Surviving v. Recovering

I was recently talking with someone about grief and they said “Steve, you aren’t surviving, you are recovering.” What my friend meant was that I had passed the stage of being in grief and surviving the experience, holding on and weathering it, to healing. We don’t have good language for that part of the process, that transformation. But he recognized it.

Part of the problem is that recovering and healing are often seen as putting something completely behind us. I’ve deposed witnesses who broke a leg when young. It healed, they recovered, they can’t remember which leg it was now.

Survival is often thought of as “lived through” something. It is now often used to describe someone who experienced something, but refuses to let it make them a victim. There is strength to claiming survivorship. To say I’m a cancer survivor, not a cancer victim; a rape survivor, not a rape victim – that empowers people.

Survival is important. It is the stage of not being a victim, of realizing that something might be happening to you, but it is not you, and that you will still remain when it concludes. It might be overwhelming, but only for a while, the event is history, not destiny.

Recovery is a different stage, a return path, of sorts, to normalcy. As a friend who survived Hodkins Disease expressed, it is what you do when you realize you have a life to live after chemotherapy is over. Rehabilitation is a good word for many in this state. Some things really do heal, some experiences are just history. Life is nothing but a series of adjustments and history.

But, some times it is more complex. When a child dies, there is a permanence to the grief, but not to the disability the grief creates. In the period of severe disability the grief causes, you survive. Then you rebuild. At some point you begin to make progress in an adjusted world.

I have friends whose grief is old, who told me about this stage long ago, and who are in it now. They did not have a good word for the stage of making progress while rebuilding. Neither do I, but I am experiencing it, just as they told me I would. I miss my deceased girls. I love them still. But I have something I can best describe as recovery, a sort of healing and progress, a sort of love.

Other links on topic

• Affliction (final post in the series)  
• Life and Affliction (part two with another to come)  
• Trials   
• Living Beyond Loss: an essay. 
  
  

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Note that coming up in Sunday School: the book of Job, or how in every tragedy you can expect people whose idea of “comfort” is to come tell you it is all your fault, that if you were just as holy as they are, God would not have needed to punish you and misfortune would have missed you.

When they do, remember that at the end of the book of Job, God shows up and tells the “friends” that they are wrong, in strong terms (Job 42: 7-8). When you meet people like that, Christ’s comments should come to mind, see Matthew 23: 13, 27-28; 32-33. Feel free to circulate both for the lesson.

Grief

• It is not a contest.
• You don't control it, but you can survive it.
• Loss is not personal. "Why me" often has no answer

Reflecting on grief today.

Missing, still.

I find myself missing Robin today. It is a day early, though it was a Sunday, it was the 31st. I should be over everything, but somehow I am not.

Sat with my mom and talked about dad some. She has always had such exact schedules, and this time nothing goes in easily planned or predicted increments. It can be hard for her.

Anyway, it was a couple tough days, remembering my daughter who died, when the third time was not a charm, but a third death, more than I thought I could ever take. Perhaps it was.

Prayer and Grief

In recovery, both science and the logic of the heart tell us that in grief, prayer is important. Finding your way through prayer can be hard. Without talking about the form of prayer, this essay is about an approach to prayer.

1. Honesty. Honesty is essential. God sees it, we can't hide the truth from God, but we can hide the truth from ourselves, which cuts us off from God. Prayer should approach honesty as a foundation. If you have pain, anger, hurt, doubt, or fear, unburden yourself truthfully with God.
2. Trust. You need to trust in God as a power greater than yourself who can do things for you that you can not do for yourself. Combining faith and honesty is very powerful.
3. Apply the two tools of honesty and trust to find a place of peace by taking inventory so you can repent and so you can be grateful. Reflecting actively, not passively, is what taking inventory means. Making amends to others and finding gratitude within you are the two places reflection needs to lead you.
4. Listen. Prayer is a conversation. All good conversationalists listen. The same may well be true of prayer. In listening expect that God may well tell you things that you do not know, expect or understand. Without the trust and humility it takes to listen, prayer can not lead you far.
   

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Did God really mean it when He said ... (with thanks to Suzette Haden Elgin, I'm thinking of adding these in from time to time)

"my ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts"

Yes.

Dying in the ICU // What Sarah Said//Love is Watching Someone Die

Here is the video, What Sarah Said/Love is Watching Someone Die




Here is the interpretation




My wife pointed this out to me, it really grabbed me, that sometimes, love is watching someone die.

Advice from my wife

I thought I'd quote some more advice from my wife (her name is Winifred and she goes by Win).

Dear [name redacted]: I remember feeling like I could no longer stand to breath any more. I went into my room, and laid down on the bed. I just wanted to give up and die. I couldn't quit breathing. My body just kept taking the next breath. After a while, I looked around and noticed the dust on the dresser. I decided to get up and dust the dresser while I tried to figure out how to quit breathing.

I think grief is like that. You take a breath at a time, focusing on nothing else but how much you resent the fact that your own body keeps breathing. Eventually, you will find purpose again. Dusting a dresser, caring for a demanding child, paying a bill, are all activities that force us to become distracted from our grief. It is so hard to try to see those things as significant. They are significant .. especially the other people.

I used to ask myself: How would I treat my daughters if they were suddenly alive again? How would I show my love and gratitude for such a gift from God? Then I would make myself treat my living children, my husband, and my other relatives THAT way. That was hard to do. At first my actions were empty of feeling, eventually, the feelings returned. It took years.

The reality is that they could be taken from me at any time. We ALL die. Everyone of us. The only question is when and what relationships do we leave behind us. You want to be the kind of mother to your daughters that they will remember in love and kindness. They will give you grandsons and granddaughters, they will raise those children in the fashion in which they were taught. What lessons are you teaching them?

I don't of myself as being a strong person. I think I was so stupid that I didn't know when to quit. I just kept moving ... I didn't know how to stop. Now I look back and I see that I faked life emotionally. Eventually, I was able to integrate my emotions with my actions. Mostly. some I am still working on.

Grief is so hard. By kind to yourself, and then share the kindness.

There is a song line "You're everything I hoped for, You're everything I need" that replays itself to me as "more than I hoped for, better than I dreamed" when I think of my wife.

Peace,

Stephen

Advice from Win

My wife recently had the following to say to someone:

There are two stories that I want to share with you.

My daughter Courtney turned a year old just 2 weeks after my oldest daugthter died. I was not emotionally ready to celebrate anything, AND, at a year of age, Courtney would not know the difference. So .. No party. 11 months later, Courtney died. I still feel guilt that I never had a party for her.

When my oldest daughter was in the hospital and we found out that she was not going to live, a friend stopped by. She had lost a son at the age of 4. She made a statement that has stuck with me. She said, " You are going to have to decide how much else you are willing to lose." I gave her a confused look. She continued, " When you lose a child, it is all too easy to make that loss your focus. If you do that, you will lose other things also. You will lose your marriage, your other children, your job, your friends. Everything else will be gone. You have to decide how much more you willing to lose."

"How much more am I willing to lose?" That became the statement that I would repeat to myself in my head. That statement made me get up and do things with my other children. It made me focus on my marriage, it made me try to interact with other people.

Your son's death had nothing to do with goodness and evil, wrong or right. You did nothing to "earn" or "deserve"
this tragedy im your life. Horrible things happen in this life. I don' think we really notice all the tragedy in this world until we are personally involved. Grief opens our eyes and our hearts to different emotions. I think it connects us-- as individuals to the rest of humanity.

It is hard to breath somedays while learning to handle loss. Work on it. Make yourself breath, and walk, and care. Claim your life, make yourself love again. You will lose too much if you don't force yourself to move forward. Take the memories of your son, think of all the things you would do with him if he was still here, and do those things with your other children. You don't know what your future holds .. Love them while you can.

Take your grief, hold it tightly, don't let it go, but keep moving forward. I know that you can do it.

Facing my bad habits, growing

I've a bad habit of passing along what can best be described as positive gossip -- positive things people have said about others behind their backs. That, in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but I find myself tempted to reframe things slightly. I was reflecting on it today in church. Sometimes reframing is just that, changing the perspectives or illustrating the essential truth in better words than the original speaker used. But it can be tempting to go too far. I'm learning to watch myself to prevent that, gilding the lily only lessens the truth.

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This blog grew out of an on-line journal I was keeping as a part of keeping my identity separate from grief. I may have had things happen to me, but I was determined that I would not become defined by those things. By writing I was able to put distance between what had happened and myself.

I was getting ready to quit the process when I discovered that what I was writing helped a small audience not really helped enough. So I continued.

I'm glad it is a small audience and only wish it were smaller, that no one experienced the death of a child. Of the things I've blogged about, the rituals and experiences of grief are the least interesting to a general audience. When I blog in that area, hits on the blog always go down.

I can easily double the readers or more by writing on diet. People seem to be drawn to SLD, and by November I will have been using the method for three years. I lost a lot of weight, then brought it back up to 189 and then stayed at that weight for over a year. Recently my weight has slipped down (177.6 this morning). It will probably slip some more, but weight loss isn't what I am really about.

But I have been thinking. It is eleven years since Robin was born and we just recently hit another stage of healing. I know my blog title was designed to make those who were grieving feel more at home, more comfort at being here, than they might have otherwise felt. But it isn't the way I am any more, even at a distance. So I changed it a while back.

That doesn't mean that I'm changing direction or that I'll start focusing on things that draw more attention and more hits. Rather, I'll probably blog about grief a great deal less here, and probably blog a good deal less all in all. I'm not sure I have much more to say. As for Mormon Matters, the group blog I'm with, the way it has become the round the clock gay marriage blog I'm not sure I have much to blog there about either.

Except to try to think of something positive about Ray (The Things of My Soul) and Hawkgrrl to say about them, behind their backs.

Betrayal

I end up talking with people on this theme several times a year.

• a mother whose only boy has died, and who can't have any other children, and who feels betrayed that God has left her without sons;
• a father whose wife has become an alcoholic and whose children are losing their way;
• someone whose interaction with food has gone terribly wrong and who can't stop gaining weight;
• people recovering from disasters who feel that calamity should not have befallen them;
• a kid who wants to serve a mission but who has developing mental illness issues that medication doesn't quite resolve;
  
• the list goes on.

Affliction, especially affliction that seems permanent or life altering, causes a number of emotions. A sense of loss, pain, hopelessness, bereavement and others. Bitterness and betrayal seem to be two of the hardest to deal with. In some situations (such as a spouse who has an attack of the "middle aged crazy" or who has been unfaithful) the emotion seems unavoidable.

Many people who have read my blog know that I've been reading 12-step literature in the hope that it would apply to grief. It does, a little, sometimes. I've written about that too.

But, and this is a big but, there is one area where there is a 12-step group that has feelings of betrayal and resentment down cold. That group is Al Anon. Al Anon is a group for people who have an alcoholic in the family (one of the sub-groups is for kids who have to deal with an alcoholic parent). They have a lot of literature. But, a constant theme, over and over again, is dealing with feelings of betrayal, resentment and the need to control someone else.

This is especially true when people feel betrayed by God in what has happened to them.

Yes, I'd advocate anyone with those emotions to seek counseling. But, you can read things (e.g. here on the official site, and an excellent collection of essays on-line here). No matter what is causing the feelings (and alcoholics often are unfaithful, mentally ill, betrayers -- that is all part of the disease), they have an excellent tool set to help you while a professional gives you additional support.

No question, I value The Anatomy of Peace. But if you need more, there are books like One Day at a Time in Al-Anon (available for 12 cents or so used on Amazon and probably in your local library) that can help with the emotional states, to give you encouragement and hope in dealing with the pain, confusion and anguish.

That can help you find peace.

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For some "middle age crazy" links:

• http://www.hubbynet.com/middleage.htm
• http://blog.middleagedmale.com/
• http://morgansher.blogspot.com/
• http://www.metrolyrics.com/middle-aged-crazy-lyrics-jerry-lee-lewis.html
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081157/
• http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Middle-Age-Crazy-lyrics-Tom-Jones/
  

Trials

This has been one of those weeks. A good friend died. I got notice that another friend's wife was sick, but expected to stay strong into next week and went down to see her in the hospital during a snow storm only to discover she had taken a bad turn for the worse and they were going to discontinue life support in the morning. A sister in our ward had her husband die.

I'm blogging on my perspective and thoughts about trials and adversity tomorrow at Mormon Matters.

http://mormonmatters.org/2008/03/09/trials/

But, it has been a week with a number of them. But every week has trials. Otherwise it wouldn't be the imperfect world we dwell in.

Off the transplant list

I've a friend, his wife was hospitalized last week end. Today her condition was bad enough that they took her off the transplant list. They will take her off the ventilator as soon as her doctor arrives in the morning to handle that. The funeral will be early next week.

Words fail me. We've been in reversed positions, and words failed him. He knows exactly how I feel and I how I wish so much there was more I could do. But words are all we have.

Baptism this Saturday, small miracles.

Rachel is getting baptized this Saturday.

It has been a long time since we've had a child live long enough to be baptized. Kind of like her last milestone before we can go back to trying to live normally.

Strange how there are such hidden things in our lives, with such meaning.

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In grief there are two kinds of milestones involving children, both hard to understand.

As Jessica's friends were baptized, had bat mitzvahs, went to college, got married and went through other life stages, there was such bitter-sweet sorrow in her not being there, not doing the same things. At the same time, there is comfort in the fact that life is going on and such joy to see her friends doing well. By all means I was much happier to see the events than if I had missed them.

The other is as children reach the ages that siblings died at, it is as if a heavy weight is lifted each time. Jessica so wanted to be baptized. To see Rachel go through that event was so sweet, as if she had finally begun to live, while at the same time it was one of the first kind of milestones as well.

Life is so many small miracles, so much joy, so much perspective. I am glad of it.

There are no words

Brigham Young and Joseph Smith wrote a number of times about how our language limited our understanding. That when God spoke to us, we were limited by our words, our experiences and the tools we had to work with and that an important part of allowing God to speak to us was expanding the tools we had to hear the divine with.

We are often caught up in the struggle between denotation and connotation. Between indentity and meaning, and in grief, so limited by the things we do not know. There are no words that suffice sometimes.

So we struggle. When God says "worlds without number" does God mean infinite, or does God mean more than the current audience would count, or does God mean an indefinite number of worlds (the "I've lost count" number in the math joke) or is it a poetic reference? All, none, some, or does it really matter? Can the right words help when we are in pain? Can those without the right words do much but spread ignorance?

I was thinking about the concept on the plane to my in-laws, struggling with a way to put into words the way that words are not enough. Then, last night, I read another story of grief, where words failed the author and those who spoke to him revealed only their own lack of knowledge, their own failures of language. As I read, it came to mind that there was little I could say to the author or others right then, there are no words sometimes. There are no words.

Seasons of the heart, Christmas

I've been writing out the personal notes for Christmas cards. This year has been a blitz of presents (Win made over a hundred personalized glass casserole dishes, packaged them up and mailed most of them, and that was only a start). As the season progresses, with memories and everything coming in, makes me want to just find a way to disappear and resurface in March. There are only so many presents to give away, so much activity to interpose, and I can no longer hide behind food.

Jessica was so excited about being baptized. I've not known a kid not quite seven who was so enthused about getting to eight to be baptized. Now, Rachel is about to turn eight and it just brings back and lot of feelings. We head towards Christmas, where Courtney died on the 26th of December and Rachel was admitted to the hospital then, and it is a cold month, in so many ways, and this year, more than many before, a very hard month to face.

But, we got a tree, got it decorated, had the pets eat everything on the bottom few branches, and we have lights up (out of reach of the pets outside).

Wish I had better advice for weathering the seasons of the heart.

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BTW, ethics, fair trade and everything else aside, http://peaceworks.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=28 is a link to the best granola bars I've ever found.

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I've simplified my modified Shangri-la calories as well.

2 ice cubes, one cup of water, 1/4 cup oatmeal, 1.5 scoops protein powder, 2 tablespoons extra light olive oil, blend well (using a blender), drink right after getting up, no flavor for an hour, then I brush my teeth and go to work. It is simple, easiest two hour block of time to find (since I'm spending an hour of it sleeping), replaces breakfast and seems to work well. The powder binds up the oil and it is the most gag free approach I've found. A number of people use nose clips, but if you use Designer Whey, unflavored, it is pretty much flavor free with or without the nose clips.

Contains enough protein that you don't have to pay special attention to getting enough protein while losing weight.

"It was only a girl who died, that doesn't matter,"she said

If you had lost a son, then you would know grief. All you've buried is worthless daughters, what do you know of loss!

That is a real statement from a real person, who will remain nameless. They felt the way they felt with some vehemence. Why? Was it because they were narcissistic? Was it because they were misogynistic? Was it because they were so ego driven and competitive they had to win in any venue?

Who knows, who cares? The reality is that they were in grief, and severe grief makes logical paupers of us all. None of the obvious responses to such a statement helps anyone. Not the poor parent driven somewhat beyond reason by the death of a child. They don't need deconstruction or enlightenment or re-education just right now.

People watching do not need to see someone in pain given more pain. They might be vicious enough or callous enough to enjoy it, but they don't need it and no one should have the desire to give them a show. Even more, a person on the other end of such a statement isn't any closer to serenity or charity if they forget to be sad and patient, to mourn with those who mourn.

It is important when dealing with others who grieve not to let it become competitive. It is important not to let attempts to compete or dominate by others, afflict us or affect us. Remembering to treat competitive statements as just one more way people are driven past reason by grief and evidence helps me remember that they need help and love. That people really need love and patience is a useful perspective.

It is also one that it is useful to let carry over into your life outside of grief. Grief, especially the severe grief of losing a child, is just terrible stress, writ large (the phrase "writ large" just means just bigger and worse). If you take just a moment, it is easy to see people as being deformed by stress -- remembering that one meaning of to be deformed is to be pushed out of your natural shape.

Rather than thinking of those who say terrible things as malformed (better than using "deformed" in the sense of formed wrong or inherently defective), if you see them as deformed by stress and life, you can also see them as able to be restored by love and patience.

Having love and patience is what charity is really about. In many ways it is just taking the time to help our brothers and sisters, and to help ourselves, be restored to our proper form, undeformed by stress. As my dearest wife pointed out to me, hearing such statements, and their cousins, should be a reminder that people need love and patience, not a reason to abandon it.

Memories

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

So it the laughter
The laughter, We'll remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were

Today is so bittersweet, so very bittersweet. So very sweet to wake up with my wife beside me (though the cat as an alarm clock is not necessarily the best way to wake up, having him bother her instead of me ... seems somehow right since he is her cat ... though I got up and fed him, and am writing this post now while she sleeps, wrapped up in my shirt and my love) .

But today is also the day that Jessica died. I know that grief endures only because love endures, and while it is bitter that the grief always remains with those who bury children, it is sweet to know that our love for our children always remains.

Until we meet again, I have memories, I have love.

A friend's comments on mortality

Ozarque has been writing about mortality:

• Death and Dying: Part One.
• Handbook for Mortality Discussion (brief).
• Death and Dying: Part Four (you can find parts two and three if these posts interest you).
  

It is easy to forget that we are all mortal, especially on a cold, sharp morning with kids on a sleepover eating waffles and sausage. But we are, and it helps to plan for life to continue. Grief and loss are hard, but there are things we can do to make the transitions more human, more survivable.

So, how are we doing ...

Well, other than wanting to see more friends more often (things get so busy), this is probably the best Christmas we've had. Now, if we can only catch up with the Greens (and my thanks to the people who sent me the phone number for Billy Joe -- your e-mail address bounced when I sent a thank you note to you, but I had a great talk with him and he gave me Bob Smith's number to [I think, I had the strangest dream and woke up with Bob Smith's number on my telephone's saved number list]).

Our Christmas letter follows. I think we got them all mailed (they were in the kitchen when we had our fire, and I still worry ...).

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*

Heather

is at BYU. A

Neuroscience Major

Rachel is now in first grade

with Soccer, Girl Scouts, Judo

Piano, Earthsavers, Book Buddies

Chess Club. Mom tired. Steve is still

at St. Paul Travelers. Happy man. Skinny

man. He lost 75 pounds. In Judo too. His

Mom and Dad moved in down the street. Bought

a house and started major renovations. Win still doing

Anesthesia. Chairs Landscaping project for elementary school,

chairs Ward Activity Committee. Girl Scout Leader. Very Tired

Perfect

&

gorgeous.

That was our family Christmas letter. I got Win to approve it when she was very tired, later, on reading it again, she laughed when she realized I was talking about her being perfect and gorgeous, then realized I had sent that out to everyone we sent cards to (though we lost too many addresses in a PDA crash and the fire).

I'm so grateful to have gotten through a Christmas without the memories overwhelming us or another tragedy striking and to have a living, happy seven-year-old in the house, and Heather home for the holidays.

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Another blog by a parent in grief. http://barbtries.blogspot.com/

Breathe

Well, it is the "real" Christmas morning and everyone is still healthy and breathing.

Sometimes you just need to be grateful and to breathe.

Sometimes there is nothing more that you can really give or that you really need.

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Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square

almost as good as Christmas at home with my sleeping baby (ok, she is really seven years old now, but she is sleeping like a baby).

Normal does not equal desirable. Or even survivable.

Normal does not equal desirable. Or even survivable.

That is a great line. So many things in grief are "normal" and yet so many people do not survive them.

God bless all of you, each and every one. May normal for you be desirable, and may the season bring you joy.