"I'm Fine" (and Sarah McLachlan may be an emotional terrorist)

“We live in our description of reality.” ~Gregory Bateson

I really hate it when I say, “I’m fine,” and people's eyes cloud over with a look that says bullsh*t.

But I am fine.

Unlike others who have lost their loves, my daily life hasn’t been impacted.  I still have a job and kids (mine only) to take care of.  And since we didn’t end up getting married or even live together - most of my life is as it was.

Except for losing the person who taught me how to love.  That still happened.

After experiencing repeated friendly disbelief regarding my “fineness” – I got scared. What if I was screwing up this grief thing?

I need to get it right. Because according to studies, if you don’t actively process grief – you could end up in traumatic grief.  And according to Deepak Choptra’s book The Healing Self, if you have traumatic grief six months after the death of a loved one – you will likely suffer a serious health issue 13 - 26 months later. 

Oh no, not me – I’ve got a lot left to do.

After consulting with my therapist, I reached out to a local hospice center as they provide free grief counselling to anyone whose loved one spent time in hospice (even if it wasn’t their location).  Before meeting the grief counselor I sent her an article I had written on grief and informed her of my yoga therapist and reiki training.  I also mentioned that I had read:

• How to survive the loss of a love (Bloomfield, Colgrove and McWilliams)
• The Untethered Soul (Singer)
• Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul (Canfield and Hansen)
• The Healing Self (Deepak Chopra)
• When things fall apart (Pema Chodron)

Because even though I was barely months into the grieving process - I was kicking the sh*t out of grief.

When we met - she let me babble on for a while – lulling me into believing I had it all together.  Then she asked the question that slayed me.

“How did he die?”

Those words pulled the veneer off my candy-coated surface and the tears hovering behind my eyelids melted down my face.

I wasn’t fine.  And now that she had made me admit it, she could help me figure out how to heal.  She asked the following questions:

• How are you sleeping?  Grief can seriously hinder sleep.  According to the Psychology Today article “Complicated Grief and the Inner Clock,” the loss of a loved one damages our safety and security.  It’s not only an emotional hole in our lives, but the absence of our loved ones can disrupt our circadian rhythms.  Circadian rhythms respond to events in our environment that regulate bodily functions – even the physical loss of a loved one.  “Changes such as no longer sleeping next to a spouse or having someone remind us it's bedtime can disrupt our patterns of rest and activity, which can hinder the grieving process.”  Knowing this I have committed to a daily sleep routine which includes physical activity, meditation, a hot bath (can you take too many?) and no TV an hour before bed.  

• Are you isolating yourself?  In the beginning I couldn’t leave the house.  But eventually went back to work and slowly went to public places like restaurants – although I have yet to go to our breakfast place (that may take a while).  Also, it is important to be surrounded with friends that are empathetic, not sympathetic. This is a distinction I learned from Brene Brown’s work “The Power of Vulnerability.” When people would come up to me and say, “You poor thing.  I feel so sorry for you” I would feel worse, as if I had done something wrong to deserve this pity.  So, with the grief counselor’s encouragement I sought out individuals with similar losses.  That understood what we really need is someone willing to be in the trenches of grief with us.  To just listen or let us have time away from our sorrows doing something fun or silly without questioning.  Also, I found grief groups in real life and (on-line) comprised of other people who had lost spouses, partners or fiancés.  It was helpful to be among people who didn’t feel sorry for me, because they too were in grief’s dark hole. 
• Have you made a time and place to grieve? – Days before the funeral I stopped at one of my favorite furniture places (I have a thing with furniture).  I had moved out several chairs and a sofa from my bedroom to the guest room to accommodate funeral guests.  So, I needed a comfy chair to replace the gaping hole in my room – and my life.  Even though the store owner typically would not let me buy off the floor, my admission that my fiancé had just died allowed that privilege.  I made that blue denim gliding chair and a half – with the pillow my love purchased in advance for Valentine’s Day (he died two days before) my grieving place. Where I set aside time – usually at night – to feel both comforted by his presence and saddened by his loss.
• Are you wallowing? Sometimes.

A week ago, I was incorporating redlined edits given to me by my love only two weeks before his deadly stroke.  I mentioned in the story I was writing that I was listening to a Sarah McLachlan song.  One of his edits was a suggestion to include the title of the song.  Which I couldn’t remember.
    
So, I foolishly put a Sarah McLachlan playlist on Pandora. Which made everything worse  (because I think Sarah McLachlan may be an emotional terrorist).

I didn’t turn off the playlist once I found the song title (Fallen) because I was lulled into the sadness of her music – and it darkened my mood.

Unfortunately, I came upon a passage about my mother (who also died recently) and how she said after my dad died that the hardest thing for her was not to have him scratch her back.  The realization that she had no one to provide intimate kindness – just slayed her.

When this happened over 30 years ago – I was so heartless. I thought – get a back scratcher – what’s the big deal?  There were so many other things to miss about my dad. Why pick how he scratched your back?

But when I read that paragraph, edited by my lost fiancé, while listening to Sarah McLachlan, I cried.  I cried so hard that my dogs rushed over and my son, who was wearing sound cancelling headphones, came and held me.

When you are wallowing, the grief counselor suggests the following:

• Change your location.  For all my reading, meditating, yogaing and flailing about to combat grief - in the end sometimes taking a walk outside and breathing can be enough to give me comfort.
• Connect with the positive memories of your loved one – Because we don’t have to only connect through sad ones.  And we don’t have to feel guilty if we are happy sometimes.  Finally, we don’t love them less if we focus on our good memories of them instead of the ones surrounding their death. 

 
I have been taking screen shots of the texts between my love and I – as they are like modern love letters.  They allow me to connect to him with happy memories – rather than the memories of his hospice stay or death (see below).

---

As I have been reading through our texts, I am reminded of the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder.  It tells the story of an ordinary town and an ordinary couple.  By the play’s third act, you have seen the marriage and death of the leading lady, and her visit to her town after death – for one ordinary day.  The narrator of the play says, “Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.” 

And that is what I see in our texts.  Communication between two people in love - unaware that their time together was ending.  Ordinary texts about where to eat, when we would see each other next and “Good morning baby cakes."  They remind me of the character Emily’s famous line from Our Town,

“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

And that’s the growth.  That is what I have learned - again.  That life is to be cherished moment by moment. Hopefully a teaching that won’t be forgotten. 

So now, life has taken on an urgency.  A dissatisfaction with lazing around in front of the TV.  I want to spend more time with my family, friends, yoga and writing compadres and of course, my dogs. Walking outside, trying new wellness practices (like EFT) and exploring far-away places.  And most importantly living – because I still can.

That is what this blog will focus on for the rest of the year.  Still on health – but with the added challenge of living life to the fullest in healthy grief.  With absolutely no Sarah McLachlan.
 
Hope you will keep reading. 
​
Peace.
 
Donna 
 
“To bow to the fact of life’s sorrow and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable.  As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we can imagine.” ~Jack Kornfield
 

---