Embracing the Hard Stuff

Embracing the Hard Stuff

A card was forwarded to me recently from the Crawford County Independent and Kickapoo Scout's office. It’s not unusual to receive mail in response to my weekly column. What was unusual was the six-page handwritten letter inside.

But before I could read it, the dogs started barking, alerting me to a visitor. Joyce had arrived with treats for my critters: apples from her orchard and excess zucchini and squash from her garden. After sharing a hug and unloading her truck, we started talking about grief.

Joyce still grieves the loss of her mom years ago. Her mom was a smart, active lady and an avid reader. After her stroke, it was hard for Joyce to watch her mom struggle with the simplest of tasks. Joyce wonders if she’ll ever get over this loss.

Later, my neighbor Mary confided that a dear friend had expressed anger at her for “not being there” for him after his wife of 60 years died. He’d felt abandoned by her not reaching out more often.

I nodded. “I get that. I’ve felt the same way.”

At my dad’s funeral, we received condolences and stories about my dad from his friends' perspectives as they came through the receiving line. I kept hoping to see one of my own friends there. I desperately needed acknowledgment of my grief from someone who knew me, but none came.

In my pain, I completely disengaged from those friends. Years later, I told them how not seeing them at my dad’s funeral had hurt. A few claimed they’d been there but didn’t feel they belonged in that line.

I’ve done that too. When an acquaintance’s husband died, I felt awful for her and her two young children, yet I ended up not attending the funeral. I convinced myself I didn’t know her well enough. Instead, I made her a concrete plaque for her garden. It still sits in my front yard. I didn’t feel I knew her well enough to give it to her.

A few years ago another friend died from cancer. I’d visited her, called her, and even worked with her on a project during her treatments. But I felt the funeral was only for her family and close friends. Again, I didn’t attend.

Often people reach out in the first couple of weeks after a death, but they stop about when the shock of that death has worn off. This can leave the grieving person feeling alone.

Recently, a younger friend who’s grieving the death of her grandpa and the loss of her grandmother to Alzheimer’s recommended a podcast to me, a series called All There Is, with Anderson Cooper. She told me, “He created it after the loss of his mother when he realized how loss and grief seem to be taboo in society, even though they’re among the most universal experiences.”

I feel we need to learn to respect grief, to reach out and support others who are experiencing grief, and not try to sweep away or ignore those emotions but instead honor them.

Yesterday my daughter, Jessica, explained to me that “trying to act normal” takes all her energy. After her daughter, Helena, died, Jessica began working at a new job where she hadn’t shared her tragedy. On day two, a new coworker asked, “Do you have children?” When Jessica answered yes, the woman asked, “How many?”

Even a normal question like this can send a newly bereaved parent into a tailspin. Jessica tells me Helena is on her mind from the moment she wakes up until she goes to sleep. She knows there will always be a gaping hole in her life.

And, like Joyce with her mom, me with my dad, and my young friend with her grandparents, Jessica isn’t focused on “getting over it” or “moving forward.” Grief is exhausting. Her focus is on surviving each day, knowing she’ll never see her precious child again.

When I finally read the letter the newspaper had forwarded that day, I nearly wept. The sender acknowledged the loss of my granddaughter and also thanked me for writing about “the hard stuff.”

She had suffered the loss of her best friend when she was only 24. When her dad died some years ago, she found a grief group helpful. She encouraged me to keep writing, keep sharing, and not be ashamed of my pain.

I’m not ashamed, and I will keep writing about the hard stuff. I’m in no hurry to push grief away or to move forward. Instead of pushing through grief, I'm working on embracing it—in myself and in others.