She enmeshed her life in the life and work of her husband. She did so willingly because that is how she was raised. The role of a wife was to support her husband and give herself to her children. She did so because the man she chose and loved was a strong personality who loved to take the lead, and she was naturally of a quieter bent and not comfortable with being noticed. He was the leader and she was very comfortable not having to be in the limelight or under the pressure the limelight brought with it.

This arrangement worked well as they raised and educated their children, but when the children were grown and married, she began to feel the need to discover her own significance and worth. She did not rebel or do much arguing about it, but she did try to quietly inform her husband that she wanted and needed to be more involved in his world or that she needed to find something meaningful she could get excited about and feel a sense of accomplishment doing. She did not know how to say it but she was searching for her own identity. She had always been identified as his wife or the mother of her children and now felt the need to find out who she was apart from those pigeon holes. 

He did not understand and suddenly found a new opportunity that totally dominated his time and thought. She later said it felt like he had jumped in a speed boat and was taking off. She could either jump in and ride along or stand on the dock and watch him speed away. The new job felt a lot like a mistress stealing him away from her. To her it felt like she was losing him and losing herself as well. Then he died suddenly.

Grieving the loss dominated the first couple of years following his death, but there always seemed to be a nagging something deep inside of her that left her feeling hollow and empty. She could not put her finger on it but seemed in a constant state of searching for where she was suppose to go and what she was suppose to do. As we walked together on her grief journey, these thoughts began to come to the surface and take shape. Women often go through an identity crisis after the death of a husband. So much of their identity has been wrapped up in him that when he is gone they do not know who they are and have to start from scratch building their own identity. That is long and hard to do. 

In addition to the search for her own identity, she began to feel the need to verbalize the feelings of being left at the dock just before he died. She was not angry at him, and felt guilty for having such feelings but they were there and she needed to talk them out. It took her a long time to share these feelings with me and said she felt foolish for doing so even then. After we talked over a period of several times together she said, “This is the only place where I could even think of talking about this. How could I say this to my children? What friend would ever understand?”

That statement sums up the reason for this post. Her experience is just a sample of what happens in the real world of grieving. We are often left with unspoken agendas or agendas that were never understood or acknowledged. The one person who needed to understand is gone, there is no way to explain it to children or friends and we are left holding feelings inside and wondering why we don’t get past the grieving.

The unspoken agendas mean we need safe places and safe people to help us on our grief journeys. These feelings are hard for the person in grief to grasp and hard to explain. Everyone needs at least one source that will just listen until it makes sense. Everyone needs a companion who does not feel the need to “fix” things. Someone who will just allow the talk to flow whether it makes sense or not until it begins to take shape and meaning. 

Writing is also a great help. Writing organizes the mind and makes unconnected thoughts join together and become clear. Often it does not even matter whether or not anyone reads what is written. The act of writing is the therapy.

And the unspoken agendas reveal the need for each of us to become “safe people.” There is no way to know how many of our friends have agendas hidden deep within them that will never come to the surface until someone safe makes their ears available without time limits or judgment. Try it sometime. 

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Doug invites you to log in and post comments at the end of each blog entry. He looks forward to hearing from you. Any of Doug's books, CDs or DVDs are available at www.InSightBooks.com.