by James White
The Work of Grieving
While grief is certainly disorderly, and while you may revisit various of the stages and emotions more than once during your grieving, there is a way of looking at the process that might be helpful. In a very general, over-arching way, we could divide the process up into four phases:
This over-simplified view doesn't deal with the specific feelings one experiences, but rather with what grief should be doing in a person's life. And I cannot stress enough the fact that the two middle items involve work. Grieving is work, no matter how else we may look at it. The person who decides to be diligent in doing that work will find the experience no less painful, but will certainly find it to pass more quickly.
The outline above is especially helpful in aiding us in getting the "broad picture." Shock and numbness come first. Then we are faced with the storm of feelings and emotions, and we must work through them, face them, and learn from them. Then comes the time when we must engage in the long and tedious work of unlearning old habits, habits tied to the person who has gone from us, and learning new ones that are based upon our new reality in life. This, too, takes time and work, but eventually allows us to move to the point of "re-entry" into "normal" emotional life, a life marked by joys and sorrows, but not marked by the constant remembrance of the loved one who has died.
Working Through the Emotions
The primary job we face when dealing with our emotions is simply being honest with ourselves. Many people are concerned about the depth and range of emotions they encounter in grief, and end up "burying" various of their feelings out of fear or shame. Yet we must be honest with the feelings we are experiencing. That doesn't mean we have to go around telling everyone else what we are experiencing in every instance, but surely we must be honest with ourselves and with those who are closest to us, including the Lord through prayer. Of course, God is well aware of what we are feeling, so trying to deceive Him is impossible anyway. And here is another gift of grace for the Christian, for the Lord, who knows our hearts, is always with us, and accepts us even in our pain and confusion.
At the beginning, we should simply seek to take it "one day at a time," knowing that we simply cannot be prepared for what lies ahead of us. Many people, especially those who have watched a loved one die over a long period of time due to cancer or some similar disease, think they are "ready" for that death, but I have found that as long as life exists, we cannot enter fully into the grieving process. Oh yes, such a person may indeed experience elements of the process even before death, due to the debilitation of their loved one, but no one can be prepared for the full process until life itself has ended.
Dealing with the Good Cry
Sometimes you will just "sense" a good cry coming on. You eventually give up trying to figure out what triggered it-most of the time you can't figure it out anyway (grief is not a logical thing). But you know it is headed your direction. What do you do? Well, fighting it probably won't work, and if you do, and lose, you'll just feel twice as bad. So, I suggest that if you feel a real good cry coming on, it's time to make something positive out of it. Go get that photo album you've been hiding in the closet, get it out, and if you are going to cry, you might as well make it a positive experience, mixed with joy at the memories brought back by those pictures.
As I've mentioned before, our society doesn't handle grief well, and will often tell people that crying is somehow "bad" for them. Of course, if it is the daily and hourly experience of the person, that would be true. But our society has gone to the other extreme in removing our natural and healthy expressions of sadness from us, and replacing them with something like, "Hey, be a man." While there is a place for a positive exhortation to move on with life, take courage in the Lord, and experience His joy in service to others, there is also the recognition of the importance of tears as well. There is nothing "wrong" with weeping. Even the Lord Jesus, when faced with the tragedy of death and decay, wept (John 11:35). You will shed many a tear when working through the emotions that come on the heels of death. It is "OK" to cry, and I say that to both men and women. Men are often ashamed by the emotions they feel when grieving, but there is simply no reason for shame. God made us feeling beings as well, and we dare not short-change ourselves just because our society has a very unrealistic view of what it means to be a "man."
Transitions
As we work through our feelings and accept their healing role in our suffering (i.e., as we move upward on the spiral of grief), we begin to see, if dimly at first, that we are in a period of transition. We are changing because our life has changed. Our situation has been altered drastically, and we must adjust to the new reality. Many find this to be one of their greatest sources of anger, by the way. "I liked my life the way it was, and I am angry, very angry, that my life has been changed." Yet changed it has, and the sooner we are able to grasp this reality, and embrace it through God's grace, the sooner we will make it through the grieving process.
The severity of the transition through which one goes after a loss is very much related to how central to our life was the person who has been taken from us. If our father or mother has gone, were we particularly close to them, so that they were a part of our daily lives? If so, the transition will be great. If our wife or husband, was our very self-identification directly related to this person? Then again, such a transition is going to be very major, and the process long. Did we lose a friend with whom we shared everything? Another major transition.
Obviously, the loss of a distant relative or a neighbor with whom we had little contact does not impact us the way the loss of someone very close to us does. The more vital a part of our life that person was, the more deeply we will feel the loss, and the longer it will take to transition from what "was" to what "is."
One might see this period of transition as a relationship changing from one of flesh-and-blood contact to one of memories. One day we were speaking with and touching our loved one. The next day we can no longer do this. The shock of bereavement is just a symptom of the fact that we cannot immediately process the reality that our lives have been so drastically changed. But over time we begin to experience that relationship in a different way: in a way of memories. At first this hurts, and many experience times in their lives when they want to do anything but remember! But as time heals the wounds we begin to dwell upon the "good" memories, and our relationship becomes one of thought rather than one of direct contact. Eventually we can talk of our loved one who has gone without breaking down, and can recall memories, both good and bad, without undue pain or remorse. This is the natural progression of events.
Much of the "upheaval" in our lives that is prevalent during the grieving process comes from the fact that we are "in between." We are in the process of unlearning old habits and learning new ones. Just like there is a stage in the cleaning of a room where things look a whole lot worse than they did when you started, so too the transition period is marked by unfinished projects and misplaced parts of our lives.
A common example of how we are creatures of habit who must learn, over time, new habits, has to do with the "mistaken phone call." A person who has lost someone will be at work, and will experience something good, or will hear some particular important piece of news. The first impulse is to grab the phone and dial that number. Somewhere along the line the hand stops and the heart pounds as the realization comes crashing home, "I can't call him/her, because they aren't here anymore." What may have started as a joyous thing ends up becoming a real negative because of the simple mistake, borne out of habit. If this has happened to you, take heart. It happens to us all.
We naturally think of telling our loved ones about what is happening in our lives. When they go, it takes time for us to get used to the new set of realties that marks our life. We will make mistakes-sometimes painful mistakes-but eventually we will learn the "new" habits, and will pick up the phone and call that other person who has, in some sense, taken that important role in our life.
The Matter of Belongings
One of the toughest items we deal with has to do with the belongings of our loved one. Widows have been known to simply close "that" closet and leave it alone for years, simply because they could not bring themselves to look at the clothes and other personal items that remind them so strongly of "him." Even the smell of his personal items, that faint yet unmistakable scent of his favorite after-shave, is too much to be handled, especially alone.
In the same way, the parents who have lost a child may dread the process of going into the child's room and dealing with the toys, the pictures, the little clothes. At times it seems almost easier to just close the room off and forget it than it is to face that pile of painful reminders.
Belongings can be a source of real difficulty, not only for the person who does not want to face them, but also in the family where problems erupt over "who gets what." While it seems rather easy to say, things are just things, and it is better to maintain relationships over time than it is to have a particular possession. Those who are in grief over a loss frequently have trouble looking outside themselves at the "bigger picture," but by God's grace we can save ourselves a lot of heartache if we put some effort into keeping peace in the family at a difficult time.
There are two extremes to be avoided when it comes to the disposition of belongings. First, don't go for the "get rid of it all" option. Some people, unable to face the task of sorting through the belongings of the loved one, have asked others to come in and basically "take it all away." Then, later, after the first intense feelings of loss have subsided, such a person begins wishing for this item, that picture, this book, but it is too late. Everything is already gone. This is a most unfortunate circumstance.
On the other hand you dare not create "shrines" either. This happens when a person sets up a special room and enshrines certain belongings, never to be touched. Such shrines become an ever-present reminder of the loss rather than a positive way of remembering certain aspects of that person's life. A person who is tempted to make shrines may be having trouble accepting the reality of the loss itself, and may be doing things to avoid facing the truth.
If you just can't handle the task of dealing with possessions by yourself, ask a close friend or relative to go with you into that room, that closet, that storage shed. It may not be a wonderfully positive experience, but sharing it with someone else can make the burden a good bit lighter. Keep those things you really want, and give away those that you don't. If you are uncertain, keep it around for a while. If later on, when you have a more balanced viewpoint, you wish to give it away, you can. But if you give it away and later want it, you might not be able to get it back. Be conservative, but most importantly, deal with the task before you. The longer you put it off the bigger and bigger it will grow in your mind. Once you've tackled it, you will feel a good bit better.
We've now talked some about the work involved in grieving. There are also some dangers, some pitfalls, to be avoided as well. To these we now turn.
Read the next chapter.
Return to the Autumn Dawn Middleton Memorial.