Dealing with Grief
I was recently asked by a follower to do a write up on grief. Today marks the anniversary of the six weeks that changed my life forever. September 1, 1999, my daddy finally agreed to visit the doctor, after weight loss, back pain and other symptoms had plagued him all summer. He was admitted to the hospital and scheduled for a colonoscopy the next morning. It was cancer…and it was a fairly large area.
Within days, we were in the office of the best GI surgeon in the state. He immediately bonded with Daddy over their love of Stetson hats (and the little mason jar that Dad gifted him, helped too! You mountain folks know just what I’m talking about! LOL). I knew we were going to get the very best care. Surgery was scheduled and performed.
After a ten day stay, we were back home and ready for our oncology consult. He had his first chemo treatment October 15. He died of a massive heart attack October 19.
I had been washing dishes, when my phone rang. The caller id showed Daddy’s car lot. It was a little early to hear from him, as he would normally pull in my driveway when he ran to the post office (always checking on his baby, who was expecting a baby). It wasn’t Dad. It was one of our employees, telling me Daddy had gotten sick. He had taken him to my husband, who was doing a rotation at the local clinic. He said he would pick me up and take me to meet them at the hospital. I grabbed the bib, that read “I love my Grandpa”, which I had bought just two days earlier, to tell Dad we were getting a girl! That bib was going to give Daddy the will to fight! A short time later, I ran into the ER, holding the bib and Dad’s coat. The physician was someone close to me. He immediately took me to a corner exam room. As I was questioning “where is he, where is Daddy”, I was told that the helicopter was on it’s way…but Daddy hadn’t made it. All I remember from there, is being given a couple of shots.
What??? How was this happening? This was suppose to be the very best time of my life. A new baby. Daddy had just filled up with tears, two days ago, finding out that he was getting another little me. Now my baby would never know him. He would never know my baby. Within six weeks time, Dad had been diagnosed, operated on, had a chemo treatment and passed…within SIX weeks!
The stages of grief are real: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. At first, I kept waiting for him to pull in the driveway and yell my name. Then I was angry. I was pregnant with my first baby! Why would God allow this?! So I started praying, please God….I will do this, this and this, if You will just let me have my daddy for a few more minutes. If You will just let me see him, I won’t tell anyone! After this bargaining, depression kicked in. I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I would stay up all hours of the night, working on quilts from my Dad’s clothes. I would get offended if someone mentioned him to me, because I knew I would cry. Some other things happened within days of my dad’s death that didn’t allow my mom and I to grieve properly. We were forced into dealing with legal issues, instead of being able to deal with our loss.
There is no set time for how long each stage will last. Everyone has their own coping mechanism. I don’t think, I began the acceptance phase, until my daughter was born in the spring. She gave us all something beautiful and wonderful to focus our attention on. It took a couple of years for the legal issues to be resolved, so during that time, the emotional wound would start healing and then the scab would be ripped off again. Once that was all over, I was able to start learning to live my new life…one without my dad and one that required me to grow up quite a bit. I finally found myself in a stage, where I couldn’t hear enough about Dad. I loved the stories that people would share with me. I’m still in this stage 21 years later. Friends sharing these stories allow my girls to know the Pop-Pop, who would have been absolutely crazy over them.
So how did I deal with grief, and more importantly, how can you deal with it? I think it’s important to keep their memory alive, but be very careful to not “dwell”. Those first holidays are hard. We placed a bow on Dad’s chair at the table and no one sat there. We also placed a framed photo of him in his recliner that year for opening gifts. We still light a three wick pillar candle, in memory of my grandparents and dad, each Thanksgiving and Christmas. The anniversary of his death was always a hard day for my mom and I. God has a way of working things like that out, as he allowed me to have my second daughter, six years later….on October 19th. :)
Its’s a fine line. You have to dig deep to muster up the strength to go on. Yet, don’t feel that you have to be so strong, that you can’t occasionally cry. Crying is okay. Going outside and throwing rocks in the creek just as hard as you can, is okay. Seeking counseling is okay. You may need a prescribed anti-depressant to help you and that is okay! (just remember to take them only as directed by your physician).
What is not okay, is turning to unhealthy habits (drugs, alcohol, food, etc), internalizing your emotions, and giving up. It’s my belief that our loved ones can still see us and so it’s important to live in a manner pleasing to them. Hearing that my daddy would be proud of me is one of the highest compliments I can receive.
In closing, I leave you with this quote, “Grief never ends, but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, not a lack of faith…it’s the price of love”, author unknown.
Marada
