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| Cagle National Recreation Area in Winter of 2017 |
It has been almost a year since the funeral. Life does not feel normal yet, but you are
getting glimpses of how your new life is shaping up. You are starting to get used to eating
alone. Some days you enjoy eating what
you want, when you want. But other days
you miss her just being there and playing “I don’t know, what do you
want?” The nights are still lonely, but
your days are starting to fill up with new routines. You appreciate the little victories and feel
that you are finally reaching the end of that long, shadowed valley. And then you catch a whiff of her perfume as
you walk down the street and the sadness wells up. You
are right back where you started.
This is called lingering grief. It seems to defy our hopes and
expectations. Grief will not leave us
alone. It has become nearly as unwelcome
as the loss that created it. We do not
want to grieve any longer. We
desperately want to get on with our lives.
But then that little whiff spurs a memory of what we have lost and the
grief crashes in. Our sadness is
twofold. We weep for the spouse we have
lost and the progress we thought we had made.
A lingering grief is a cruel reminder that our journey through the
shadowed valley has not yet come to an end.
This lingering grief is not unusual. In fact, it can happen even after the new
routines have become daily companions.
It can bubble up even when the new normal has claimed 99.9% of our
lives.
I believe lingering grief is a natural response to holding
on to people who we have lost in our daily lives. We have made a conscious decision to keep
these folks in our lives. Our love for
them and their love for us continues to feed our soul. We enjoy having their memories feed our
mind. Remembering them sustains us.
My mother died 22 years ago.
We were very close and when we got together, we would drink Lipton’s
Lemon Flavored Sweet Instant Tea until 3-4 AM solving the world’s
problems. The rest of the family would
be sound asleep, but our discussions continued on. In the last 22 years there have been many
moments when I wanted to talk things over with my Mom. I can generally hear her voice and feel her
presence. But there are moments when her
voice is far away, and the lingering grief rises up tasting like lemony sweet instant
tea. This is the price I pay for staying
in touch with the memory of my Mom. But,
for me, the price is worth it.
Do not be surprised when a few moments of lingering grief
surfaces from time to time. When it
rises up be sure and tell yourself that the pain grows out of your love for them
and reflects the joy they brought and bring to your life.
Remind yourself that the sadness grows out of your
loneliness and emptiness that was created when they left you. But also remember that there are (or will be)
moments when they continue to be a companion in your journey.
Most of all, when those lingering moments of grief bubble up
within your soul, ask yourself, Is your lingering grief worth your continuing
relationship? Are those difficult
moments worth the sweet memories that brings joy to your day? We can let go and forget, but in doing so
would we be losing more than we would gain in decreasing our pain?
The shadowed valley is a place where darkness and light are
constantly shifting. In general, as we
begin to climb out of the depths of the valley, the light will become a bit
brighter and the darkness will be a bit less frequent. We may never climb above the shadows, but we
will hopefully learn to appreciate what the shadows have to teach us about the
joy of living in those sweet moments of light.
Journey on, my friend.
The shade and sunlight await all who make their way through the shadowed
valley of grief.
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