Grief 101: What it is, and what it is not

Why do you think I write this blog?
For fame and fortune?  Hardly. For my ego?
I would much rather lose 60 lbs because that's a legitimate ego booster!

Some would say it is so that I get sympathy.
With all the crap going on out there, wanting others to feel sorry for me is the last thing I need.

I write this because I learn things about myself.  I also am obligated to educate others as to what grieving really IS. This edict comes  from many of the books addressed to grievers, but mostly I hear it from the bereavement group sessions and the things we are told there by our counselors. We are the ambassadors of grief.

There's one major thing I've learned; there is no such thing as an expert griever.  Just like a marriage, or being a parent, we can never master this.  We are always works in progress.

I remember a little embroidery picture that my mom made for one of the kids' bedrooms.  It had a little boy on it and the stitching said, "Please be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet."  Years later, I think that relates to me as an adult dealing with my life and situation now, just as it did to mothering my little boys.

"Patience is a virtue". That's an old adage. And here's another one that graced many bathrooms in my childhood, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness".  Humankind sure comes up with a lot of pat sayings to most of life, don't we?

The 'patience is a virtue' ideal can work both ways.  I ask for others' patience who have not experienced what I have YET. I also need to have that same virtue when I have the gnawing feeling that everyone is tired of putting up with my drawn out grieving.  (I mean, really, its BEEN almost six months!)

It never ends you know-  the grief you feel when someone has physically gone away.  I met a man in a grief group who lost his wife 15 years ago.  Even though he had remarried, he was grieving his first love still and even more now because he just lost his adult daughter. In some ways I feel like I miss my dad more now than when he died in '93!  I have cried sometimes because I didn't do more for my grandma before she died in a place too far away from most of her family.  I still LOVE these people very much and I always will miss them and appreciate them 

Grief is not about 'moving on'.  Please don't use that tired old phrase. We are ALL on moving conveyor belts and we like to think we have control, and can jump off at any point, but there are walls that keep us on that moving sidewalk which we didn't plan or build.  For most of our lives, we assume that the sidewalk will get us to the destination we plan and can see up ahead.  But, there are times, when we are just along for the ride and there's this big hulking guy ahead of us blocking us from seeing what's in front of him.  We can't move on when we can't get around this blockage.

Grief is not all bad!  Part of it is like being 16 and you just got your drivers license and your mom is sending you on an errand in the Chevy.  You have freedom and choices. When you are in high school no one knows WHAT the heck they will do two months from now, let alone two years from now.  Everyone has suggestions though, "Try this.!"  "Do that." "Go here- go there!"  That's exactly how you  feel when you suddenly get your unwanted freedom from someone who died and left you alone. There are choices that you never wanted, but you have to make. There is also some freedom about what choices you do make.

I haven't taken the time I had wanted to to read the tomes out there written about death and grieving.  I talk to some fellow grievers about how I feel and listen to them talk about how they feel.  Neither of us comes up with any advice for each other.  Please- we can get that in spades from other sources. Still, it would be nice to read real life experiences from literate people who are going through this.  When will I take the time? I don't know.

Since I just started this class of Grief 101, I haven't gotten very many answers.  Its mostly an online course so there's no access to an instructor in the flesh, just the TA out there in cyberspace who grades my papers. I didn't want to spring for the expensive textbook either, so I just listen in on the discussions and get what I can from the other participants.

I have a feeling that this will be a lifelong learning class for me.  No A - F grades, not even a Pass/Fail. Hopefully, grading is on the curve and the curve is made up of all people who have and who will experience death.  That's the only fair way.