The Trauma of Loss
Grieving is a Process
Acceptance vs. Closure
Acceptance Wins
By Donna Bailey-Thompson
There is no subtle way to lead into what I need to write.
A little before midnight on Saturday evening, the 21st of January 1995, at a “big band” dance, immediately following two swing numbers, my husband looked at me and said, “I’m feeling dizzy,” swayed slightly and collapsed onto the dance floor. CPR began at once: the orchestra leader was an internist, a dancer was another M.D., another dancer was a cardiologist, and aided by nurse-dancers, all persevered to bring my fallen dancing partner to his feet. With the arrival of the ambulance and ultimately in the hospital ER, resuscitation efforts continued nonstop. My husband never breathed on his own again. It was nearing one-thirty when the cardiology team let him go. A while later I was allowed to sit with Stafford, that is, with the body that had been the home of his essence. I laid my hand high on his forehead and my head near his, aware it was the last time we would share a pillow. My thoughts zigzagged between the profound and the profane; had they been wired, their pattern on the monitor - like yarn unraveling from a tightly knit sweater - would have resembled the scrambled line that had represented Stafford’s heart muscle’s struggle to resume normal, effective pumping. I sat beside him, letting my thoughts have voice, believing that no matter how tangled they were, he would understand. After all, he always had.
Any tears, however, were silent. I was bone weary from an evening of energetic dancing - we seldom paced ourselves; having my hair wet with perspiration and Stafford’s shirt uniformly damp were normal manifestations of our dancing elation. I was in shock from having giddy gaiety shattered by watching Stafford’s healthy color replaced by an ashen pallor - I knew within minutes of him hitting the floor that he whom I loved was gone - trauma had drained most of my emotions and cushioned what was left, placing me in a semi-numb state. Ah, Nature has such wisdom.
But what sustained me then and continues to give me strength 10 days later are these blessings. First, I know that my husband had absolutely no fear of dying. In fact, he often said that he rather looked forward to it, the new experience, the opportunity to grow more. “Not that I’m in a hurry for anything premature because I look forward to growing old with you. You’ll know that I am moving on...” Second, there was nothing incomplete about our relationship. We were current in what we needed to share with one another. There was nothing left unsaid or misunderstood, nothing about which to feel guilty. Third, I knew with every fiber of my being that my husband deeply loved, honored, cherished and trusted me, just as I did him. I was able to let him move on, never once feeling he had abandoned me. Protectors don’t abandon. He knew I would be okay.
I could not have experienced such a joy-filled marriage had I not gone through trials in tandem with and followed by recovery. There had been three previous marriages which I ended with divorce - to a scholar, and then to two alcoholics - the first was physically abusive and the second was emotionally cruel. Had I remained stuck on a pity pot, feeding my feelings of victimhood, there would have been precious little about me another would have found attractive - except someone similarly haunted and flawed. Instead I was privileged to be the wife of a man who had the respect of all who knew him and the love of most, who enjoyed so much inner security that I had both the freedom and his encouragement to be my very own self - someone he found stimulating, fumy, and occasionally wise. He often said that he had learned so much from me. Translation: he benefitted from what I learned during recovery and since.
A few months earlier Stafford had composed a bio blurb for his upcoming Princeton reunion. The conclusion reads: “This second marriage has brought greater balance and much joy and support. It has sustained me through my stressful recent years. As a `professional couple’ - Donna is very busy as a writer, editor, publisher and activist, and I am both a consultant and inventor - we are a great team. We are mutually supportive and very productive. We also dance every chance we get. Fred and Ginger, yet.”
Surely it takes no imagination to know that as happy as I am for Stafford - that he literally dropped his body and moved on having just spent an evening dancing up a storm - what a dancer! We first met, 20 years before, dancing - that he passed on without suffering - what an exit! - that he’s applying his impressive scholarship and enhancing his already remarkable spiritual growth on another plane - and that in spite of all these good feelings I have, I am also living with waves of sadness, sometimes overwhelming. I miss his serene aura, his incisive thinking honed “down among the molecules” (he held, at last count, over 35 patents), his sweet heart. But I know, just as sure as I know anything, that my husband, the best editor anyone could ever have, is encouraging me to keep on keeping on. He was proud of me and proud of my publication. I’ve got a life. I’m not finished here.
Now it’s nine months later and I have no idea how much longer grieving for my husband will be at the center of my being. By the time the New Year rings in, I will have spent 94% of this year as a widow. I am semi-accustomed to having had my life turned upside down, wrong-side out, and hung out on the line to dry, so to speak. Sometimes I play that senseless game, “Last year at this time...” and shake my head in disbelief. That was 500 miles and a different house ago. That was “couple” time, “team” time, two trees with branches intertwined but with plenty of air circulating between their trunks. Yes, Stafford and I took our marriage vows seriously and appropriately so: we wrote most of the ceremony, weaving in such wisdom as Kahlil Gibran’s, “But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” (The Prophet)
Because Stafford fostered my independence and showered me with his loving support in all my interests, he was, in effect, guaranteeing he would have a happy wife and further, that should the unthinkable occur, I would be fine as a widow.
So far, so good.
Among the many discoveries I have made in recent months, the most shocking to some is hearing me say that for me, being a new widow is easier than being a new divorcee. Consider this: I went from a wonderful marriage straight into widowhood. I became a divorcee straight from a miserable excuse for a marriage. I came into widowhood from a position of strength and self-confidence. As a new divorcee, I felt I had survived a living hell. My mind reeled from 10 years of head games generated within a labyrinth of lies.
From the time I became that shell-shocked divorcee, let me take you back 11 years to the breakup of a love affair with Stafford. A diabolical relative polluted the harmonious climate our love had thrived in, and when Stafford walked away, I was left with both a broken heart and relief the suspense was over. Hindsight says that the rush I received one year later, telling me everything I wanted to hear, was bestowed upon someone on the rebound - me.
The fact Stafford and I found one another again (what a love story that is!) gives credence to the phrase, “Obviously, you were meant to be together.”
Usually the next words are, “Oh, how awful - all those wasted years when you could have been together!”
Of course there were other ways I would have preferred to have spent 10 of those years but were they wasted? Not by a long shot!
For it was during those years that I grew more than all the previous years rolled together. First I regressed. Then when that core within us that is designed to be healthy asserted itself, I joined three different libraries. And thus began my independent study of alcoholism and how it affects those close to an alcoholic. In the process I could see some of the ways it was affecting me. Delving into me through Al-Anon and various combinations of private therapy jolted my insight into accepting more truth about myself. One of the most significant recovery tools to have become integrated into my being is challenging myself about what my motives may be, especially when I am trying to decide how I should approach a particular issue.
By the time I filed for divorce, I was like the little engine that could: I had regained most of my self-confidence, much of which still needed testing. The aspect that made being a new divorcee more difficult than new widowhood was the knowledge I’d been conned, betrayed, and emotionally plundered. I had to work through the factual awareness to the saving insight: there was no reason for me to take such abuse personally. If it hadn’t been me, it would have ben someone else. So there was some solace in being a face in the crowd.
Because I got to know myself quite well, I believe I was a much better wife to Stafford than I would have been had we gone ahead with our marriage plans years earlier. Such a belief lends credence to another belief I share with millions of others: everything happens for a reason.
Without those infamous 10 years to my credit, I would not have felt qualified to produce a magazine for people in recovery from anything. In turn, having this publishing responsibility has been, truly, a godsend during these initial months of widowhood.
See how important it is, to quote one of Stafford’s favorite descriptions of himself, “I’ve paid attention along the way”? By paying attention to what’s going on in our lives, we accumulate knowledge to tap into when it’s needed. We’re aware we’re alive. We can judge for ourselves whether or not we have a life. And if we find that we haven’t, we can do something about getting one.
A full year has gone by and I’m finally coming to terms with the “loss” aspect of grieving. Recovering from the sudden and fatal collapse of my husband meant that I had to deal with loss. Looking back I know the shock was akin to the springing of a trapdoor: my world feel away. The sad and empty feelings of loss are shared to a degree by all who are in recovery from anything, be it the death of a loved one, quitting nicotine and/or stopping drinking (or living with someone who just has), and whatever else people choose to do to cause themselves harm and others enough discomfort built from frustration to say, “I’m outta here!”
For years I thought the common bottom-line feeling for folks new to recovery was a lack of self-worth. Now, it seems to me, the feelings of loss underlie all other feelings.
Someone’s physical presence is gone. The closeness of humdrum rituals shared become painful solitary exercises. Or, because you’ve quit smoking, there’s no cigarette with a cup of coffee....or after making love. No longer drinking means there are no Bloody Marys at impromptu tailgate parties. Or, you eat a plate of food and don’t deliberately throw it up. Your toddler spills milk all over the kitchen floor you just washed and now that you’ve learned anger management (old term: self-control), you simply mop up the milk, smile at your little one and laugh, “We’re not going to cry over spilt milk, are we?”
Losses guarantee changes, for better or worse. When at first we long to fill the emptiness with what was there, it’s guaranteed the loss deepens. And if we deliberately recruit a substitute make-do, we could be borrowing added grief.
Lumping the loss from giving up smoking and drinking with the loss of a loved one through a quarrel, divorce or death may seem flippant to some. But to varying degrees these events create a ground zero within us that initially only the resumption of tobacco or alcohol or the return of the one who left can possibly neutralize. That’s where recovery begins.
That’s where I was.
Within a week of losing my husband, I knew I’d be returning to New England to be near my family. That would be my first step towards filling the emptiness. Finding a house and making an offer took three days. How’d I do that so quickly and here it was, 1 ‡ years later and cartons still needed to be unpacked?
From talking with a grief recovery expert, we concluded that I remained in varying degrees of shock for a full year. Half of that time I belonged to a support group for the widowed where I made dear friends, one in particular - a middle-aged man trapped in an 85-year-old body whom everyone loved. He was mourning his wife, I my husband, and the talking and shopping and dining were preliminary healing times. Alas, on the first of February, without warning, his heart stopped.
At about the same time, I emerged from the shock of my husband’s heart stopping. That a full year had gone by seemed impossible. My memories were as sharp and clear as if the year had not happened. I cried more, and more often, than I had the previous year. Vivid dreams of my husband, always around daybreak, seemed more like sweet, personal visits. Several times I awakened and burst into sobs because whether I’d experienced a vision or a dream, the result was the same: he was not there in the flesh to welcome a new day with me.
I was working my way through recovery.
The correctness of my decision to move close to my children and their children was reinforced repeatedly. Cookouts became a regular event with friends, family and extended families. One afternoon the head count was 34.
By the end of the summer, because my time was divided between my publication and family, I was chided more than once about not having a life. Moi?
Was I nearing the time when I would be ready to expand my socializing to include more than my family, to actually develop a social life apart from my family? It wasn’t that I had stopped missing and loving my husband, rather the original sharp feelings of loss had softened. I was torn between letting go and wanting to hang on to all that I could of such a good, loving marriage. I knew that until I closed a door on what we shared, no other doors could be opened. So I thought: Okay, I’ll do it, but for now it’s a screen door.
I looked within and saw self-reliance, emotional strength, heightened spiritual awareness. (Never mind what I saw when I looked in the mirror! Health spa, where are you?)
For months after my husband passed away, my identity stemmed from being a widow, even to the point of feeling like there was a big red W on my forehead. Not any more. I’ve regained my integrated self. This tells me that with the exception of that temporary screen door, the hard work of my grief recovery is done.
And isn’t this what all in recovery are striving for - to one day be able to declare, “I am no longer feeling at a loss like a victim. I am recovered.”
Not so fast! It’s now four months later, just after the second anniversary of Stafford’s passing, and I realize I’ve been waiting for something magical to happen. For what was beginning to feel like forever, I’d been waiting for closure to occur as the crowning achievement of mourning the loss of my beloved husband.
I’d come through the first year with flying colors, or so I thought. People told me, “You’re doing so well,” whatever that was supposed to mean - that I wasn’t bawling my head off in public and talking about him every waking moment? That I could function, even smile, laugh, quip and be silly?
One bit of knowledge that has supported me ever since that January midnight is that feelings are not to be judged as good or bad; they’re either comfortable or uncomfortable. So whatever I felt was okay and further, whatever I acted upon was equally okay.
By one person’s Acceptable Rules of Behavior for the Newly Widowed, my manner of observing the first solo wedding anniversary demonstrated I was certifiably out of my tree. Just as we, husband and wife, always did on our anniversary, I did by myself - lighted the marriage candle and read aloud the ceremony we had so carefully and deliberately constructed. Only this time there was no one with whom to alternate the reading. Yes, of course I wept. I couldn’t articulate why I had to put myself through compounded grief but I think I know why now: there had been three of us every day of our married lives together - husband, wife, and the marriage itself. Coming together as we did from previous legalized living arrangements that were abysmal failures culminated by divorce, to have a new opportunity to create a real marital union was a privilege and responsibility we accepted with joy and dedication. Regardless of the fact my husband had passed away, I still felt very much married. Repeating the words of our marriage ceremony felt natural. It was a ritual in which, as both wife and widow (on a cusp, so to speak) I honored my husband and our marriage. A year later, during Year 2, my feelings had not changed but I did not have the need to act them out. That did not mean, ipso facto, I had put closure to my husband’s absence and to the end of our marriage.
What did happen during Year 2 was the shock of his sudden collapse was lifted and in its place full reality descended. “Everything” took on a “just happened” harshness. I had vivid dreams of my husband, usually just before 7 in the morning, in which he was very much alive and we were together. Upon awakening I would have to wrench myself from the comforting reverie to re-experience the reality of being alone.
With the exception of the wedding anniversary, every major holiday felt like the first one to observe without my husband, as if the previous year’s holidays had not happened at all. When Thanksgiving rolled around, I thought, “Last year, we spent Thanksgiving in Berkeley Springs,” when actually I was remembering 1994, not 1995. Surely, when the 21st of January 1997 came and went, I would step out of mourning into morning. What a romantic notion!
That day came and went, and I was no less sad. In fact, I was concerned I might be sliding into the early stages of depression. It wasn’t that I was unhappy. I had the love and interaction with my family and the fulfillment that comes with writing, editing and publishing. I kept in touch with a few close friends, some in person, more through e-mail and phone. Obviously, for me, that was not enough. I recognized that I had damn well better pay attention to that woman who writes a “Get A Life” (TM) column and get myself one.
But, how? No one was going go sashay up to my front door with a solution. It wasn’t up to my family and friends to keep me amused during my spare time. Come to think of it, what spare time? I knew I had to take charge. I needed to interact with more people on a face-to-face basis. By process of elimination, I chose what I believe was the best choice for me. I joined a health club.
On my first day, I almost lost my composure when a man reminded me of my husband - very tall, long legs, long arms. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I wanted to run out of there. To hell with doing anything to make myself feel better. My sensible self intervened. I stopped looking at him. I stuck it out. It was enough of a victory to make me believe I can handle the reminders as they occur.
Within hours of my first workout, I felt better. A few of those magical endorphins had been released. I also felt better because I was being pro-active. I had empowered myself to act in support of myself. In essence, I was doing the same type of thinking that propelled me out of a disastrous “marriage” and even earlier got me to stop smoking. I had changed my attitude.
As for closure to the grieving, I don’t think there is such a thing. I think there are various degrees of acceptance. I’ve had a profound loss. I’ve accepted what I believe are facts: I will always love him, I will always miss him. In the meantime, I’m grateful for having recovery tools I can tap into, for putting my money where my mouth is, for getting a life.
