So Sad

My grief group coalition had a record turnout this morning. My spouse loss group (I’m the facilitator) had 14 participants. I would have had 15, but one person only came for the speaker and couldn’t stay for the group. Holy cow!

What’s going on? Is it because our grief group is meeting at the Basilica in Minneapolis this quarter? Is the Basilica easier to get to or is it because the Basilica is a major Twin City landmark? Or is it because it’s summer and it’s easier to get around?

Or is it because so many births, meetings, engagements, anniversaries occur in the summer and the newly bereaved are smacked with a barrage of meaningful dates when they’re just trying to figure out who they are without their spouses.

No matter what the reason, my group is wonderful. They don’t know how wonderful they are, because they’re in the midst of extreme sadness, but they’re moving along, learning, and grieving. It’s a nice group with a mixture of men and women, old and young, suffering from sudden death and long illnesses.

The group is so large that it is difficult to get topics going after everyone introduces themselves and tells their story. We could probably use an hour to share our week’s activities and then use the next hour to discuss a topic or a common area of concern.

After introductions today, we were just beginning to discuss getting rid of or not getting rid of belongings.

That topic is very individual. Some people need to clean out immediately. Some people never really get to it and leave everything where it was left.

After my mom died, my sister and I were like locusts, descending my dad’s house to clean out. We didn’t know or understand, and my dad certainly didn’t have the ability to understand what he was going through. He probably needed to leave Mom’s stuff just where it was for a while before the big clean-out. But as daughters, we thought it best that Mom was “erased” so Dad could get on with his life.

How different the perspective is when looking at it from another point of view.

It’s OK to leave the stuff for a while. As one of the grief group participants stated, it’s like erasing them. I totally agree. Geez, I still have Ray’s name on the voice message answering machine. I still have Ray’s name on my checking and savings accounts. I did finally cancel him off the car insurance last year! Saves me $30 a month!

One guy talked about listening to his wife’s memorial service every day and then it was every few days and then it was every few weeks. Yes, as time passes, we begin to let go.

I still have Ray’s tub of stuff in my bedroom. I haven’t looked it for a long time. Even now, it’s too painful to open the lid and have Ray come streaming out.

Even though I think of Ray every second of every day, I can only deal with Ray’s physical aspects in small doses.

The speaker today discussed spouse loss. He lost his wife in 2001. Currently, he’s a facilitator in another grief coalition. He mentioned that it’s difficult to facilitate more than once a quarter in a year’s period of time, and that’s true.

One of the reasons I stopped going to grief group as a participant is that as I was beginning to move emotionally away from Ray’s death, and the new participants were pulling me back to the “dark place.”

Again, everyone has a point where they are moving forward and don’t want to be held back.

And that’s the way it is facilitating. I don’t go back to the “dark place,” but I start thinking about Ray in a mournful way that I normally no longer feel. I miss Ray deeply, but it’s no longer as intense.

And after two months with the newly bereaved, I’m ready to go back to my regular Saturday routine and my own grief journey.

It’s a hot day in the Cities. My thermometer says its 93 degrees. The humidity is low, however, and there’s a summer breeze whistling through the trees, so it’s not too bad.

I’m off work for about a week and a half. We have a contract extension with the state that hasn’t been signed yet. I’m finished with my work for this phase of the project and there are no dollars available to go forward, so here I am at home with lots of “free” time.

I get to try out retirement again!

I get a little edgy with no work, so I’m in motion all the time. Joe keeps at me to slow down and rest, but there’s so much to do!