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Reacting To Loss And Grief
By
Elaine Williams |
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There are many unique and varied reactions to grief and loss.
We may all react differently and yet the end result, many times, is the same. There is a sense of a gaping hole in our chest, a deep emptiness that at first nothing can fill.
I've run the gamut of emotions myself. When my husband first died I felt in a frenzy to change things, to clean the house, empty closets, to refinish the living room floor. Did any of it make sense? At the time, each action seemed the logical thing to do.
I’ve always been a very active person, but during this time period I must have seemed like a crazy woman to my kids. I wouldn't allow myself a spare moment to sit down and just do nothing. If I did, then I would have to think. In looking back, now, I realize the last thing I wanted to do was examine the deep loss in my life.
Contrarily, even though I was in this frenzy of doing this and that, I also experienced a general apathy in my daily living. Each day ran into the next—the same blah feeling. On many occasions, I couldn’t wait for the day to end so I could climb into bed and be finished with that day.
My life coasted along, as if I were driving down a road with no final destination in sight. The ride is shaded and sunny, but it just keeps going. Many occasions I was fixated on my rear view mirror instead of noticing what might lie ahead.
I had no interests other than taking care of the most immediate matters, and then just blanking out. My thoughts felt dull and worn. I had never thought of myself as a boring, uninteresting person, but grief certainly sucked the very life and essence out of me. I was a living, walking automation and that's the way I wanted it in the beginning. I didn't want to feel or think too much, but merely to remain cushioned in my little cocoon of nothingness.
This worked for a while, but eventually, the pins and needles start and you begin to live again. That's just how life is. And we all need to live, to survive, to have something other than one dull moment follow the other. Eventually, the dullness recedes a little at a time.
One day you really do awaken to find there is once more joy in your heart, and life seems brighter. The way to move through grief is all our own. There is no prescribed time limit on healing; but there is healing.
http://www.ajourneywelltaken.com
Elaine Williams © 2008
Author's Bio
After 20 years of marriage, Elaine Williams lost her husband to cancer—leaving her widowed in her 40s and her three boys fatherless. For the last few years since Joe's death, she has been examining the effects of this loss on her own family, and of the effect this kind of loss has on other families.
Joe's illness moved Elaine to begin looking at alternative healing, holistic medicine, healthy organic diets, yoga, and Green lifestyles.
With a lifelong interest in writing, Elaine has published romance with Silhouette books and poetry and fiction in various small magazines. She is an active member of both the Women Writers Guild and Romance Writers of America (one of her newsletters for RWA won an award two years in a row).
A serial entrepreneur, Elaine almost always has one or more businesses going. Currently, she owns a landscaping company and a book publishing company, On Wings Press. Her many other interests include quilting, outdoor activities from hiking to skiing to kayaking, training and riding horses, animal science, graphic design, painting in watercolor, volunteering in her community, and living life to its fullest.
Elaine lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York with her three boys.
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