In Grief — You Are Not Lost

Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. you must let it find you.

 –David Wagoner . Collected Poems 1956-1976

A friend of ours died last week of FTD . . . Fronto Temporal Dementia. FTD is an awful disease that steals yourself – who you are, your personality, your values — and leaves you with your memories fairly intact (unlike Alzheimer’s dementia).  It was awful to watch him lose himself as the disease took hold.  Scary,  heartbreaking, unreal . . . almost like he was possessed by some spirit that took over his body.  His wife and son and daughter-in-law cared for him at home, eventually having to install locks on the refrigerator and cabinets to prevent him from ravenously eating everything — literally.  He wandered and they had to follow him or distract him every moment.  This man who had been a well known photographer and collector became unable to hold his camera still and uninterested in his art.  He was unaware of others’ feelings and uncensored in what hurtful things he said to his wife and son.  

Hospice came and helped with his care a couple of times during the week, and offered one week of respite care so his wife could leave his side and try to escape for a brief time the nightmare that was closing in.

After 10+ years the nightmare ended with our friend’s death.  But for his wife, it continues.  She lost her husband long before he died.  She felt her grief had already overtopped any measure and that after he died there would be relief.  Instead, waves of grief accosted her relentlessly.

When she called me panicked at the myriad of feelings she was experiencing, I was able to reassure her that she was not going crazy.   I, too, had grieved the death of a spouse and knew the terror of uncontrollable and unwelcome feelings that come after the death of a loved one. . .sadness, emptiness, anger, confusion, restlessness, inability to concentrate.  All of them normal, and all of them horribly uncomfortable.  And all of them making the griever question one’s sanity and whether there is enough strength and energy to withstand the waves of feelings.

What surprised me as her friend was not the intensity of her feelings, but my realization that I knew at a gut level that this was not the ending of her ordeal but the beginning.  She would be in for a difficult and painful ride that no one could take away. 

Grief takes us and wrings all the energy and hope out of us, leaving painful empty spaces that we can only fill over time.  Over time, the aches of those empty places fill with new friendships, experiences, goals, hopes that soothe and nurture our emerging self.  And we reclaim and integrate into ourselves “old” parts of ourselves that fit whom we have become.  It is not a painless process but a kind of re-birth/resurrection that comes of the grief process.  

It helps to understand grief as a dual process oscillating between a painful letting go of what was and a dawning of new identity and energy.  It is not something we can “manage” except by allowing the waves of letting go roll over us (knowing they will not last forever) and enjoying the moments of energy and joy (knowing they will come more frequently and eventually become a new normal).

Blessings on all who are in grief this day.  Although a part of you has died — yet a part of you is being reborn.  I promise you.