Her husband died a few months before Thanksgiving and she certainly did not feel like being thankful or with people even her family. She wanted to just go away to some quiet place and lick her wounds in peace, but, of course, the family could not stand the thought of her being alone on Thanksgiving so they prevailed upon her to participate in the family event at her daughter’s house. She went and had a perfectly miserable time. After the meal she started washing dishes as a way to be away from the joy and levity of a family that, as far as she was concerned, had already forgotten her husband and their father. 

She forgot that the cemetery was in full view from the window over the kitchen sink. When she saw it she blurted out, “Why did you leave me like this you S.O.B? Only she didn’t spell it she said it out loud, and did so just as her granddaughter walked into the room. The granddaughter was shocked beyond belief, she had never heard any such language coming from her very staid and sweet grandmother. She ran though the house announcing to one and all that grandma was in the kitchen cussing grandpa because he died. The rest of that story can easily be imagined so I will leave it to your imaginations.

Since I started offering my email address on these posts the mail has been increasing and I am enjoying it immensely. One email last week was from a woman whose husband died in his early fifties. His birthday was last week and she found herself railing at her daughter over nothing at all, and could not understand where the rage was coming from. She had no idea there was that much stored inside of her and certainly had no idea why it was exploding all over her daughter. After the storm she began to realize that she was not mad at her daughter at all. She was mad at her husband for dying and did not know how to relate to that fact so the rage had to find somewhere else to explode. Hopefully the daughter will understand and accept her profound apology. 

I started my response to her by saying that while some folks do not want to hear that they are normal I had to use that term for her. Anger at a spouse for dying happens often enough to be considered at least normal. 

As I often say in these posts, there is anger in grief. We have been hurt and the normal reaction to hurt is anger. The anger is healthy and even a vital part of the grief journey. It becomes the driving force that pushes us toward learning to cope. We sort of hit bottom, get mad and start fighting our way back. While anger is healthy it is only healthy when it is expressed. Bottled anger builds into rage and results in depression. We need to tell the world that we have been hurt and are mad about it.

Anger does not float well. It must find a place to focus. It does not have to focus rationally. Quite often it is irrational in its focus and expression. The husband may not have had anything to do with his dying and could not have prevented or delayed it one minute, so it is not rational to blame him, but the hurt and rage does not need to be rational. Without warning or good sense a woman can find herself raging at her husband for leaving her and then she just knows she has lost her mind, but she hasn’t.

While it may be irrational, it is not a bad place for the anger to settle. Most of the family and friends will not understand it so we need to be careful where we let it all hang out, but it is a very safe and healthy place for our rage.

Being angry does not mean you don’t love your mate anymore. It does not mean you are doing a poor job in grieving their loss. It just means you have been hurt and the hurt has created anger and rage which will find a place to focus and they have been chosen. So rage on.

__________

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.