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| Antelope Canyon Summer of 2007 |
Several months have slipped by. Our lives are finally starting to feel
somewhat normal. While we still miss our
loved one every day, we are beginning to gain a little traction in day-to-day
living. We can have a relatively normal
conversation with a friend. Meals alone are
becoming less of a chore. We are able to
sleep most nights. We start believing
that healing is finally starting to happen!
And then, without warning, we feel the tremors of grief
starting to shake our very being. A
flash of memory, a fleeting aroma, or an all-too-familiar feeling in the pit of
our stomach triggers a grief quake that threatens the progress we have
made.
“Not again! I thought I was done with this! Why?
Why? Why…”
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When we are in the midst of grief we want our grief to
follow some sort of pattern. We want it
to feel like we are making progress toward its “resolution.” The well-known but misunderstood “Stages of
Grief” from Kubler-Ross brought a false hope to millions of people. They convinced themselves that their grief
would end when they completed all of the steps.
But grief is a messy experience that is unique for each
person. It is a complex interaction of
physical, mental, and emotional responses to a loss that is affected by
hundreds of factors. Grief is not predictable,
other than there are some experiences that most folks will experience from time
to time. Among these experiences are
grief quakes.
A grief quake is sudden onset of a grief reaction that seems
to come out of nowhere. It may be
triggered by an external stimulus like a smell of the loved one’s cologne or
the sight of their picture. It may rise
from an internal stimulus such as a feeling of loss over something totally unrelated
or remembering a favorite slogan or saying of our loved one. These triggers can lead to a cascade of
physical, mental, and emotional experiences that can be just as powerful and
crippling as the original grief. They
can happen at any time, even many years after the loss. Most folks report that they do become
somewhat less intense as time moves on, but this may not always be the case.
How do we deal with grief quakes? Just like any other part of grief, we simply
have to ride it out. Accept them for
what they are … normal. Let them rumble
through our lives … body-mind-soul. Do
not try and minimize or ignore them …
they are part of us. Allow them to
inform our grief experience … they may have much to reveal. Trust that it will pass … a new day still
awaits us.
These sudden onsets of grief are simply part of the journey
through that shadowed valley. They
remind us of how much we love the one we have lost and that we still miss
them. These moments will pass. They may shift our emotions around and
rearrange our memories, but they are relatively harmless as long as we simply
ride them out.
When the rumblings begin to ease, let them go and look
ahead. I have learned to rely on the
same skill that lets me survive Roller Coasters. I do not like heights or going in
circles. I ride very few roller coasters
but sometimes my grandchildren’s eyes leave me no choice. I have learned that when I am at the top of
the first hill getting ready to plunge into oblivion I say to myself, “Ain’t
gonna last long. Ain’t gonna last
long!” And, when I reach the bottom I
relax and breathe out “Ahhhh!”
Remember, when a
grief quake happens, “It ain’t gonna last long!” and when it’s over, relax and
breathe!
Healing journeys, my friends.
