One of the things that I've become increasingly more aware of with the passing of time is that grief surrounds us more and more as we age. It comes in forms that are sometimes surprising, but it deals with the same consistent theme: LOSS. We grow older and the losses seem to increase; jobs, money, homes, loved ones...it's all there in one form or another and sometimes several at the same time. It's intriguing to me that we each handle our loss in different ways and yet, it can often be filed under the same seven stages of grief:
- Shock or Disbelief
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Guilt
- Depression
- Acceptance and Hope
Many of us get stuck on one of those stages and find it hard to move through them and eventually overcome them and that's when our friends and family become our greatest allies in a war we never wanted to wage in the first place.
I've mentioned a few times that the edit button in my brain is severely damaged, but it's never more real to me how much damage there is until I'm faced with a difficult discussion...usually one about grief. I find myself saying things and then wondering, "Was that the right thing to say?" "Did I just put my foot in my very large mouth again?" "GOD! I hope they know I wasn't trying to trivialize their pain!" Usually it's all in my head, but the thoughts continue to repeat almost every time. I think this is one of those problems that a lot of us have: the inability to know what to say to someone who is grieving.
We feel lost in those moments, sometimes entirely unable to respond in a healthy way, because the reason has been sucked out of us with a gigantic gale force wind. We want to make the person feel better, we want them to know that life will go on...but our brains have a giant hole where reason used to be and we forget our empathy. We forget what it is to grieve in that moment and say or do crazy things that we never would've thought possible in our saner moments of life.
My go to point is usually laughter. I've been gifted with the laugh of my mother (and her mother before her)...it's not a chuckle or a guffaw, rarely ever is it a giggle, it's usually a round of explosive cackling laughter. I've been likened to a witch's maniacal laughter more than a few times and have gradually accepted it as a compliment because many of the people who have said it have also mentioned how contagious my laughter is. This go to point is so wired into my crazy brain that I was recently making a friend laugh at her husband's visitation because I didn't know what else to do in the midst of so much grief...I felt like I was in a waking nightmare through the whole thing and knew that when I'm weighed down, I need to laugh. So there I stood, with a few other people, forming a protective circle around my amazing friend and helping her to refocus after each visitor gave their well wishes and sympathy for the family. It's not the right response for everyone, but I knew that this one friend, more than any other, needed the laughter. She is my Laughing Buddy and we've seen each other through a lot of craziness over the last 2 years with our off-branded humor shared mostly through texting because neither one of us likes to call...we're much better having that time to edit ourselves.
But what of the ones that can't laugh through it? What do I say then? What does anyone say to make it better? NOTHING...yep, nothing. The beauty of the Road Of Recovery is that I finally get that there is not a damn thing I can say or do that is going to make whatever they are going through okay. Those are the times to just listen...let them talk if they need to, let them cry, let them scream into the wind, but, for the love of all that is Holy, keep your mouth shut! Platitudes such as, "I've been there. I know what you're going through." “Time will heal.” "It's all for the best." "It's all in God's plan.", will only cause the person to want to smack the living crap out of you. Or at least that's been my experience...maybe I just say them wrong.
I still say stupid things. I still feel like I've done the wrong things when someone was just trying to vent their grief or frustration over loss, but the difference now is that I know I can't take it back. All I can do is look to see if I have caused further injury or pain and if the answer is a resounding yes, then I can make amends, hope they accept and try to move on. Because that is what I would want someone to do for me...and isn't that the basic principle to live by? The Golden Rule? "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You"...a simplistic rule for a complicated world, but I truly believe it is the right attitude for me. If I wouldn't want someone to say something to me during my own time of grief, then I sure shouldn't say it to someone else.
