Good Grief and Making Lemonade

Good Grief! Making Lemonade?

Clichés. Some are real eye-rollers, a lot are real tuner-outers, and most are just plain corny. The definition of cliché is: A trite or overused expression or idea, says the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, as well as other dictionaries. So, from where did “good grief” come? In a nutshell (another cliché), it is a ‘minced’ oath for, “Good God!” I didn’t know that before I looked it up. It apparently has to do with the “G’s” more than anything, and softening the oath somewhat.

I do use clichés, as do most people, but I also like to look at the literal meaning of words and phrases. Take, for instance, the exclamation, “Good grief!”

Per Merriam-Webster:

Definition of good: a (1): of a favorable character or tendency. Also included: handsome, attractive, suitable, fit, profitable, advantageous, agreeable, pleasant, and so on.

Definition of grief: 2a: deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.

So, in a literal translation, the exclamation, “Good grief!” could mean a favorable tendency for deep and poignant distress caused by…bereavement. To me, that seems like quite the oxymoron. What could be so good about grief?

On the surface, not much is good about grief, especially if one has lost a spouse. Grief hurts. It is a horrid reminder that love shared has become only one-way. The one who grieves loves, but doesn’t feel love in return. Grief is a reminder, too, that a once-happy life with a spouse, a soul mate, is no longer because that mate has died, and he or she is gone from us and that a life lived together is no more. Life has suddenly changed, and most humans don’t adapt well to that kind of change. Grieving the death of a spouse is physically, emotionally, and mentally painful. I felt as though my heart was crushed and ripped out, that there was a jagged hole torn through my soul, that I was barely a survivor and a prisoner in the desolation of my own home surrounded by memories that were more painful than migraines…and there was no relief. What’s so great about all this?

It does take a while to get through all this…for days, for weeks, for months and for some, even years. For me, it was worse than the movie, Groundhog Day, awaking every morning disappointed that I didn’t die in the middle of the night and must face the same pain and loneliness day-after-day-after-week-after-month. With help from my bereavement group sessions, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. I was not alone! With the help from my bereavement group, I found out the reason I felt this profound loss was because I loved my wife so much. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have felt as bad. The more I invested, the more I lost. But that was the good part! I loved. I was capable of great love. It was a gift for which to be thankful.

I can’t say…I won’t say…that it was easy to be thankful for this at first, nor will I say it happened overnight. It happens when it happens. I was not thankful for a long time. For me, it was months of eighteen- to twenty-hour days because I was only getting four to six hours of sleep a night. I remember the first day I awoke after my wife’s death and felt good. It was my birthday in April, almost five months after my wife died. It was as though I was gifted with peace and healing that morning. I remember opening my eyes and not feeling the ache in my chest, of not feeling as though I was stuck in a life of pain and loneliness. There was still that empty space in me, but edges of that hole were not as rough, not as jagged, and the hole seemed as though it was growing smaller…it felt as though I was finally healing. I almost felt new. It was that day that I really began to have good memories of my life with Lou. I’m also not saying that I stopped crying every time a good memory surfaced, but gradually the tears were fewer as those good memories would bring a smile. So now, what good came out of this grief? Keep reading.

When the grief began to subside, I was better able to see it. To me, it was much like the devastation that a forest fire brings. When a spouse dies, it can be as shocking and spontaneous as a tree in a forest being struck by lightning in the middle of summer, setting the branches ablaze. The fire would consume the tree and then jump to another tree and then another, carried by the wind. Embers would fall to the underbrush and it, too, would burst into flames and the fire would spread. When everything flammable was consumed, the fire would begin to die. What remains would be the charred tree trunks of what was left of the forest, standing on the blackened, smoldering ground because there was nothing left to fuel the fire. The embers would gradually cool and die, the rains would come and the ashes would soak into the wet ground, leaving a scar on the earth. In a while, though, dormant, protected seeds begin to sprout…from the underbrush as well as the charred trees. Sometimes, those seeds that sprout after a forest fire need that fire to be able to germinate. The scorched ground becomes as a newly-plowed field, and new growth…new life…begins to sprout and grow.

It can be similar for most people who have lost a spouse. A different life begins anew. A caveat to this is that the different life happens anyway, regardless of how one feels about it. Life does go on but is suddenly different without your spouse, and when that loss is suffered, new feelings of grief emerge. When grief strikes, it is consuming, it dies slowly and it leaves emotional scars in a similar way that a forest fire does. Whether that life becomes a good life or a life spent in grief, mourning, or guilt for wanting to be happy again is up to the individual. After a while, grief, mourning or guilt can become a way of life. I believe it can become habitual. I believe, after the pain of loss begins to subside, grieving or beginning a new, different and good life really does become a choice for the survivor. One can choose to remain in grief because it has become familiar, or one can choose to move on, to create a new, different and good life for one’s self. I do believe that is what a departed spouse would want for the survivor. In my case, before her brain tumors stole her memories and motor skills, and eventually took her life, my wife told me that she wanted me to go on living, to live well, and to find someone new to love because I had too much love left in me to simply go to waste. That is the single, most selfless and loving thing anyone has ever said to me. She planted that seed in my mind and heart.

When one is grieving, there doesn’t seem to be anything good about it. I would tell people who are grieving, though, that the grief they are experiencing is because of the love they have for the spouse or loved one they lost. It is only after the pain of loss dulls and good memories begin to appear, that one realizes that healing has begun. Yes, waves of loneliness and sorrow will still wash over and through one, but gradually those occurrences will happen farther apart. At the same time, one will begin to understand how others feel and have felt because of the loss of a spouse or loved one. We really begin to understand empathy at that point, and better yet, we begin to feel it.

Before my wife died, I wasn’t much of a writer. I don’t think I am now, though I have authored a book and write this blog. I’m guilty of rambling, but I do write from the heart. The reason I write is that I was told that I can put feelings into words that people can read and relate to. This became important to me after my wife died because, as a man, I didn’t know how to cope with the feelings of loss of someone I had chosen to love. I looked in the libraries, I looked on the internet, and I attended group bereavement counselling sessions, yet I could not find anything written by men for men who were grieving the loss of their wife. Yes, there was so much written about grief and what to expect in almost clinical terms, such as “You may have feelings of anger, at God or at your spouse for leaving you, feelings of loneliness, abandonment, guilt or despair. These feelings are normal.” Uh huh. It that all? This does NOT prepare one for the depth and breadth of those feelings, the pain of loss, of unrequited love, of loneliness, of utter desolation. Men are supposed to be tough, we’re supposed to suck it up and move on. I’ve always been a fighter. I’d have taken a bullet for her, I’d have taken her cancers from her and soldiered on, I’d have gladly taken the pain from her, but I couldn’t. All I was left to face were the horrid emotions of her death on my watch, a death I was powerless to stop. How do I fight that?

I managed to find the words to describe my emotions, my pain, my loneliness, and I wrote them down in a journal that I had begun when Lou was placed in hospice care and I became her primary caregiver. I wanted my boys…our boys…to know how much I loved their mom, what we went through during her last days, and to know us as people, not just their parents. Since I was caring for her, I only managed to get out three times a week for two hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to shop and run errands while the hospice workers visited with her/us. I stayed in touch with family and friends via emails that eventually found their way into my journal because I was told my emails were shared with other family members, friends, work associates, high school and college classmates across the United States, and gave them all insight to what it was like to care for a dying spouse as she slipped away a little more every day. I received emails from unexpected sources, from people I hadn’t seen or heard from in decades, from friends of friends, telling me that by writing about the emotions I experienced while caring for and watching my wife die a little more every day, I gave people insight into what really mattered in life.

After my wife died, I continued to write, to keep in touch by email because I couldn’t bear to face the world outside the safety of my home. Again, I found the words that described my emotions, and profound pain and loneliness from my loss. And again, I received emails thanking me for sharing my grief because it gave them insights to the emotions their parents and friends had experienced when they lost their spouses. I put grieving into words that were not simply clinical, but I described the breadth and depth of emotions, and the exquisiteness of the pain I felt. Until they read my emails, they had no idea how someone grieved, especially a man.

I helped them understand the people they knew who had also lost spouses by reading about my grief, my pain, my loneliness, my anger and my prayers. Others who had lost spouses told me, that because of my writings, I had put into words what they were feeling or had felt, and they knew immediately they were not alone. I had helped people! The first time someone wrote to me and told me that, I dropped to my knees and wept. I thanked God that I could use what I had, my own experience, to help others, to let them know they were not alone and that it was okay to grieve, okay to cry, okay to hurt as long as it took them, and that there was no set pattern to grief and no set time limits. It was personal and individual, and it was okay to seek help within a bereavement group. It was not a sign of weakness.

All this led to getting my journal published. I was encouraged by many to incorporate the emails I sent and some I received into the journal, so I did. Over four years after I began my journal, I submitted it to Westbow Press and the manuscript was accepted. After some reviewing and editing, it was submitted for publishing along with photos I took for the front and back covers, and it was published as The First Snow: A Journal about a Man’s Faith-based Journey through Grief. Because of my book, I was contacted by another author, Yvonne Broady, who wrote Brave in a New World: A Guide to Grieving the Loss of a Spouse. To shorten the story, we became cross-country friends via emails because of my book. She wanted to know how a man grieved, and we have since become like brother and sister though we’ve only met face-to-face on Skype. We shared our life experiences and got to know each other as if we were old friends. She is truly my sister.

I hope she doesn’t mind me writing about her, but she has become such a large part of my life, my sister in life on parallel journeys through grief as she lost her husband to cancer, too, about a year before I lost my wife. After several months of exchanging emails, she asked if I would co-facilitate a comfort and bereavement group with her in New York led by her pastor, the Reverend Debra Northern. It was my honor to accept, to be able to pay ahead the help, support and guidance I received from my bereavement group when I lost my wife, to talk about what I experienced in my own grief to help to create an emotionally safe place for people who have lost their spouses so they may grieve and talk about it without being judged or rushed to heal. It has truly been my honor to be part of that group since May of 2016. I Skype in to the sessions every Tuesday afternoon to be with Yvonne, Reverend Northern, and the beautiful people in that group in New York. I am blessed to be able to help people through their grief because of my own experiences.

The old cliché goes something like, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I can’t remember who to credit with the somewhat-cynical statement that said (paraphrased), if life gives you lemons, you can’t make lemonade without water and sugar. Well, in my case the water came from all the tears I shed, and the source of the sugar was the love and comfort I received from God, my family, a bereavement group, and my dear friends. It did take a while…a good long while…before I was finally able to make lemonade. But with a lot of help, I did. I hope now to be part of someone else’s recipe for lemonade by being a source of the sugar with whatever love, comfort, and help I can offer from my experiences.