Up Front: Giving Me Grief
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Russell Brown, in reply to
And also, don’'t forget that valium makes your scotch count two times. But you knew that.
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Oh Rex, I'm so sorry.
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Rex - I've had the person I love most *nearly* die in my arms (3& 1/2 years ago) so I have a tiny hint of your suffering.
Please take good care of yourself now-and Emma - this is an extraordinary thread and many many lurkers have found it both helpful and resonating to their own experiences. Losing your Mum was great grief, but as a word-alchemist, you have transmuted your grief into the rarest pounemu. Thank you.
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Emma – this is an extraordinary thread and many many lurkers have found it both helpful and resonating to their own experiences. Losing your Mum was great grief, but as a word-alchemist, you have transmuted your grief into the rarest pounemu. Thank you.
I feel exactly what Islander says, and thank you Emma, what you wrote is beautiful, and insightful. Thank you Islander as well.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Goodness, islander, I am deeply humbled. Or the exact opposite of that. Alchemy is a lovely thought.
We are now at the lesser-discussed stage of grief known as Bureaucracy. I have a stack of will-related forms to fill in. I'm going back down to Mum's this weekend to help clear out the house, getting it ready for market. The boys (my brothers are always the 'the boys', and will be til they die) have done a wonderful job but they won't deal with any of her personal stuff. That's vagina-bearer-business, that is.
I'm not entirely sure I'll cope with going back.
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Hang in there mate, as it is said-
I'm trustee-executrix for one of my family - because of shares & peculiarities, the estate still hasnt been wound up (a decade after the death.)
It is a mind&health drain, and I never asked for it - but.We do what we have to do.
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Thanks Russell, Emma, and Islander.
I've never been much for the "five stages of grief" theory. This situation went from "slighty off colour" to "deceased" in three days, and I had to make decisions on treatment, advised by what seemed like a confident doctor but who I now recall as more a cocky know-all.
Since my default mood tends to be "mildly irritated" it therefore progresses to "anger" fairly easily. So at present I'm alternating between anger at myself for my possible gullibility and at the doctor for a quick and somewhat glib diagnosis he didn't bother verifying, and debilitating grief.
Oddly I find I can still rant on blogs, though I can't do any work - a focus for the anger I guess. Someone should write a thesis on "Redbaiter as therapy" ;-)
Whether I'll get to the other stages or not remains to be seen. They've never really happened in the past, but maybe with age comes (greater) wisdom...
Good luck with the trusteeship, Islander... it's something I've seen it send people to the edge of sanity. There has to be an easier way, surely.
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There are people that are dead to me now but still have lives of their own. There are those that no longer have lives but will live with me forever.
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Hi Rex, take care mate. I don't know what you're going through, I don't - I've never lost anyone dear to me yet - but I know a bit about pain (and medicating with alcohol and other drugs). If you've got the chance so far, reach out and share the burden, always a fraction lighter shared. But you knew that... ;)
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
If it's any consolation, Rex, and I suspect it may not be, I don't believe Kubler-Ross ever intended the five stages were to be taken so literally, nor did she mean them to be in order. I also think that she was saying that grief takes a lifetime. I prefer to think of her stages as states. In grief, we may vacillate between denial and anger, or bargaining and acceptance. We may never reach acceptance, unless we let ourselves. The other thing that I think people misread about Kubler-Ross is that she was talking about grief in general, I believe. I have always believed that the grief we feel about the first person that we love who dies, melds and morphs into the grief we feel when the next person we love dies, and so on. And so the first time that someone whom we love dies, we start at the beginning, and on until we ourselves die. I am very sorry that someone you loved, died. Any loss is never easy, nor is it always explicable. That they died in your arms, says alot about how you cared for them. May you find comfort in that some day. Meanwhile there are lots of people here to share your grief with, if you so choose.
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If this is becoming the general dealing-with death-via-the-internet thread (and thank you Emma, for writing it) … firstly my sympathies to previous posters, especially Rex, I do so know that mood.
My brother-in-law committed suicide a few days ago. Pretty much out of the blue, he was in a bad way (since learnt) but had never shown any indication of taking that way out…
I only saw him a couple of times a year at family gatherings and we didn’t have much in common so it’s not having huge effect on me (yet) (effect felt nevertheless…), but my parents had taken him into the family and into their hearts and were down there trying to help him sort himself out … they’re devastated and there’s little I can do except keep in touch and be prepared to travel where/when/if I’m needed to support them.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Oh Robert. What a shit of a thing for everyone who loved him. And what you are doing is not "little". Your parents will need you and you will be there. That's a big thing, a valuable thing, a very important thing.
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recordari, in reply to
So sorry to hear about that Robert. The role one plays in these things is never easy, when you feel slightly removed. Having some difficulty knowing where my own efforts are best placed in an 'In-law' situation right now. The feelings of helplessness can be quite overwhelming at times. 'Being there' is what I'm trying to do. It doesn't feel like enough, but it does matter. There are days when it can be the difference between someone getting off the mattress or not.
Wishing you and your family all the best.
Jack -
Danielle, in reply to
I have always believed that the grief we feel about the first person that we love who dies, melds and morphs into the grief we feel when the next person we love dies, and so on.
I don't quite know how this works, yet, but it sounds totally right.
Very sorry, Rex and Robert and Jack.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
It's sort of like the more people who die around you, the further along you move in your generalised grieving experience, seems to be the case. Or to put it in other words, the moment we are born, our losses begin, and as we accumulate losses, so we gather experience at dealing with it, till - with any luck - we reach that place of acceptance. Certainly there are plenty of people who never get to that. I think Kubler-Ross was talking about the ideal, not the practical, in alot of ways.
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Lara,
Very sorry to hear of your respective losses Rex & Robert. Like George I've not lost anyone extremely close to me yet, but from other losses...that gaping hole is awful.
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oh Emma. thank you. My mother died 8 and half years ago, aged 53. Breast Cancer. Her birthday is in a couple of days - one of the many days of the year that I carry a heavy weight and feel somewhat like the ancient mariner. So to read this today was perfect - the reminder of our un-aloneness in the world
What a beautiful testimony to a life.
those others - Rex, Robert. How awful. The two things that I loved the best, that I carry with me from the time of my mother's illness and her death, are: the vicar who married us (family friend, we were married six month before mum's diagnosis) who said "it's just not fucking fair" when he found out. (Not one for the swearing, you see). My favourite professor and supervisor (I was in the middle of my MA and also pregnant with second child in midst of that year of hell) who told me that he missed his father (who had died thirty years before) everyday, and spoke to him, everyday.
I was eight and half months pregnant at the funeral; I can't really remember much but my brother, dad, uncles, cousin and husband were pallbearers. My husband says it was both one of the hardest and best things he has ever done.
Thank you. I really needed to read that today.
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Rex Widerstrom, in reply to
Thanks so much for that Jackie. I kinda understand what Kubler-Ross was getting at, and on one level I think she’s right. On the another level entirely, I tend to want to hit things till they comply with my view of how they should be. Heaven help the PC that tries that BSD BS in my presence ;-)
What I want more than anything is to challenge Death to feats of strength, and win back what I want more than anything in the world right now. I’m sure that’s a very male perspective. And possibly a somewhat NZ one as well.
I’m sure that will pass. I certainly hope it will. Meanwhile the inanimate objects that surround me are being very well behaved of late.
Danielle, Robert, thanks to you too. Robert, suicide is far from painless for those left behind. Not that I’ve had that happen to someone particularly close, but a work colleague… the “should I, could I, what if” treadmill can become exquisite mental torture. Truth is, we know less about our own minds than the farthest reaches of the universe, so none of us “could have, should have” acted other than the way in which we did (if that makes sense).
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Danielle, Robert, thanks to you too. Robert, suicide is far from painless for those left behind.
And lest we forget Finn Higgins...
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Truth is, we know less about our own minds than the farthest reaches of the universe,
Yeah but thats inanimate and easy. Living and capable of incredible acts of self deception, well, you need a good looong break to be able to deal with that.
And it's derided as navel gazing, easier to boof someone, anyone around the ear and blame them. -
Just to add to what was already a bad month for my family (see previous comment), I've just learnt that my Uncle was killed in a car accident Tuesday night. This was unrelated to the quake (up Blenheim way)
My aunt survived, no major injuries apparently, but was trapped until the car was found about 3pm yesterday.
This is all getting a bit much.
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recordari, in reply to
Robert that is terrible. So sorry for your loss. The circumstances you describe are truly awful, as well as having to cope with everything going on in Christchurch.
I hope you have some good support around.
Take care.
Jack -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
Oh Robert, I am so terribly, terribly sorry that not only has your city recieved such cruel blows in the last few days with the deaths of so many people, and so much destruction just when people were starting to think about getting back on their feet, but that you have had to go through the grief of the death of two immediate family members in very tragic circumstances, and all within such a short period of time. Please accept my condolences, my warmest thoughts, and my biggest hugs. (My hugs are pretty huge, so that's quite a big hug we're having!)
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Thanks Jack & Jackie. Support is stretched thin in Chch at the moment (and thinner in my family who are distributed around the island at this point), but we'll get through it.
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