Two Years and One Day of Grief

March 28, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Today I embark on my third year of grief since the death of my life mate/soul mate, and I am now in uncharted territory.

The first year of grief passes in a blur of angst, emotional shock, myriad physical reactions, painful surprises about the nature of loss and grief, and the almost impossible effort of going through the chores of living.

The second year of grief is one of learning to deal with the truth that he is dead, and that there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how well you deal with your grief, no matter how you rise to the challenge of life without him, he is not coming back. You knew this, of course, but now it has seeped deeper into your consciousness, and you feel it with every breath you take. Because of this, the second year (or at least parts of it) can be worse than the first. What makes the second year even harder to face is that you’ve used your grief card. Everyone thinks you should be over your grief, and they have little patience for your continued tears. They urge you to get on with your life, but they don’t understand that this is how you are getting on with your life.

The third year of grief is . . . I don’t yet know since this is only the first day of this new year. Today feels no different from yesterday or the day before, and I don’t imagine tomorrow will feel any different.

During the past two years, I’ve been looking for the bedrock of my new life — the thing, the idea, the place, whatever that bedrock might be — that gives me a foundation on which to build a future. Mostly, I’ve been waiting for my grief to dissipate so I can find my way, but the truth is, I will always grieve for him, though perhaps not as actively as I have been, because he will always be dead.

Acceptance is supposed to be one of the stages of grief, but I’ve never actually reached that stage (nor did I experience most of the supposed stages of grief). I cannot accept that he is dead for the simple reason that it’s not my place to accept it. Acceptance to me suggests that it is okay, and I will never believe that it is okay for him to be dead (even though I do understand the necessity of it). Perhaps acceptance only means that I accept the reality of my continued sorrow and loneliness.

People tell me that you never do get over such a grievous loss, but that after three to five years you rediscover the importance of living. It might be easier to meet the future head-on if I’m not expecting my sadness to dissipate. Maybe this is my bedrock — the missing, the yearning, the sadness, the loneliness. If so, I just need to accept that they are part of my life, and build from there.

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Two Years of Grief

March 27, 2012 — Pat Bertram

A year ago today, my life mate/soul mate died of inoperable kidney cancer. Wait . . .  what am I saying? One year? No. It’s been two years since he died. What a strange error to have made, yet perhaps it’s understandable. The night he died is still so very clear, as if he’s been gone only months, not years.

On the recommendation of his hospice nurse, I’d taken him to the hospice care center in the hopes that they could figure out how to regulate his drugs to give him the most lucidity and the least pain. It crushed my heart to take him there. I never got to talk with him again — he was in a drug-induced coma for those last five days of his life. I think he was at peace the final two days, though. All the time he was there, his breathing sounded like moaning, and I worried that he was in pain, but during his next-to-last day he exhaled a few melodious-sounding breaths, as if he wanted to reassure me he was okay.

He once told me that if it ever came to his being in a facility, he didn’t want me to visit, but how could I not? Even though the care center was sixty-five miles away, I went there every day, but I left early enough so I could get home before dark. The irony is he agreed to go so I could get some rest, but I never did sleep those nights. I was too worried about him.

His last night, Friday night, I didn’t go home. A few snowflakes fell and I used that as an excuse to stay. Also, I was restless, sensing the end was near. So I waited.

Around 1:30 in the morning, his breathing changed. Became harsher. I went to his side, said it was okay for him to leave, that I would be all right. At 1:40, he took a breath. His Adam’s apple bobbed once. Twice. And then he was dead. I kissed him by the side of his mouth. Waited a few minutes before I went to get the nurse.

I like that I got to tell them he was gone rather than have them tell me.

The nurse confirmed that he was gone. She called the funeral home, and I sat there in the room with him for two hours, just waiting. I might have cried. I might have been numb. I don’t really remember. I couldn’t even see his face — they had cleaned him and wrapped him in a blanket — so I just sat there, thinking nothing until almost dawn, when they came for him. (They came in an SUV, not a hearse. And they used a red plush coverlet, not a body bag.)

I followed them outside, watched them put him in the SUV and drive away, then I left. The highway was dry, but about halfway home, I skid. (I must have hit a patch of black ice, because there was no indication that patch of road was any different from what I’d already traveled.) I went careening, around and around, back and forth, my car totally out of control. I thought I was going to die, but oddly, I never left the road. The car finally came to a halt facing the wrong way on the highway. I was fine. So was the car. I remember wondering if he had stopped by on his way out of this world to leave me a final reminder to be careful, or maybe he was shaking his ghostly head, thinking that after his being gone only two hours, I was already getting careless.

He always worried that I wasn’t careful enough. I’m trying to be careful. Trying to take care of myself. I hope he’s taking care of himself.

The past two years have been agony for me. I know there was no way he could have continued to live considering the vast extent of the tumors. I know death was the only way to set him free from his excruciating pain. When he died, I truly was relieved. And yet . . . he was my best friend, my playmate, my business partner, my life companion. He was the one person who listened to me, who was always there for me. (As I was for him.) Even though I can see the necesssity of his death, I hate that he’s gone from this earth.

Not one of the previous 731 days have passed without my missing him. Even as I go on with my life, even as he and my grief recede further from me, I will continue to miss him. He was a good man. The earth is poorer for his death.

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Grief — Two Years Minus Five Hours

March 26, 2012 — Pat Bertram

In five hours, it will be exactly two years since my life mate/soul mate died of inoperable kidney cancer. He and I shared so much that even as I am getting to where I can accept the situation, even accept that I might find peace or possibly happiness, I can’t forget that it’s at his expense. I wonder what this feels like from his perspective. I know he wants me to go on, to get what I can from life — he told me that — but still, where is he in all this? At some point, our separation has to be complete, doesn’t it? I have to realize that whatever I say or think or do has no affect on him — it can’t change anything that happened. It can’t bring him back. And I don’t want him back — his death was too hard-won.

Iron Sam, the dying hit man in my novel Daughter Am I, told my hero Mary that a person experiences death only once. Well, my mate’s dying was my experience of death. The utter undoableness of it — the finality — shocked me to my core (and still gives me that falling-elevator feeling of panic when I think of his being dead). That shock must be what can only be experienced once. A prognosis of my own death probably won’t have the same impact on me as his diagnosis. Will I have his strength, his courage? I won’t have him, and that might not be a bad thing. Maybe my death will be easier to handle if I know I’m not going to devastate anyone when I go. (I think about that, how hard it must have been on him to know he wouldn’t be here to comfort me after he was gone.)

People always talk about finding someone to grow old with (and oh! I so do not want to grow old alone), but I’m not sure growing old with someone is a blessing. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of very old couples (this area is filled with hospitals, doctors offices, oncology clinics, pain treatment centers, nursing homes) and I try to imagine what it would be like for the two of us to deal with each other’s old age infirmities. I’m glad he’ll be spared that. It was hard enough for him to die without having to worry about my dying, too.

I wish he were waiting for me on the other side of grief so we could start a new life together, and in a way he will be there — he is still so much a part of me. Maybe literally a part of me. If we’re all made of stardust, if everything is commingled, how much more commingled are we who spent so many decades in each other’s company! The biorhythms of people who live together ebb and flow in sync. Benign and not so benign viruses carry cell information from one to the other, intermingling physical bodies on a cellular level. As one of my fellow bereft reminded me yesterday, “The heart puts out an electrical field which is measurable and it intertwines with the electrical field of the other loved one and when that is gone, the body knows it and feels the loss.”

I’ve heard that every seven years a person’s cells completely turn over, so that in seven years you become a different person. In seven years, then, maybe I won’t feel such yearning for him since he will no longer be written into the fabric of new cells. But beyond the physical commingling, there are all the movies we watched together, the books we shared, the thousands upon thousands of hours of electric conversation, the ideas we developed, the businesses we created — all those are part of me.

But  there is so much that will never be part of my life again. His smile nourished my soul, his laughter warmed my heart, his voice soothed my ears, his wise counsel eased my mind.

How have I survived such enormous losses? One day a time, that’s how. Sometimes one tear at a time. And so two years (minus five hours) have passed.

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Still Confounded by Grief

March 25, 2012 — Pat Bertram

For two years, my reaction to the death of my life mate/soul mate has bewildered me. I knew he was dying and I’d spent over a decade preparing myself for that eventuality. I thought I’d accepted the inevitable, but now I see I was merely resigned (and perhaps exhausted). Still, I am independent-minded, always have been. I know how to do things on my own, know how to entertain myself, know how to take care of myself. I’ve never been afraid of being alone, never been one to hide behind pretty lies or protective fantasies. And yet his death devastated me as much as it confounded me. In fact, after almost two years (two years minus two days, to be exact; 729 days) I still feel lost, still feel broken.

Not all deaths affect people the same. My mother died three years before my mate, and my brother died a year before that. My grief for them was what I used to consider “normal.” I missed them and felt bad that they were gone, but my life went on without any major upheavals. But when my mate died, it was a cataclysm, affecting every part of my life. And the strong connection we always had, a cosmic-twin sort of connection, was broken.

The day before my mother’s funeral, I broke my ankle, so I spent her viewing at the emergency room and I spent her funeral at the bone specialist. It turns out that what I had was a very bad sprain, so bad that when the ligaments tore away, they cracked the bone.

I realize now this same sort of thing happened when my mate died. Whatever connection we had was so strong that when he was torn away from me and our life, it fractured me. This fracture had nothing to do with my being weak or too dependent on him or unwilling to face the truth or any of the other snide rationalities people have made about my sorrow. However deep and prolonged, my grief for him is normal and understandable. It takes a long time for a broken bone to heal and regain its former strength. How much longer must it take when one’s psyche has been broken.

And so, I still deal with the fracture his death caused in me, and I still deal with the bewilderment of his death. Perhaps when he died, he took a chunk of me with him, the same way bone still adheres to torn ligaments, and so part of me would be wherever he is, if he is. His death felt like an amputation, and I can no longer feel that part of me where we were attached. Some people still feel connected to those who are gone, but I never do. I merely feel his goneness, his absence, which seems as strong as his presence once did. And I still feel fractured. Still feel lost. Perhaps to a certain extent I will always feel this way, because the cause of this loss, his being dead, will always be a part of me. And that is one truth I wish I didn’t have to face.

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Anniversaries of Grief

March 24, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I don’t know why certain anniversaries loom so large in our lives, but for whatever reason, the anniversaries of grief are immense. At the beginning of my grief over the death of my life mate/soul mate, a minister friend told me that always on the anniversary, even if I’m not consciously aware of the date, I will feel an upsurge of grief. This is only my second anniversary, with perhaps dozens still to come, but I can already see the truth of his words. Grief comes from somewhere deep within, somewhere deeper than thought, somewhere deeper than volition. And it keeps track of time.

People who have not experienced a grievous loss often think that grief is a choice. Sometimes, especially when young children are involved, the remaining parent can put off grief to focus on the childrens’ needs, but still, grief will surface at the anniversary. Later in life, this grief will surface again, perhaps when the last child leaves home, or when a beloved pet dies. I know a woman who went from taking care of a dying husband to taking care of her aged mother. She didn’t grieve after the death of her husband because of this new focus, but the death of her mother about destroyed her. For most of us, though, grief cannot be denied. We embrace it or it embraces us, and we reap the whirlwind.

This anniversary phenomena does mystify me, though. I’ve been experiencing a devastating grief upsurge, and yet nothing significant happens on the anniversary to count for all the sorrow. In fact, if last year is anything to go by, the day itself will be peaceful, bringing with it a quiet gladness that he was in my life. But the anniversary is not the end of anything. In fact, it is the beginning of something even worse — the beginning of another year without him. Another year where he is dead. Another year of trying to build a future on the ashes of our shared past.

The worst thing, of course, is that I’ve had two years of living in a world where he does not exist. The sheer goneness of him builds rather than dissipates. He is more gone now than he was two years ago, and next year he will be even more gone. Apparently, one can get used to anything, so eventually I’ll simply get used to the feeling of emptiness he left in the world, perhaps even learn to look beyond the blank space on Earth he once inhabited.

I hope, of course, I will be able to find a new life. Or do I mean a new focus? Because, of course, this is my life and always has been. It was my life before I met him, it was my life while we were together, and it is still my life, as alien as it feels. And as much as I hate that he is dead, as much as I fight the idea that I am still alive, the truth is that he is, and that I am.

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Counting Down to the Second Anniversary of Grief

March 23, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been on a grief hiatus for a few months — no major upsurges of grief — but yesterday, for no apparent reason, I started crying, and I’ve been crying on and off ever since. I’ve been trying not to think of the upcoming two-year anniversary of my life mate/soul mate’s death, trying to look ahead to the future, trying to find something to be passionate about (or at least something to hang my life on). Despite the exhaustion of attempting to put a good face on the seemingly bleak future, I thought I’d been doing well.

And then came the tears.

It still surprises me that the body remembers even when the conscious mind doesn’t. I’d forgotten that yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the last time we talked, the last time we were together in our home, the last time we touched. But something deep inside, something beneath thought, remembered. And grieved.

Two years ago yesterday, the hospice nurse expressed concern for us. I hadn’t slept in I don’t how many days, and neither had he. Some people, as they near death, suffer from what is called terminal restlessness. In his case, the rapidly growing tumors, his impossibly fast heart rate, the morphine, and various other factors made it impossible for him to be still. He wanted/needed to be on his feet, moving, always moving. And since he was too weak to be left alone, I would pace with him.

That last morning at home, the nurse suggested that he go to the hospice care center for a five-day respite, and he and I agreed. He knew I needed sleep (though ironically, I got very little sleep those days) and I thought they would adjust his dosages to give him the most alertness and the least pain. But they never tried. They dosed him with tranquilizers to keep him in bed, and he never had another moment of consciousness.

Those days were exactly two years ago. And I remember them as clearly as if they were happening now. I watched him die. I was there at the end. As agonizing as that was, I know there are worse things. I might not have been there when he took his last breath. I might not have witnessed the very moment he left my life. I might not have been able to say good-bye. Unlike many bereft, I don’t have to deal with those regrets.

For a long time I regretted taking him to the hospice care center — I felt as if I’d deprived him of one more day at home, one more day of lucidity, but in the end, I suppose there was no other choice. He’d stopped being able to swallow, the morphine made him disoriented, and the tranquilizers they prescribed to stop the terminal restlessness made him delusional. I’m glad he doesn’t have to deal with his body any more, but oh, I so wish I could see him once more, or talk to him on the phone, or go back to his store where we spent so much time when we were young and new.

I hope death feels better from the other side than it does from this side, because the only thing that brings me peace is the belief that he is no longer suffering. It’s strange to think that the very moment his suffering ended, mine began. I never expected to grieve. He’d been sick for so very long that his death came as a relief, but when the truth hit me, it hit with the force of a cyclone. And two years later, I am still whirling from the pain.

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What is Life? What is Death? And What do Such Questions Have to do With Grief?

March 13, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I always like when people think out loud here on my blog, when something I have said strikes an answering chord, and often when they’re not sure if they are making sense, they make the most sense to me. The only good thing about my grief is that I’ve met some wonderful people who are struggling with the same questions I am, and I’ve had some thought-provoking discussions about the meaning of life, death, grief, and whether any of it matters.

Leesa from Leesis Ponders believes that it does matter. She wrote on her blog:

I have spent my whole life asking if there is a god and if so what does it have to do with me.

And for me, life matters.

The search for self that blends into all matters.

The way we act towards others matters.

The way we raise our kids matters.

The way we treat the less empowered matters.

Leesa has been here with me through almost two years of grief, letting me know that my grief matters, that life matters.

In a previous post, Falling Into Grief, I wrote: Before people fall in love, they haven’t a clue of its true power, and then it washes over them in a life-changing moment. Before you fall into grief, you haven’t a clue of its true power, but it too washes over you in a life-changing moment, and all but drowns you. Even though I’ve experienced so much of what grief does to a person, I still can’t believe its power. The way grief reflects falling in love as in a very dark mirror, there has to be a hormonal component. I know stress releases hormones, as does shock. Adrenaline courses through your body, and there are changes in brain chemistry that produce hormones. Your immune system goes on hold.

Leesa responded: one thing you are absolutely spot on about is that we don’t know the power of falling in love nor the power of grief, nor indeed the power of love when ones baby is born until we actually experience it. The reality of life seems to be that our most intense experiences in life are about our deepest connection to each other. These experiences are life altering and this goes way beyond the DNA imperative.

For me personally then questions upon questions arise. Why is this intimate connection our deepest need, our greatest joy?  What is pain about? What is the sense of being alone about? How does our idea of separating off into couples and nuclear families contribute to our sense of loss when death occurs? Why are we so interdependent on each other, on the planet on everything else. And, what is death about? 

I know that many people feel they have their answers to that last question, some theologically, some via science but personally I don’t. Another bunch of folk seem to think we can’t answer such questions. I don’t agree. I think since many of us have dumped traditional theological answers or scientific reductionist responses as inadequate we’ve kind of given up questioning. I think we need to keep questioning because whilst we are subject to many biochemical reactions to life events there is a deeper reality.

Of course none of this helps a person smack bang in the middle of grief. It still has to be lived through. But I’m convinced that we need to keep asking. I hope this makes sense to what you’ve written…I’m not sure it makes exact sense to me. I guess I just feel that once we truly understand more our experience of these events will be perceived differently…perhaps the pain will be the same but perceived differently. I’m not sure really but I am sure we don’t know enough to interpret meaning yet.

Leesa’s question, “What is death about?” haunts me. She’s right — many people do think they know the answer, but there is no way to know for sure, which is why it’s called a “belief” and not a “surety.” I do think there is a deeper reality, I’m just not sure our conscious selves are a part of it. We are so much a product of our genetics, our hormones, our brains (anyone who has had to cope with an Alzheimer’s sufferer or a loved one who had cancer in their brains, and found a stranger in that familiar body, knows how much the brain controls who we are), that I’m not sure how much of “us” survives.

There is a theory that our bodies are like television channels, receptors for certain wavelengths, so that our “souls” actually reside outside our bodies, but what does that have to do with life in our bodies?.

My friends laugh at me (affectionately) when I ask what we’re supposed to do with eternity. We have no mouths to talk, no hands to write, no arms to hug, no eyes to read or watch movies, no legs to walk.

On the other hand, if human life is a spectrum as I postulated a few days ago, then perhaps the spectrum of a human life is the same sort of spectrum as light — beginning long before the visible part appears and ending long after the visible part disappears. Of course, the non-visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum aren’t light but sound and radiation and other invisible waves, so whatever exists outside of the visible human spectrum might be something completely different from we can ever imagine.

When I get lost in the questioning, I hold tight to Leesa’s credo that such such questions matter, that life matters.

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Falling into Grief

March 11, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I wonder how much of grief is hormonal. I often think of the young women who have their lives mapped out, want to accomplish so much, are on the fast track to success and then . . . whap. They meet the love of their life, and all of a sudden, their lives, their plans, their dreams all change. Those sex/nesting/procreating hormones are so powerful, they can derail your life, make you see things in a different light, make you do things you would never do. Women who never wanted kids start dreaming of cradling sweet-smelling bundles, look for houses in neighborhoods with good schools, invest in SUVs. People call this maturity, but basically, it’s just hormones and preprogrammed DNA kicking in. After all, in terms of genetics and evolution, we are just DNA machines, and everything works together to make sure we do our duty.

Grief does the same thing. It makes us see things in a different light, makes us want things we’d never thought about, derails all our plans, makes us do and feel things we never thought possible. Changes us. People think grief is a choice, but it isn’t — it’s something that’s thrust on us. There is no way we can choose to feel things we never imagined possible. I thought grief was a quiet melancholy, a sweet nostalgia, a pervasive sadness. Grief, for me was none of those things. (Well, that’s not strictly true — it’s how I felt when my brother and my mother died, but did not at all resemble how I felt after my life mate/soul mate died.)

A friend of mine wrote me: I have done therapy for 40 years. I have worked with people who have lost kids, spouses, parents, dogs everyone and every kind of pet. I had NO clue what it was really like in spite of losing my best friends and parents. I think a therapist who counsels someone in grief should have gone through a loss like you and I have before she/he tries to help someone. God knows there are enough of us out here who REALLY know grief. NOW I am one of them. (I hope she doesn’t mind I passed this on, but it is too important to keep to myself.)

Before people fall in love, they haven’t a clue of its true power, and then it washes over them in a life-changing moment. Before you fall into grief, you haven’t a clue of its true power,  but it too washes over you in a life-changing moment, and all but drowns you. Even though I’ve experienced so much of what grief does to a person, I still can’t believe its power. The way grief reflects falling in love as in a very dark mirror, there has to be a hormonal component. I know stress releases hormones, as does shock. Adrenaline courses through your body, and there are changes in brain chemistry that produce hormones. Your immune system goes on hold.

Do our bodies know we are no longer mated and ratchet back the DNA machine? I do know there is some effect on the limbic system. The lizard brain, which has been slumbering peacefully beneath our consciousness, wakes up and screams, “What?? I could die?? Say it isn’t so!” That’s a bit fanciful, so many of us feel it deep inside, the hurt of an animal who suddenly realizes there is an end. (As if there isn’t enough to contend with when if comes to grief.)

I don’t suppose it really matters what causes the physiological changes of grief — hormones, stress, agony, lizard brains. The primary cause is what matters. Someone we were deeply connected to died, and we fell into grief.

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Dealing With Grief After a Loved One’s Long-Term Illness

March 10, 2012 — Pat Bertram

There are so many misconceptions about grief that still, after two years of being steeped in the culture of the bereft, I am surprised by people’s comments. I met a woman the other day who asked about my experiences with the death of my life mate/soul mate, and when I told her that he had been sick for many years, she said, “It must have been a lot easier for you than if he had died suddenly in a car accident or something.” Um . . . no.

All deaths bring trauma to the survivors, and you cannot compare relative severities. If someone dies suddenly, the survivors have to deal with unbelievable shock, with the dreadful chores of laying the dead to rest, with the after effects of the loss, with the despair of not having been able to say good-bye, with finding hurtful troves of personal belongings that the deceased would have gotten rid of if they had known they were dying, and probably dozens of other issues of which I am unaware.

If someone dies after a prolonged illness, you still have the shock. Even though you know the person is dying, you get used to it. Their dying becomes a fact of your life, and you just somehow assume that is the way it will always be — their dying, your struggling to live despite it. And when they die, it comes as an unbelievable shock. And, as with any death, the total goneness of the person adds to the confusion and shock. You expected to feel the same way when they were gone as you always did, because, after all, you’d been preparing yourself for years for that eventuality. But you don’t feel the same, you don’t feel any way you could ever have imagined. The onslaught of physical/emotional/spiritual trauma is the same as if he had died suddenly, because all death is sudden. He is alive and then a fraction of a second later, he is dead. There is no in between state. And there is no way to prepare yourself for his total goneness. Nor is there any way to prepare yourself for the reactions of your body and mind. These reactions come without your knowledge, your consent, or your inclination.

Afterward, of course, you have to deal with the chores of laying the dead to rest and with the effects of the loss. Sometimes you have to deal with the despair of not having been able to say good-bye — often doctors hold out hope, wrongly assuming they are doing you a service, when in fact the truth would have been more compassionate. At the very least, you’d have had a chance to say good-bye. This might not seem like much to those who have not suffered a grievous loss, but I did have a chance to say good-bye, and it brought me enormous comfort over the past couple of years. I cannot imagine the pain of not being able to say good-bye or saying one last “l love you” or hugging one more time. Those are moments that are stolen from so many bereft, moments that can never be captured.

Those whose loved ones take many years to die end up with all sorts of traumas and issues because of the long dying. You hate yourself for having taken his dying for granted. You are appalled at yourself for all the times you got angry at or irritated by his infirmities. You feel guilty that you held fast to your own life while his seeped away. You wish you could take back every impatient word, every bristling stance, every horrible thought. (I remember once wishing he’d just die and put us both out of our misery. It was a fleeting thought, and understandable, but still, I wish I’d been less human at that moment and more humane.) All of these traumas add to your grief, because each has to be acknowledged, understood, forgiven.

If your mate died after suffering a long time, you do have the scant comfort of knowing he is no longer in pain, but you also have to deal with the agonizing corollary that he shouldn’t have had to suffer at all.

Even if it were easier to deal with death after a prolonged illness rather than a sudden death, (or vice versa) the truth is still the same, and still unbearable. He is dead, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

***

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.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

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The Shoulder Season of Grief

March 8, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I had a rough time around the publication of my new book, Grief: The Great Yearning, due partly to the fact that the story of me and my life mate/soul mate has been told and is now contained between the covers of a book, and partly to the realization once and for all that he is never coming back. I already knew that of course, knew it from the moment he died, and I came to that same realization dozens of times afterward, but this time I reached rock bottom of acceptance, and it took. Surprisingly, the last couple of days have been good ones. My emotional state evened out, and I felt light. It wasn’t just that my grief took a hiatus, but also that my anger had dissipated. I’ve been angry for so long, since way before he died, that it became my default state. Because of that, I didn’t even realize I’ve been angry.

For many years, we sustained loss after loss — his health, our business, security — and finally, his life. So many reasons to be angry. I haven’t been furious or enraged, just a quiet anger that went soul deep. So, why did the anger leave me, even if only temporarily? I don’t know. Perhaps because the realization he is never coming back brought the knowledge that the past really is the past. Or perhaps this is simply the latest stage of my grief, a letting go. Or perhaps it’s because spring is almost here.

Whatever the reason, I no longer fear the third year of grief. I expect to experience grief upsurges, but for the most part, I think I’ll be entering the shoulder season of grief.

In the travel business, the time between the high season and the low season is called the shoulder season. I’m coming up on the two-year anniversary of his death. I will probably have some unbearably sad days as the date approaches, but after the anniversary, I could be entering a time of not-grief but not non-grief, either, a bit of a shoulder between the wildness of my early grief and the road to the rest of my life.

I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, but I feel a quickening of interest. If I let myself, I still panic at the thought of growing old alone, of being old alone, of dying (although the idea of being dead doesn’t bother me, dying does — it can be a terrible thing) but I still have many good years left. I actually might accomplish something. Or not. I’m not sure if I want to “do” or if I want simply to “be”. I do have a new philosophy, though — the platinum rule. If the golden rule is to treat others the way you would want them to treat you, then the platinum rule is to treat yourself the way you would want others to treat you. So, I intend to be kind to myself, to be patient with my deficiencies, to be proud of my accomplishments. And I intend to encourage myself to be bold and adventurous.

Sounds like a good beginning to my shoulder season of grief.

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