YWBB

The Other Side of Sadness -Updated


Update: This post was linked by a reader over at the YWBB (aka widow board) in response to someone asking if it really takes 3 – 5 years to “get over” the death of a spouse. I read the responses, and while everyone who replied made a point to stick to his/her own experiences, there was still a bit of self-serving justification going on and the real issue was never addressed.

You don’t “get over” the loss of someone you love. Over time it becomes a part of you like every other experience you’ve ever had – good, bad or unexpected. And as someone pointed out here in the comments, life is not a process so it makes sense that grief – like joy – is not something we 12 step through. Loss is an experience. More quickly than most people realize, we move on from even the worst events and back into the mainstream of life. And life changes. Even if my first husband hadn’t died, I would not be the same person today as I was the day I met him. Life is change.

It’s disingenuous to say that it takes years to find happiness, meaning or a new life. That happens quickly and in spite of ourselves. Whether or not a person chooses to cling to grief or not is the heart of the so-called “time line”. Bonanno makes this point himself in the book. People who chose to hold onto good memories and push on for the sake of the lost loved one generally are back to whatever normal means sooner than those who cannot get past the event or the feeling of unfairness. He also points out that people who experience complications in grief usually had underlying issues to begin with that the loss simply made worse.

I won’t post on the widow board, but if I were to answer this poster I would say this:

Life is what you decide to make of it. We carry loss with us always but whether or not it defines or dominates you is up to you. And even in the first months to the end of the first year, most people experience happiness and find meaning. Anyone who tells you it took three years or more to feel anything other than misery or that year two was worse than year one either had issues before or is not being all that honest – with you or with themselves. You can be happy. The choice is yours.

I just finished reading The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonnano, an associate professor at Columbia. It basically sets the record straight on all the ridiculous notions that surround grieving.

For example, “grief work”, the idea that grieving requires a thoughtful and painful laundry list of activities that a person must do before he/she can move on with his/her life. The notion exists thanks to a throw-away idea by Freud. How he can be the father of all that is counter-intuitive and the father of modern psychoanalysis at the same time is one of life’s minor mysteries, but essentially he briefly pondered the notion that in order for a grieving person to move on in life, that person must “detach” from the deceased and that this process was “grief work”. And that’s about all he said on the subject but those two words have been a millstone for me. I’ve been told more often than I can count that my wanting to move on was keeping me from grieving properly and wasn’t possible.

Bonnano has done quite a bit of research over the years, and he has discovered that pretty much the opposite of “grief work” is not only the norm but is healthier.

People who endeavor to move on and be happy – usually because they feel the deceased would have wanted that – have better lives and outcomes than those who succumb to the idea that grief is a process that must be worked through.

“Do you feel vindicated?” Rob asked me after I told him about what I’d read.

And I do.

Take that widow board with your nonsense about distractions and “grieve now or grieve more later”.  Neither of those things is true. Distractions are what healthy people do to keep from being overwhelmed in the beginning. It’s about balance. And the notion that grief can be suppressed and come back to cause havoc later? Based on a flawed study back in 1944 that was later proven to be wrong in its conclusion.

The book acknowledges that grief has ebb and flow and never completely disappears, but it debunks the notion that a person can’t get along without grief counseling. In fact, it says that 6 months should be the cut-off point as far as seeking help for complicated grief goes. Before that, sadness and emotional swings are normal.

And that’s the heart of the book, that grief is normal.  Human beings are built to grieve and if we simply followed our natural instincts, we’d be better off.

So, there is no grief process. No 12 steps. Distractions are good. Being determined to move on is the norm.

Any questions?

Who Can I Offend Today?


It seems my ranting about mammas who rant got me unfriended on Facebook. Between my pruning and my offensive nature, I will soon be left with just family and that is the realm of the truly uncool.

I think I must have slipped in a whole truth or two about family recently because my sister-in-law unfriended me too. Not the lousy one. The other one.

And in other social networking news, I have greatly annoyed an old high school chum who has grown up to be someone who would have made a great next door neighbor for my parents. Passionately to the right on nearly any topic you’d care to name. My feed must be an eyesore to this friend.

I rated a mention over at Ye Ole Widda Board the other day in the old timers quarters. A friend, thank goodness, who confessed to still peeking at my blog in her five year update. The goddess must have been smiling because no one noticed me and I wasn’t ridiculed or barbecued in absentia – though you can be perfectly present and roasted for the titillation of others while the multitude stands by as silent as collaborators. A recent perusal of the main forum there revealed another posse had run someone out-of-town. And good riddance to non-conforming grief too.

Mostly this week I have been memoir writing. A project that is sure to offend in-laws but possibly my own family too. In earlier drafts/attempts I tried to keep my point of view as non-committal as possible on the subject of those I didn’t care for or when I was recounting events where I was simply left to sink or swim, but in its current incarnation, my memoir is not holding back that much. I am not trying to be mean, but honest observation is sometimes painful.

So four chapters and probably closing to the point of having caught 20,000 words.

Yesterday was the chapter on Will’s final hours. It was ouchie to say the least possible. Another two chapters of widowhood, which won’t sting as much because I was mourning myself more than him rather early on in the process and then on to the rediscovery of joy, love and regrouping. Nicer though not always easy times.

Which brings me to something. While catching up with my bloggy friend as she shared what’s been going on in the last year, I noted that there were several other four and five year updates. So I read them too. It shouldn’t have surprised me but a senior widow or two managed to slip a snarky line in here and there because if there is one thing on the Ye Olde Widda Board that just don’t fly – it’s remarried widowed folk who grieve out loud. Maybe it’s jealousy. There are one or two I might comfortably accuse of that, but I think it is more that they just don’t want to know that there isn’t a magic pill that makes it all go away. They give lip service to the idea that grief is lifelong really, but they don’t really want to believe it. The remarrieds are proof that there is no “all better now”. Who wants that knowledge?

Today is a PD day at Dee’s school, so we are out and about having some of that quality time together I read about on the mommy blogs. Library, shopping for a new skating helmet and lunch with Rob.

TGIF, people!

Remarriage: What Do The Kids Think?


There is a fascinating dialogue over at ye olde widda board right now dealing with remarriage and children. What’s fascinating is not the fact that the dissenters are invariably not remarried at present (or even interested in anything remotely heading in that direction like say, dating), but there are two camps of thought that butt heads regularly for the entertainment, more than the enlightenment, of others.

Camp Dissent believes that remarriage cannot take place without the full and unreserved blessings of one’s children – regardless of their age or agendas. This camp goes so far as to believe that any parent who doesn’t co-parent with their own kids shouldn’t have become parents at all. A child’s “happiness” is the measure of one’s parenting skills. Things like being smart, well-mannered and progressing towards full status independent adulthood are of lesser merit than a child who is pleased with life and his/her parents role in it. There is also a sub-set of this group that believe remarriage in general reeks of personal desperation and grief denial and that suffering – sometimes loudly – is the true mark of a good widowed person.

Camp Hitched is actually divided in their stance. Both believe that parents should be the ultimate decision makers in a family, but some believe that children’s discomfort with recoupling should be given full credence until they turn 18 – a magical watershed moment – while others believe that blending is a process that time, love and elbow grease can handle.

Like most charged discussions, this one quickly devolved into a dogpile on a single poster. Not that I feel much sympathy for the victim because she is someone who confines herself these days to posts on remarriage and never misses an opportunity to call out remarried widows as desperate settlers who don’t love their children, probably didn’t have good first marriages – hence their remarrying, and are just a divorce away from enlightenment, but the original topic of the thread – the tendency of extended family and friends to expect widows to stand still in time until they are ready to let go – got lost.

The one thing about marrying again I have discovered is that it highlights the disparities in the grief time-lines of all parties. Spouses and parents grieve daily. How can we not? Children are blessed with the gift of grieving in spurts – like they grow – but they are still in touch more often than extended family and friends who only have to confront loss occasionally. Family gatherings are excellent examples of occasional grief. Weddings, holidays and reunions highlight the absent sibling or auntie/uncle/grandparent who is little remembered on a daily basis because of distance and the tendency we all have to be caught up in the life we are living.

I have mentioned before that Rob’s in-laws have been wonderful. Though I hear about the difficulties they had and still sometimes have with his remarrying just short of the first year of Shelley’s death, they have been kind and welcoming to Dee and I. Shelley’s auntie, as an example, invited us to Christmas dinner that first year, and we have a standing offer of lodging whenever we are up towards Grande Prairie  or out Vancouver way from a couple of Shelley’s cousins. They have never let their grief get in the way of Rob’s journey or imposed their opinions about what he should or should not be doing in terms of the course he took.

Our kids have gone through various stages where our remarriage is concerned. The older girls expressed concern at the “haste” with which we moved from dating to engaged to married”, but they never acted out. They voiced their feelings to their Dad only and they listened respectfully to his answers and he in turn reassured them about their concerns. In the end, they were the generous and wonderful young women I have only ever known them to be. They trusted their Dad, which goes to show that laying a good foundation with your children as they are growing up is really that important.

Dee never had a father in the active sense, and she was very young when Rob came into her life. She took to him immediately but theirs is still a relationship in progress and we’ve had tense times as they’ve adjusted, as I have gotten used to co-parenting – something I never had the opportunity to do with Will.

How do I feel about needing my children’s permission to make decisions about my life? I don’t need permission. I’m an adult. An adult weighs the options, looks at possible and probable outcomes and does the deciding based on what is best long-term for all. That’s how my parents did it. That’s how, I believe, all grown-ups do things.

The kids are alright in our family because the adults are adults who think and consider and act as a unit. A family is not a democracy. It is the out-growth of a marriage.