When Avoidance Fails: Relearning How to Grieve - What Does it Feel Like?

Grief is a weird and frightening experience. In the early weeks, I was sure I was having a heart attack. I went to urgent care but was assured that I was healthy. I had, however, developed serious anxiety that has turned out to be something that has manifested itself in various ways from that day to this – some scary, some just weird.

Every wave of emotions felt like the moment he had died all over again and I swear I couldn't keep a sane thought in my head. There’s a term for the body’s response to the trauma of losing a spouse: Widow Brain. It describes a fogginess and disconnect that sets in following the death of a spouse and it is a coping mechanism of the brain, trying to shield itself from pain. Usually, it’s not very long-lasting – a few days to a few months; but sometimes it can have lasting effects. There’s an initial inability to process information that affects short-term memory. To this day, it’s not as prevalent, but I still have memory issues. Others remember things about that period of our lives much more clearly than me.

The pain that is felt by a death very close to us is often equated with a hole or a severe, physical wound to our body: we’ll heal but there will be a scar. The things I grieve now, and the things that often hurt the most were (and are) all of the milestones that our daughter goes through as she grows into adulthood. When she was little, it was things like her first lost tooth or her Kindergarten graduation. When she got older, it was her first prom date, her first car, (her first fender-bender,) her high school graduation, and the plays she was in, in high school. Her Dad did theater and would have been SO proud of her.

As a single parent, we didn’t have a steady male presence to help fill that spot for her. My oldest still has her father, and it was hard for her to relate. The rest of the family was busy with children of their own, work, and busy lives. I did notice that her male teachers were always her favorite. Having to be both ‘mom’ AND ‘dad’ in discipline, I made a LOT of mistakes with her. I used her father’s death to excuse her behavior instead of disciplining it and she has suffered because of it. I did her a terrible disservice by not adequately disciplining behaviors – serious behaviors – that have since led to some difficult consequences for her.

Eventually, we tried grief groups but didn’t find one we felt comfortable in. I couldn’t even tell the story of the accident without choking up and crying uncontrollably – it was embarrassing – so I would just tell people, through the heavy lump in my throat, that he was killed in a car accident – it never invited questions I couldn’t bear to answer. When I was with family, we often talked about all of it. They were the ones I told everything to – they were the ones I could be real in front of, they were there on the front lines with me from the beginning. They were my therapists. Mom would say, we’d chew on the problem, stick it in our hair for a while, and then pull it out and chew on it some more. We still do, from time to time...and we still cry.

I rarely disclosed to people that Robert passed away on Christmas Day. I really hated the audible gasp and the “Oh, you poor thing!” that often followed. For a good many years, on Christmas Day, I had a meltdown. Now, more than 20 years later, I have a private little moment of silence for him. I have a folder of memorial pictures on my FaceBook page, and I post a remembrance on his picture for his birthday every year. To his friends and family, he is always remembered.

Grief is never-ending but not never-changing…I know that’s a double-negative, but I hope that makes sense. It’s big and awful and painful in the beginning; we can’t breathe, we can’t think clearly, nothing makes sense. Over time, though – time that is different for everyone – it is less ‘big and awful and painful’. As we work through learning how to do life without them, we gradually heal…to a point; emotions become less powerful as we get more accustomed to missing them and loving them differently.

I think most people feel there is a natural order to things. Parents are “supposed to” go before children, spouses aren’t “supposed to” pass until we’re both old and gray. Losing Robert when I was 36 was exceptionally traumatic for me and shocking to others in how and when it happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I’m a “fixer” by nature. If I see a problem, I need to fix it – it’s part of my ‘gut it and bag it’ mentality. This, I could not fix. It was not something I could tie up neatly, put in a little box, and put away. But looking back at the last 20+ years, I can finally see how it has changed. Robert still holds a special place in my heart, but I don’t fall apart anymore. Of course, I still get teary if I share his story or if we talk about him for any length of time.

I will say, that the first year after a loss is certainly incredibly difficult to navigate, but it is NOT always the hardest. Not just because I "did it wrong”, but the general consensus seems to be that the first year of experiencing all of the “firsts” without them was the most difficult: The first anniversary of birthdays, holidays, and other special days; all the firsts our kids will have, and most especially the first anniversary of their death. That first year, the pain was so raw, my chest physically hurt. After just a few months, I expected I would start to feel better and when it wasn’t, I all but forced it to happen.

I’ve since realized, however, that subsequent years can be much more difficult. Again, it is different for everyone but after that first year, the shock of their loss has passed and there’s a realization that they are gone forever and now, life must go on. We’re forced to look forward differently – to make goals that don’t involve them, to figure out who we are now. In the beginning, it’s hard to start formulating those things. I hated being called a ‘widow’ – I didn’t want to be “the W word.” I hated the awkwardness of people giving me “that look”. CS Lewis writes in A Grief Observed, “I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate if they do, and if they don't.” I felt like I needed to ease their discomfort with it somehow. As the years went on, though, those situations became less frequent. Still, when I tell the story and they learn that he died on Christmas Day, I do get that surprised response, but now I tell them, “It was terribly difficult for many years, but I’ve learned how to manage it.”

Privately, other difficulties can begin to manifest over time, such as depression and sleep issues. Be mindful of your self-worth – that feeling of “I should be doing better” can make us feel like we’re not progressing as we should. Really, there is no “should” about it – one of my favorite “isms” is, “Don’t ‘should’ all over yourself.” Be careful not to dwell on the ‘what if’ questions or the ‘if only’ thoughts, and the biggest one: “Why?” This is often the most difficult to overcome; we may never know and we’re powerless to resolve it. In the end, though, the hardest thing to realize is, it doesn’t matter why – it cannot be undone. Looking back to ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ will not change ‘what is.’ It’s very easy to slip into a well of self-pity and stop taking care of ourselves. There is a tremendous amount of willpower involved in getting up, moving forward, and working through the emotions. Having others to lean on is priceless, and when someone offers, “whatever you need…” let them. That’s hard to do, especially if you’re naturally a self-sufficient individual like I am. If at all possible, it is important not to try to do it all yourself. Let them help. Let them listen. The less we feel alone, the easier it is to begin to adjust to a new way of moving forward.

Eventually, the time may come when we’re ready to give love another chance; not for everyone, of course, but for some. I don’t recommend moving on as quickly as I did, though…the path to “fix that" has had some very long-lasting consequences and had most certainly jaded my view of love for many years after. Yes, I did it to myself, but even if I had waited longer, he wasn’t the right man for me. I wanted comfort and familiarity, but people change, and he was no exception. It took a long time to forgive myself for that detour.