This was written as a response to the blog titled The Waves Of Grief. 

My husband died 3 mos. ago after a long illness. At this point, I don't care about anything. I don't want to cook or get out of the house. Some days, I consider good days where I can function and socialize. Today, a wave of grief hit. I guess it has to do with Easter in a few days. A relative of mine stated, via email, that she doesn't know what I'm thinking going through the grieving process since I knew that my husband was dying! I never thought of him dying only doing all that I could to keep him going in life & caring for him. Calls have stopped from friends. I feel like they think they may catch the "dying" virus!! I've never been alone. I lived at home, got married, had children & my husband. Now, no one. How does one cope in getting through this process???

I spent this morning on the phone with a woman I have never met and most likely will never meet. She called because she had received the set of books called The Continuing Care Series from her funeral home and just had to have someone to talk to.

Since I started posting a special email sight on these blogs I have had continuing conversations with several people who seemed to have nowhere else to turn.

The bottom line in almost every response and every email is the same, “I feel alone in my grief. No one calls me anymore.”

I have always thought that most of the help we need in grief must come from our friends. Unfortunately most of the hurt we experience in grief will also come from our friends. Friends who say the wrong things. Friends who pressure us to get well or at least act like we are. Or, maybe the most hurtful, friends who stop calling. 

It is a hard fact but we not only must grieve the loss of a loved one, but in almost every case we also lose friends. I talk a lot about finding “safe people” but I do so realizing that far too often the “safe people” will not be found among the friends we would expect to be the most helpful. Far too often they are also not found among family. 

In the text quoted above her husband died three months ago and already someone is telling her she should be over the grief. Since he was ill for a long time she should not still grieve the loss? Like he was some worn out appliance that could just be discarded without thought? 

The depression of grief has left her with no desire to function. That is a very normal experience in grief, but how is she to know it is normal if she has no one to talk with?

Her question is how do we get through it? We “get through it” by talking out our feelings to some ears that will listen and understand. I call that establishing the significance of the loss. Like my great grandson coming to the office with a cast on his broken arm and going to each person there to show the cast and hear the comments. When everyone understood what he was experiencing and had expressed their sorrow and accepted his pain and tears, he could then move on to other things. The same process happens to us. We tell about what we have lost and the person we have lost over and over again until we have worked through the feelings and established the significance. Then and only then can we move on.

Someone else responded by saying she feared people were getting tired of listening to her story and did not feel comfortable telling it again and again. I wish every city had an abundance of places where people could just be heard. Grief groups or counselors or just some trained people who loved to listen. That would be wonderful. I hurt when I hear folks say they have no one who cares. I am looking for a way to make at least a dent in that need. Somehow we need a kind of web grief group. A chat room that meets on a set day each week so we can share with one another. That isn’t as good as a friend sitting with you and holding your hand, but it would sure beat nothing. Would any of you be interested in that? If so I am all ears. Doug977@gmail.com

__________

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.