Good from Grief

I am no expert, I just felt like I needed to respond to everyone offering support and looking for it.

Good Grief: 50th Anniversary | Fortress Press

Two years ago I lost my 24 year old son and my spouse who happens to be his step-father, thinks I should be ready to move on. At first I tried to get back to my life and do the things we had done before, that was a bad idea. I really think it made him think all was well.

When in reality I was probably in shock and just going through the motions and it caught up with me. All grief is hard and one grief should never be compared against another, you have no idea how a person grieving is feeling and certain comments just makes the griever pull away from you.

I agree it probably was hard for my spouse to watch me go through this, but I know for a fact it is harder to go through it than to watch, I have actually done both. There is definitely a helplessness associated with both.

I accepted that some people would make comments not knowing what it would do to me, I always try to take it with the intention it is meant. If it is bad enough I might say something, but that is rare. Of course you can probably guess how that effects your marriage.

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I am able to have some good moments and I am very thankful for them, but I am still at a point where the grief shows up at unexpected times, you never know where the trigger is. I have to do it my way and if that means I have to do it without him so be it. Guess I needed to rant a bit. Thanks for forum to do that. I do love the articles, keep up the good work. I lost my youngest daughter nearly a year ago, nobody talks about her anymore.

It was a horrible traffic accident. Unfortunately, my support system has become non-existent. My problem is I have no life to get back to. My guy of 15 years passed away just 6 months ago. I miss him, I miss our life together and I miss me… the happy person I was with him. Where did everyone go? So once again, I find myself all alone taking one day and activity at a time trying not to feel completely overwhelmed!

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No one who cares about you minds if you need to talk. My husband of 32 years also died from Cancer and the treatments they tried to do to save him. The first night he went to palliative care he passed in his sleep with me and our son there, asleep. You were a friend, partner and probably a bastion of strength for him. A colleague of mine who was a Sikh, invited me to undertake a 42 day healing retreat.

Somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd week, after a powerful prayer service, I found myself staying behind in the chapel. Alone, I began to weep. I allowed myself to "collapse" into my tears and my fear. I had not felt safe enough to do this in the preceding months because always there was a family member, friend or professional waiting for me to stop.

This time there was no one.

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I wept and wept and wept. I wept past my own fear at dying and leaving my young son. I wept past my hurts and losses. I wept past my tribal holocausts and inquisitions. By the time I stopped weeping, I was weeping for my ancient brothers and sisters. I had wept to the end of my tears! What I have discovered in the ensuing years is that when I cry, I am crying in the present and the present moment has its own rhythm.

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Cry to the end of your tears. Trust that you will emerge on the other side into the honest present. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and this will never have happened. Am I in denial? Situations of great stress precipitate us out of "ordinary" reality into non-ordinary or dream-like states of consciousness. This too is a reactive way the psyche has of dealing with feelings that in our ordinary states could not be "borne" so we find a place, in our minds, that is bearable: I am going to wake-up and none of this will be true.

Slowly, reality seeps in and we do come to realize that we are awake. But we have taken time into our own hands by slowing it down ever so slightly. This is different than denial which is much more rigid, longer lasting and needing professional intervention. Why do I want to sleep all the time? A great deal of healing takes place in the dreams, remembered or not, that occur during sleep. Emotional upheavals are exhausting and take vast amounts of energy that need to be restored.

There is a line again that we must guard against, a line into depressive sleep. Although I feel that grieving, like birthing, is not a medical condition requiring treatment as much as it is a life event needing "tribal" support, there are situations that ask for more than friends, family, or spiritual advisors can offer.

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We need to be sensitive to the moment, not afraid to ask for help and at the same time not be too quick to give our sacred journey into the hands of the medical "experts. Life is changing in the face of this loss. Who and what you were is perhaps no longer who and what you will be. Suddenly, relationships that we didn't question are now confusing.

Talking about the dead and grieving for them are two very different things

Request an Desk copy Please select a version: Description For fifty years Good Grief has helped millions of readers, including NFL players and a former first lady, find comfort and rediscover hope after loss. From the Preface "I just finished re—reading this gem. It is immediately clear why it has been and will continue to be a bestseller. It is written with the heart of a pastor, the insight of a psychologist, the humanity of a father and husband, and the hope of someone who has seen so many survive the process of grieving.

It is simple but not simplistic. It is profound but not professorial. Most importantly, it describes the pathway through grieving that can only be found through honesty.