women talk about their husbands’ irritating qualities. Although I sympathized, I wanted to cry out to them to treasure every moment, even the most exasperating incidences, because in the end, every moment spent with the person you love (or once loved) is a golden moment.

But I kept my mouth shut. Anything I said — even a gentle request to give their husbands an extra hug that night — would have seemed as if I were chastising them, and if my words didn’t strike such a note, I would still have turned the focus of the conversation from them and their comfortable confidences to me and my uncomfortable realities. Besides, until you have lost your mate, you simply cannot understand how precious every moment is. You’re caught up in the daily struggle to maintain your autonomy in the face of someone else’s wishes, the struggle to get all of the day’s chores finished, the struggle to find a harmonious balance between aging bodies and youthful spirits. You don’t have the energy to focus on distant tragedy.

So, I’m telling you what I would have liked to say to them. Smile at your mate instead of ignoring or arguing with him. Give him an extra hug and maybe a kiss. Thank whatever powers you believe in that no matter how irritating he might be, you have him for one more day. This is an incredible gift I am giving you — a memory to treasure if ever you should become one of us bereft.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, relationships. Tags: husbands, lunch with friends, married woman vs widows, memories to treasure, precious moments. 9 Comments »

Grief is Exhausting

September 28, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday’s grief update — I Am a Three-and-a-Half-Year Grief Survivor — was very sedate, no great emotion. And that’s how the day went — sedate, no great emotion. I kept myself busy and endorphinized with walks, exercise, and errands. I actually felt happy for a while. (It’s easy to be happy when you are zipping along at three miles an hour beside a dry riverbed at night with new friends, and only flashlights and stars to illuminate the walkway.)

Today, however, I am tearful. I woke with a great yearning to see my deceased life mate/soul mate. I wish I could talk to him, find out how he is (or if he is). I wish I could feel as if once again, I were home. (He was my home. Everything else is just a place to live, though I am gradually learning to find “home” in myself, because of course, wherever I go, there I will be.)

Grief is exhausting, even after forty-two months, and maybe that’s what hit me today — exhaustion. I get tired of trying to find reasons to live and ways to be happy. I get tired of trying to focus on the positive elements of my life and to find ways around that vast emptiness where he once was. The more I do these things, the more of a habit they will become, but his absence is still such a significant factor in my life that the creation of happiness and meaning is a conscious effort. I am always aware that that whatever I am doing is not an augmentation of an already full life, but instead is a way of spending the hours and maybe building a new life for myself.

I feel silly at times even mentioning my sadness because so many people have experienced horrific tragedies that make the death of one middle-aged man seem insignificant, but his death is exceedingly significant to me. And it’s significant to the world (even if no one else is aware of it) because the death of a good man (or woman) somehow diminishes us all.

So today, I will allow myself to be sad that he is gone from my mortal life and from this earth, and wait until tomorrow to once again pick up the pieces of my life and continue on without him.

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