EXPERIENCING GRIEF BOMBS
When you lose a spouse there is an acute feeling of loss that is
indescribable. Lots of other losses are tragic but none are the same as the
loss of a spouse. The grief that comes with that loss is hard to explain and
even harder to imagine. In fact, I can say that from experience because for
many years Ned and I lived as though he would die at age 56. After all his
father and five generations of men before him had all died at age 56 of a
condition that Ned was diagnosed with in his mid- twenties. We lived our lives
as if we had a specific time period to experience living and loving each other
and we lived it without regret or resentment. It was just the way it was.
In that picture of the future I often tried to imagine what life would
be like for me after he was gone. At the time I was sure I knew how things
would go. Now I can tell you that this is nothing like what I thought it would
be. Nothing at all.
Now, Ned lived to be 68 so we had many more years than first expected
and I am grateful for every day we got after his 57th birthday. But
even the expectation that I would be left behind did not prepare me for the
profound grief I experienced every day after his death. The grief manifested
itself in many different ways and it was not always an experience of tears and
feeling bad. Sometimes it was just the feeling of loss and being alone in a big
empty house. Sometimes it was the
absence of noise and sometimes just a moment when I wanted to share something
funny with him and he was not there to listen or ask him a question about
something he always handled.
Over the months after his death the acute and consistent feeling of
loss and grief began to wane. I was on the pathway to discovering a new normal
for my life and no matter how much I missed him, moving forward did not involve
thinking of him in almost every moment.
However, to this day there is the phenomenon my friend Leslie called “grief
bombs” that drop out of nowhere. They are unexpected moments of profound loss
and pain and they seem to come from out of nowhere and explode in the middle of
my life. They can be triggered by almost anything and often by the most
unexpected things. Most of the time they occur to be so random that I have no
idea what triggered them. That does not lessen the pain or soften the blow or
slow the onslaught of tears.
When I shared about “grief bombs” with my children they knew exactly
what I was talking about. Moments when someone or something just triggers a
memory and the missing of that loved one is present, and as real as it was at
the time of the loss. It goes away almost as quickly as it came and life goes
on as before. I have come to expect the “grief bombs” as momentary expressions
of a mixture of joy and pain. Joy at the memory of times passed that are
treasured and valued beyond measure and pain at the resurgence of the tearing
at the heart that comes with the experience of the loss. I never want to lose
either.
As a widow of over six years now, I realize that many think I should be
past it now and moving on – and I am. I do not dwell in the loss of my love of almost
50 years but I also do not turn away from the moments that remind me of the joy
of loving him, the gift of family we created, the memories shared through a
lifetime and the missing it is for me that he is no longer here to hug and talk
to and snuggle with under the covers on a winter night.
Grief bombs are my reminder of all that was shared as well as the loss
of that life. They are a fact of life and one I expect to experience for the
rest of my life.
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