The elegant young widow entered the room with rounded shoulders and tragedy hiding behind her pretty green eyes. She came to visit me while her two young boys were in school. She seemed utterly exhausted from the sheer volume of grief she had been experiencing over the last year.
Holly’s husband was a military pilot who died in January 2011, when his chopper was shot down in Afghanistan. Not only did she have to deal with the death of the love of her life, but she was also reeling from all of the challenges of having been a military wife one day, and a military widow the next. She had stood up valiantly to all that was required of her including moving out of military housing, relocating to be near her parents, and struggling to make a living. Now, almost a year later, she was facing her first holiday season as a widow. Somehow the unending facets of grief seemed too much. She had come to me, not just to discuss the endless waves of grief that still haunted her, but more than that, she wanted to understand how to even contemplate a holiday season without her Jim. She was fearful that she would destroy the holidays forever for her two boys. She didn’t want to do that, but holiday festivities wanted to make her throw up.
“I’m numb. It’s November and I am facing Thanksgiving and Christmas and my heart is so broken, I can still barely get through each day. I don’t care if I ever see a Christmas tree, a Santa costume or a Christmas card again. Thanksgiving? Forget it! What do I have to be thankful for? I lost my husband, my kids are acting out, I can barely make ends meet and if it weren’t for my parents, well, I don’t know what I would have done.” Holly’s lovely face seemed to have aged in the last year. She continued.
“I look in the mirror and frankly, I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s as if the day I saw those two marines come up my walkway the woman I was somehow vanished.” Holly doesn’t even seem to notice as the tears stream down her face. “I feel like an empty shell. I still can’t sleep. I barely function at my job, I snap at the boys. When does this get better!” she demanded.
“The truth is,” I told her, “it just doesn’t get better for a while. Grieving is the hardest work you will ever do. Parenting while grieving taxes you to the max. The first holiday season after a death is horrible. The barrage of ‘festivities’ only seems to magnify the pain of your loss. If it were just you, if you only had to take care of yourself, it would be hard enough, but your boys will want to have some elements of Christmas.”
“When Jim was deployed to Afghanistan, I always knew that he could die. I did. I told myself that I could be a brave Marine wife but when it actually happened I –I—I’m not so brave. I feel like all I want to do is curl up in bed and tell the world to leave me alone!”
I took a deep breath and responded. “And yet, the demands of being a Mom pull you out of bed each morning. Even though you are probably mechanically getting the boys ready for school, doing lunches, chauffeuring them back and forth, at least you are still that constant in their life. Have they talked with you about any of their fears? When children lose a parent, they are often secretly terrified that the remaining parent will also die. What have they said?”
Holly is now quietly weeping. She takes a deep breath. “Mickey is six and he acts the tough guy. Little Jake is four and he seems to whine all the time. When I put the boys to bed, -- I still do that even when I don’t feel like it – sometimes the three of us just talk about Jim and what we miss and then we all cry. Sometimes the boys cry ‘til they fall asleep. This isn’t living. I don’t feel like I’m being a good mom. I feel like we are all drowning and no day is a good day. Christmas? I would just like to not have to deal with it! What am I supposed to say in a Christmas card? ‘My husband died and my life sucks, love the Smiths’?”
“Holly, life is grim right now. But you are doing better than you think. The hard truth is that this first Christmas without your husband will be the hardest one. Future ones will also be tough but each year will be a bit better. Grief is healed by degrees, moment to moment, each moment, each day becoming a little bit better than yesterday. To get you through the coming two months of holidays, let’s develop a plan and that plan has to include asking your friends and family to help you.”
“When Jim died, I stopped being a military wife. I didn’t just lose my husband I lost my entire military support system and my military identity. The wives were always ‘there’ for each other. The wives helped me in those early days, but now that I have moved back home, I don’t have that kind of connection. No one here knows what this is like - no one knows me. I –I feel so –so alone with this darkness.”
“You may feel alone with the unrelenting intimacy of grief, but you are not alone in the world. You do have your parents, your extended family, and I bet they want to help. But you find that they are tip-toeing around your feelings and avoiding you – right?”
“Yes, and it’s so awkward. I just cocoon myself.”
“Holly, you can’t heal ‘til you come out of that cocoon, and your boys can’t hope to feel like they can even smile again until you literally give them permission to find something to smile about. Grieving takes courage, courage no one can understand until they walk this lonely path. Give your sons and yourself permission to be happy about something each day. Even though you can’t even imagine being happy again. Allow little upbeat moments to seep into your day. Force yourself to smile at your sons. They need to see this in you. Smile at something your boys say or do. They need your love in an ‘emotionally present’ way.”
“I know I’m not ‘emotionally present’. I love them so much and watching them grieve magnifies my pain!”
I urged her to focus on what she could practically do at this point. “If you decide to do anything for the holidays it will help your boys. I bet you are doing Thanksgiving with your parents.”
“Yes. Mom is having a few friends over who know about our situation.”
“Good. This gets you out and participating in a nice dinner and it gives your boys something to anticipate. Now lets focus on managing the holidays in a way that you can actually face.”
Shaking her head. “I can’t face much. . . .”
“Ask some of the Moms to invite your boys over to make cookies. Tell them what happened. Ask them to help you. You can do this. Your boys need to know that they can start participating with school friends and building relationships. Then ask your parents to help you to do the tree. Have each boy go with your parents separately so that they can do their shopping for you and for each other. Go shopping with your boys for the grandparents. Get your mom to help you with all of this if she is willing.”
Holly sighs, a long sad sigh. “Yes, my mom is great. She keeps offering to help. You’re telling me to let her. I guess I don’t know how to be a normal mom again. Tears begin to fall again. “Is it OK to still cry sometimes?”
“Holly, it is absolutely OK to cry whenever you want! However, at some point, you have to give yourself permission to begin to heal a little tiny bit each day. If you have to force yourself to smile at your boys, then do that. This will help all of you heal. Allow Christmas to seep into your world. You don’t have to go all out. Do the bare minimum and let that be enough. Remember, you are that beautiful flower chilled by the cold of death but stubbornly refusing to stop growing, blooming and showering the world with your light and your goodness. Remember, that at the end of the day, you are still a wonderful person, a terrific mom and a great friend. Be a friend to yourself and focus on finding ways to be happy a bit more each day. I know you can do this.”
Holly took a long, deep breath. “Yes I can. I know my boys need me and more than that, I need them. I guess I just needed a reality check.”
“Perhaps, but more than that, you need to be kind to yourself. Grieving is such hard work, and yet, you grow from the experience. Always remember your goodness. The challenge is to be patient with yourself and at the same time to begin to nudge yourself out of your darkness. When we talk next time, I will want you to tell me about the little moments that you are taking pleasure in with your sons. Whether or not you can see it, you are healing. It is time to start anticipating genuinely enjoying your life again (watches Holly shake her head) and no, it isn’t going to be today, or next week, but that day is coming. All I’m doing is helping you to open the door to living a wonderful life again. You can do it.”
Karmic Concept: When you are working through your grief process remember to ask for help from family, friends and co-workers. Look forward to each day and the potential of something positive happening. You can do it!
To learn more about healing grief, please check out The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief: http://www.amazon.com/Lightworkers-Guide-Healing-Grief/dp/0876045875/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319578747&sr=1-1by
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