Common Threads and the Grief Journey

Okay, I’m feeling old today. I got up at the crack of dawn if dawn came at 7:30---how often can I tell that “joke” before I hear groans coming out of my computer speakers? Anyway, I did get up at the crack of dawn to go on a leaf peeping tour. The only problem was I got to the senior center a week before the bus was due to depart for the half-day trip. I had gotten a new day planner and I had transferred the information over wrong. Since I was shiny clean with no place to go I did something that was so totally out of character and out of my comfort zone that I felt like I should check my driver’s license to see if I’m still me. What did I do? I called a Gathering Girl friend at 11:00 to see if she was free to meet for lunch. She is a person who lives on spur-of-the-moment decisions where I’m the opposite. I plan things out. Down to the minute. I live by the oven timer and the calendar. 7:30 up, breakfast and check the internet; 8:15 shower and dress; 9:15 feed, water and walk Levi; 9:45 leave the house, and 10:00 be on the tour bus---assuming I go on the right day. 

My adopted home town is conveniently located half way between BL’s house and mine so we met at a restaurant that overlooks the river. The food was good, the service was bad. At one point the waitress even said, “I don’t know why I keep ignoring you ladies!” By the time she screwed up the check we were more than ready to take our conversation and laughter out for a walk along the river. It was a perfect autumn day---bright and warm enough to make us want to savor the time spent outside and we learned of yet another thing we have in common besides our sense of humors and politics: We both bought memorial bricks for our husbands in the Recognition Plaza by the dam. So off we went to find them. 

We also discovered we both like Oprah and aren’t afraid to admit that in public. BL gets her newsletter and she told me about a recent article titled, What to Do if you are Still Grieving. The grief counselor who wrote the article (and a book called Getting Grief Right) says he tells his clients to write “an honest account of what happened to you and the one you lost. A grief story exposes the beauty, pain, and complexity of your emotions.” He recommends grieving people tell their story in three chapters---the first of which is about how you and the person you grieve met and in the second chapter we’re to write about the aftermath and circumstances surrounding the death and funeral. The third chapter is supposed to be about our lives that unfold from the funeral moving forward and he recommends keeping a grief journal. 

As I read through the article I realized that what the author, Patrick O’Malley PhD, recommends is exactly what most widows in the blog community, like me, are instinctively doing. One sentence about writing the third chapter is worth repeating here: “Although this chapter has a beginning, it really has no ending—or it doesn't end until we do. The third chapter is dynamic. It will change over time, but it will not end.” Where have I heard that before? Lots of places including from a couple of widows with more than two decades under their belts. From personal experience I know that raw grief dissipates over time, but a tiny piece of my heart also goes back to grief from time to time in the form of wistfulness for what might have been. Apparently Mr. O’Malley’s book has writing prompts to help non-writers tell their stories. He’s been a grief counselor for 35 years so more power to him if his book can get people who aren’t used to spilling their guts out on paper to do it. I have my doubts---not about it helping but rather that non-writers with new grief will stick with the project.

Another thread in my life this week is related in a roundabout way. I had lunch with my oldest niece which is like getting triple cherries on top of an ice cream sundae if you love cherries and ice cream which I do. My niece is such an accomplished, well-rounded and truly nice person. She’s a retired teacher---Special Ed for many years before switching to teaching reading in an elementary school. In retirement she started an alumni association for a small town high school. She runs their Facebook page with 1,700 followers, sets up fund raisers with her board of directors and they raise money to give out as college scholarships. They also collect and archive old photos and her latest venture is she bought a commercial popcorn machine so the alumni group can sell popcorn at sporting events. I love stories about people, like her, who have found a passion project in retirement. Listening to my niece talk I was wishing I had one. Then after reading the above mentioned grief article I wondered if maybe this blog isn’t my passion project. It may have started out as me documenting my grief journey but now it give me a purpose, a challenge, a sense of pride and most of all it prods me to get out of the house and out of my comfort zone so I’ll have something to write about. ©