Grief for Dummies

I know just enough about a lot things to be dangerous, and while I majored in psychology, I studied the brain side of psychology, not the feelings side. I should probably not write this, but well it didn't stop Dr. Phil! So today, I am going to write about grief. I am not an expert, not even in the experience, but I have a lot of friends who are experts, so all you psychologists, feel free to chime in if you want!

Yesterday I wrote about the five traditional stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Modern psychology chooses to look at processes rather than stages, but that's too complicated for dummies and in many ways not so different for my purposes, so we'll stick with the Kubler-Ross model! We also know that people do not go through these stages in any particular order, that some people don't go through all of them, and you can be in multiple stages at any given time.

So, in my short experience, I have come to realize that every grief experience is different for every person--it's like trying to bring a side dish to a potluck without knowing the main course. Mediterranean bean salad is great with grilled chicken, but not if the host planned a honey glaze and a side of mango chutney... And I make great cheesecake but if the featured dinner is fettucine alfredo with caesar salad and garlic bread, something fruity, or even chocolate would be much more appropriate. And then when I show up to the party with my cheesy potato casserole and the hostess laughs and say that at the last minute she decided against meatloaf and is making Hunan shrimp, my perfectly good offering is now useless. And so matching grief is very complicated. Many marriages flounder in the face of grief, and it makes sense when you figure that if I spend most of my time between acceptance and denial and Jay hovers between depression and anger, little problems start to arise--even without your ever being aware.

If it were more clear, I would just stick a post-it on my forehead--"beware anger," or "calm acceptance," but I don't even know from one minute to the next where I am or how any person or comment will be received--I feel like the land under California, broken and unstable. And this is where you start to understand why so many books tell you that when you face childhood cancer, relationship problems are a reality. People you were close to fall away and people you never knew become your best friends. Relationships are complicated anyway, but add the complexity of great challenges and grief and things are magnified 1000 times. Some people will expect more from people who are close to them, but of course they will also grieve whether it is for the child, or for life the way it used to be before things got weird and your little problem became the center of the universe. Some people are uncomfortable with illness and loss, some are terrified of cancer, and all those fears and needs and feelings get mixed up like garlic and vanilla.

So what does that mean? Well for me, and having now read probably close to 100 blogs on cancer and the like, I think others express the same things, so here are my first few hints for helping people you love through grief:

1. Coordinate help with the family. Do offer help, send letters, cards, and even phone, support is good, pushy is not. People in denial will not admit to needing help and can resent the kind that is overly intrusive. People who are angry may not appreciate the kind or level of help you have to offer. If you mean it, put the offer out there, but don't be surprised, hurt or otherwise offended if they never take you up on it. Every expression of care makes every day brighter, even if no help is needed. Also, some people, self included, are never comfortable accepting help, and in the face of a life-changing event, they may be even more steadfast, that would be me, or become very open to help--ask, it can't hurt "Is there anything I can do?" is never a bad question. "I am coming to stay at your house for a week to get your medical files in order" is probably not the best offer. I read in one blog about a woman whose well-meaning friend sent someone to cut her grass and they mowed down her whole flower garden that was supposed to offer her comfort when the going got tough...

2. Advice is not always good. "It helps to talk about it," "my mother's cousin's sister's friend is the best cardiologist in Finland, you HAVE TO talk to him," "You need to let people help," "he HAS to eat more vegetables" all seem sensible and helpful but from the wrong person to the wrong person at the absolute worst time can be a deal breaker--the end of a perfectly good relationship. People under stress are not sane. When your friend wonders aloud about alternatives to valve replacement or if nutrition matters, or says they want to talk, then be there and give and offer to help find answers, but otherwise follow their lead.

3. Be aware of your own needs, then the needs of others. Grief is complicated in small quarters. When parents and children and siblings all collide in different stages of grief, things get messy. Take care to save the emotional energy you need for the people that rely on you and hope others understand--it's like on a plane, first your own mask, then others, and you can't save everyone. For me personally, I have to make myself stable, then take care of Bo and Pierce and Jay, in that order. Everyone else is a distant third. While I love both our families and all our friends, at the end of the day, there is sometimes little left, and all those other stages of grief that I can't share with Bo and Pierce, and sometimes not Jay, are at risk of spilling out on innocent bystanders--that anger, depression and denial need a place for expression. Lately I am very bad company, and I often don't enjoy being around people. Forgive me and others like me, I don't even have enough left for pretense--simple hellos, good byes, and how are yous take a back seat sometimes. But grief doesn't last forever, so forgive, and eventually forget, and remain an understanding presence so that relationships can be normal again one day, and that day might even be tomorrow, but not Monday, and Tuesday isn't looking good either, it just goes one day, and sometimes one minute at a time, and like Ian and his wife know, a marathon is not simply a long steady run. Marathon runners know that every single one of those miles is different, some are easy, some are downright excruciating, and so it goes with all the big challenges life throws us sometimes.

Anyway, that is my highly inappropriate, very uneducated primer on grief and helping people you love, or covertly, helping me, you know "I have a friend..." Anyway, that's all for now, I think my session is over, Lisa