Grief. Its a word we all know but until we experience it, the depths it reaches and the intensity of its rawness is hard to fully grasp. In this last year I have come to grips with losing a 28 year relationship, one that consumed the entirety of my adulthood, and as a result also losing my intact family. Then before the dust had even settled, I lost the only other important male relationship in my life- my dad. I thought I knew what grief was, I thought I understood pain and loss, but the traumatic hospitalization and subsequent loss of my previously robust dad on the heels of the loss of my marriage has deepened my understanding. Raw pain will do that.
Grief Avoidance- ways to titrate the pain
It is the finality of it. I'm an optimist at heart, but the finality of death means there is no going back, no do overs, no second chances. In so much of grief there are ways, creative ones even, that beckon us, inviting us to avoid the intensity of it. It is a natural human inclination to avoid pain. In my marriage I was queen of this - holding on to false hope, denying the reality of what was in front of me that others could see so clearly (and gently would try to get me to see as well). I overfunctioned in compensation for his underfunctioning, believing that if I tried harder somehow it could balance things out. These strategies, although I wasn't completely conscious of it at the time, let the pain of accepting his inability/unwillingness to address his addiction seep in slowly, step by step until I was able to truly face reality. Beginning to face reality was still a gradual process, the pain buffered by false hope shrouding complete acceptance of what had been consistently shown to me time after time and to numb grief. It was a gradual, step by painful step, grief process that was incredibly difficult, but whose intensity was titrated and able to be digested piece by piece.
Factors behind complicated and/or delayed grief
The loss of my dad, on the other hand, was brutally fast. Not as fast as many losses, nor as unexpected as others, as he had lived a long and full life. But in all relativity, it seemed to happen at lightning speed as so much traumatic loss does. Helping me mow my lawn one week, being my main support for managing being a single parent, to being battered, bruised and unable to speak in a hospital bed. Information thrown at us, one decision after another leading his body to increasingly fail more dramatically with each new illogical medical decision. Watching helplessly as he lost one function after another, being in survival mode as family members grieved and tried to stay afloat in a disempowering system. Worrying about whether the whole trainwreck would take down other family members as well. There are so many situations and traumatic events that happen in which the sheer intensity and speed overwhelms our nervous system and as a result does not allow our mind/body to assimilate, to process what is happening in real time. It is actually a beautifully built in way our psyche protects us by putting the raw emotions of terror, anger and/or grief on a shelf to be processed later. The speed, the intensity of it drives us into survival mode just trying to cope with the reality in front of us, moment by moment, choice by choice as best as we are able. All of which are common contributors to delayed and/or complicated grieving. When it ends, especially if it ends tragically as in the case of my dad, when the unthinkable and unimaginable happens and there is no hope to cling to, when there is no longer a situation you are trying to survive but rather a reality you are forced to accept, it is then that the pain, the ecological emotions have the space to truly begin to emerge.
There was book a client once gave me called"Feelings buried alive never die". It was one of those titles that captured a truth that resonated so deeply that years later, despite not remembering the content of the book, the title still stays with me. When we are in survival our mind/body does what it needs to do to just get through it and it is only later that the feelings reemerge. It is when the immediate danger or the intensity slows, when the dust settles and we are out of the thick of whatever our own unique situation is, this is when the thawing happens inviting this delayed grief to pull up a chair and to be heard. Frostbite is an analogy that resonates with me- the physiological process whereby our body is numb to the pain of our body freezing, but when we begin to warm back up, it is then that pain is felt. A painful, but necessary stage on the path to healing whether physiologically or emotionally from unprocessed emotions.
Our mind/body's innate drive for healing, wholeness, & health
Unlike the spontaneous, innate physiological recovery from frostbite, when conditions and our environment provide enough safety that our grief begins to beckon us to feel it, to hold space for it, we all have a choice. There are a myriad of ways to cope, our inclinations often predicated on implicit, ingrained coping mechanisms from our childhood, as well as the amount of safety and support we have in our lives. One common choice encouraged by a society uncomfortable with the nonlinear and often messy grieving process is to simply avoid it, to numb it, and to push it back down. Creative ways to avoid and numb abound in today's society. Is it any wonder why there rampant increases in all types of addictions today? This unfortunately is part of the cost of avoidance and in my experience, it is also usually these very strategies that create a powder keg that give feeling our emotions a bad rap. Anger that explodes, incomplete fear that comes out as paralyzing anxiety and difficulty sleeping, unresourced sadness that emerges as seemingly nonsensical depression. E-motions are meant to do just that- be in motion, to move to completion. So we can try to stifle the flow of health but it is a strong and vital force that actually is reflective of the vibrancy of our system's drive for wholeness, healing, and health. So when our mind/body senses the danger has decreased, the overwhelming influx of information and decisions has stopped, the feelings start to thaw, they start to emerge and there is no way around the truth that if we make the choice to hold sacred space, to allow the feelings it will hurt.
Immeasurable value of safe community
This pain can often feel too much to bear, we can doubt our own capacity to handle it, we can get fearful and try to fight the current, the movement. Nowhere is this exemplified more clearly than the rate of suicide of Vietnam veterans- they made it through and survived the war often witnessing things and engaging in situations that are beyond most of our comprehension, but the intensity of what they experienced as it reemerged post war, was most likely an important factor contributing to higher numbers dying from suicide than had actually been lost in the war itself. Especially for complicated grief, trauma, early developmental losses and abuse, allowing the emotions suppressed for survival to begin to reawaken is something best done with a loving and supportive community and/or a trained professional depending on each individual's unique situation. Truly, it is in these times that we need to gather our tribe, seek out wise others who have walked this path, turn up our self care regimen, and to choose not to swim upstream against our own inherently wise system beckoning us towards healing, but rather to step into what many call the "river of grief".
So my own processing has been ongoing since that fateful day August 23, 2019, the morning we lost my dad to iatrogenic causes of his medical "care" (side note- being victim of an unjust system can also be a factor in "complicated grief"). I believe he had been holding out to die at home, dying the morning after he got home. None of us were prepared for him to go that quickly. The myriad of emotions from the whole traumatic three months from hospitalization to death were initially stifled by the sheer amount of practicalities that need to be attended to after death. Busyness can keep the full impact of the realness of it all, the emotions that were coupled with reality at bay. However, this stops at some point. The memorial is over. A return to a one's previous life happens and then comes the creating of a new reality. I have heard it described as figuring out who you are without your loved one and learning to love the one you lost in their absence. For me this meant attempting to create a new normal without my dad and his all in way of showing up for me and my kids. But "first after" holidays, surrounded by events and things that "should" bring joy, a time of sentimentality, of memories throughout the years, these times can be a trigger to any unresolved feelings and can often take any delayed grief off that shelf it has been stored on to move you and me towards deeper healing.
So as I write this on Christmas eve, our first Christmas without my dad, my children's grandfather, I am struck a little deeper with the reality of this loss, with the very nature of grief itself. The reality that he won't be here to play games with my kids, to unwrap simple presents that he will be ridiculously grateful for, to fall asleep in his chair as the rest of us stay up late to watch a movie, to take care of my dog and give me that look he was so good at if I complained he was spoiling her, to give me a hug and tell me he loved me. Day to day after a loss, unless you lived with the person you lost (a whole other layer of intensity), even after a loss of this magnitude on the heels of a painful year, I'll be honest, I have found relief occasionally in the forgetting. But these "first afters" they bring the absence, the loss front and center. Inescapable and palpable, the intensity reminds me of his importance, of how he made a difference with his presence. So much so that his absence is felt deeply and strongly.
If there is one thing I have learned in life so far, it is that pain can often be a impetus for transformation. I know, even writing this that I need to clarify that I would give every ounce of transformation and insights and growth back in a heartbeat to have my dad back. Without a second thought. But given this is not an option, I have found pain has helped me face those things I have been avoiding or even to feel my own strength in being able to move through hard things. In the same way I have found that grief can be a gateway to a deeper, more authentic me. Maybe even a maelstorm that comes in and cleans house in our mind/body and allows this disarray, this disorganization to proceed a rewiring, a more conscious and intentional reorganization A reminder that our tomorrows for ourselves and our loved ones is never guaranteed, that we don't get a do over on today. A value checkup that asks the vitally important question of if we are living our best lives, aligned with our values and with behavior that reflects our priorities. If our answer is no, stepping in to the essential and critical inquiry of why not and if we want that to change.
Stepping in to the river
So, today, I choose to step in to the heartache, to dip my toes in the river of grief and the array of accompanying emotions, to allow versus fight this flow towards healing. Partly to keep him a part of our celebrating, a part of our holidays. My grief reminds me that he mattered and made a difference in his life with his love and his presence. It is a beacon to remind me what this time of year is about and to make sure that if I, too, am absent one day that my absence would be felt and missed, also. So today I choose to be fully present, to be all in, to feel the good, the messy, the ugly. The irony is that allowing the sting of loss often also opens us to the freedom, the joy, the remembering of who we are and the sweetness of memories of the one we lost. This is the true gift of losing someone who matters- allowing the heartache, the storm of grief to sweep through us cleansing us and refocusing us on what matters, creating new space and capacity for love and joy, reminding us of our strength in the process. To allow his life to truly live on in the fabric of my character by consciously choosing who I am, what I value and believe in, and to make the decision to live that truth choice by choice, day by day.
Are you, too, struggling this holiday season with grief, with the loss of a loved one? I would love to hear your story, to hear your process of moving through grief, of finding your new normal. I welcome your comments, your stories, you supporting your river of grief, your flow towards healing with anything you choose to voice here.
Dedicated to my father, Robert D. Kraft, January 14, 1941- August 23, 2019
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