As I left for a speaking engagement, the office manager told me she had invited a couple to meet me for dinner in the city where I was to speak. The wife had called to order books and had said that her fourteen-year-old son had accidentally hanged himself. The manager said, “She keeps saying she doesn’t want to go on. I told her all of the reasons for going on, but it did not help, so I suggested they drive the 100 miles to meet you for dinner.”

We talked for an hour or so before dinner and the mother kept saying she didn’t want to go on. When someone makes those kind of statements the first thing we think and fear, is that this person may die of suicide. When I asked her about that she immediately assured me that she would not do such a thing to her family, and then she said, “But I just don’t want to go on.”

This was the topic of conversation all through dinner and when we got back to the room her husband began giving her all of the reasons she had for going on. He loved her and needed her. She had another child to think about. Her parents needed her and would be devastated if she were not there.

She suddenly broke through that chain of conversation and almost shouted, “I know all of that. I know I must go on. I know I will go on. The problem is I DON’T’ WANT TO.” 

Suddenly it all made sense. What she was trying to get someone to understand was not that she was a possible suicide, but that she had lost her “Want to.” She wanted to want to do the things she did. Once she washed the dishes because she felt like she was taking care of her family, now it was just a chore. Once she prepared meals with a feeling of love and giving, now she had no feelings at all. She was going to do the same jobs and give the same effort, but she wanted the same feelings to be there.

Sometimes the depression of grief exemplifies itself, not only in dark and foreboding gloom, but also in a lack of feelings. We can feel empty and detached. It is almost like we are outside of our own bodies watching as we perform tasks and go about the day. We are emotionally flat. Even our voices come out with no tenor or expression. This means we have lost our “Want to.”

This can be much harder on a woman than a man, because women tend to share love and emotion in even the humdrum daily tasks of living. This is why they want the man to notice and appreciate what they do. It is also why a little help from the man is very important. This means he, too, is sharing love and emotion. When these feelings are not there, they are missed and often the person feels lost in their own home. 

As we talked I was able to help her discover why she had no feelings and such an experience was normal. I then told her three things that I believe to be true.

I told her that the feelings would return. They would come gradually over time. She would not wake up one morning and feel all giddy and joyous. I could not promise that all of the feelings would return. We are never the same after such a loss as this. There will always be days when the flatness returns and the pain overwhelms, but gradually there will be joy in the task of living.

I told her the feelings would return much quicker if she could stop fighting herself because they were not there. Grief can cause what I call the “feel bad because you feel bad syndrome.” We start examining our feelings and decide we ought not to feel some of the things we feel, or that we should have some feelings that seem to be missing. It is easy to conclude that there must be something wrong with us or we would not feel the way we do.  If we are not careful we can expend all of our energies fighting ourselves and have little energy left for walking through the grief journey.

The third thing I tried to share was, until the feelings return it is a process of putting one foot in front of the other. It is drudgery, but we must function without feelings until they return. The key may be accepting the lack of feelings as a normal part of grief and not something lacking in us. We can feel a great deal of guilt over this lack of feeling, as if we should feel good about taking care of the family and if we don’t it means we do not love. 

I had a friend named John Claypool whose thirteen-year-old daughter died of leukemia. Until his death, John was a minister. The first sermon he delivered after her death was based on the Psalm that says, “We shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint.” He told his congregation that all he could do was walk. He could not run and he had no idea when he would be able to run, all he could do was walk, but that it was all right to just walk. 

When our “Want tos” are gone, all we can do is just function. We cannot have an explosion of joy about anything nor feel wonderfully loving when we care for others. Until the feelings return it is one foot in front of the other, and that is enough.  It really is enough.

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