I’m Broken
Since I was young, I have always been one to overthink, analyze, and ruminate. As an adult my ruminating usually resulted in finding a solution to a problem someone had. Whether it was for me, Rick, or our kids. I usually produced solutions. Rick had such confidence in my abilities that he would say to whoever it was that was troubled, “It will be fine. It’s ok. We got you.” Then, promptly hand it over to me to figure it out.
Being a small business owner has its rewards for sure, but it also has drawbacks as well. Through the years Rick came to understand that if I was quiet or went up into our room to be alone, I was usually ruminating. He never pressured me to tell him, because he also understood I would when I was ready. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share what was going on with him, he was my confidante. However, I liked to wait until I found a solution, so that it wouldn’t add unnecessary stress to his life. Over these last couple of years, it was easy to slip into rumination. There was comfort in the familiarity of it.
I have been incredibly proud that I have faced my grief head on. That is, until I learned that rumination was also a form of avoidance. WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?! Took the wind right out of my sails as you can imagine! I have ruminated over “the why” and “the how” our grief culture is lacking and how we could make it better. It’s interesting, I have noticed several different “camps” folks can sit in. Those that are empathetic and want to help us through our grief. However, the subject makes them incredibly uncomfortable and that leads them to doubt themselves. It causes them to fear saying the wrong thing, so they say nothing. There are those that feel obligated to be polite, but do not really know what to do or say when the response is other than the generic, ”I’m okay.” There are those that will lean into grief with us. They carry themselves in a way that says they are unafraid to sit with us in it and their support comes effortlessly. Similarly, as we can see those people who will lean into grief, we also can see where the others fit in, it’s like a sixth sense.
We can identify certain people in our lives that fit into each “camp” and yet we give them grace and love them, still as we should. For me, it causes me to fit my responses to what they can manage. This is what bothers me the most. Why do those of us who have had our World rocked feel we must shield them from our reality, so we don’t make them feel uncomfortable? Further, the very act of holding it in causes us immeasurable pain, not to mention discomfort. That is a narrative that must be changed if we hope to shift our grief culture for the better. Just as words matter, congruency does, too!
A friend once described all the diverse ways we feel grief in terms of water. For some it is a vast ocean of nothing but sea. It is dark, cold, deep, and there’s no sign of land. We are in it without a lifeboat or life jacket. It is scary and daunting. Sometimes a Tsunami comes along and threatens to consume us and yet we hang on with the hope that soon we will see land. For some it is a lake. Still dark and cold, but not as deep. It still feels terrifying at times, but it’s contained. Occasionally a storm will rage and cause some waves to crash into you. But you see the land, can even go to shore if you wish. For others it is a pond. A lot smaller, not so big, a lot less scary but still dark and sometimes cold. But it’s small enough you know you can easily climb up onto shore unscathed. I loved that analogy. In the last year or so, I have talked about how I felt like a Tsunami was going to crash into me and crush me against the jagged rocks of grief. I also appreciate how it demonstrates how different grief can be for each of us. No matter what, it’s still a very dark time. Still scary, but the size is different for everyone. I also look at it as progress in healing as I move from each body of water. I used to be in the ocean, and I hung on for dear life. Now, I’m in the lake and when it’s too much I swim ashore and rest. I look forward to the time when I’m in a pond or better yet a small freshwater stream that gently runs across my toes. A little cold, but never dark or scary.
Going through this grief journey, one thing that I have come to loathe is our society’s standard question. “How are you?” At this point I can usually tell how I “should” answer and most of the time they need me to say “okay.” So, I smile accordingly and give the reply they are hoping to hear, “I'm OK.” I swear I can see the relief on their faces that I answered “right.” In that same moment, my heart cries out, “I am broken! Help me.” Still, I say nothing. It is that exchange that makes me feel even more isolated than if they didn’t acknowledge my grief at all.
The reality is, most people don't want to know how I'm doing, not really. And that’s okay! Death is scary, it’s final, it carries with it a wide range of feelings, it’s heavy, painful, and at times threatens to suffocate us from the sheer weight of it all. We know that death is the end-result for all of us and yet it’s something we avoid talking about like the plague. We try to ignore it still when it is standing right before us in the form of our sweet friend in deep grief. Her eyes are empty, she’s numb and looks so lost. Her eyes are red and swollen and she dabs at her nose frequently with a tissue. What do we do? We still hold our breath and hope we don’t have to talk about it. When we get away from it, we feel relief we narrowly missed having to talk about “it,” not because we don’t care but because it is THAT big and uncomfortable.
We are so afraid of it that we convince ourselves that someone else who is much more qualified than we are will help them. In the same instance, we feel a twinge of guilt for seeming uncaring. If we are honest, most of us have felt that helplessness a time or two. The reality is, we do need to start talking about this uncomfortable subject, even if it’s awkward and we don’t know what to say. As with anything else, the more we do it, the easier it becomes. In one of the many podcasts, I listen to, they spoke about the “first kiss.” Remember how awkward and nerve wracking it was? Maybe even humiliating? Did that make us run from kissing? Nope. We kept at it until we were good at it, right? When that happens everyone benefits from it because someday all of you who still have your partner alive and next to you will someday be standing in my shoes feeling like your World has ended, having no idea what life looks like without them in it. It was the most horrific experience of my life. There have been several times, I doubted my ability to make it through another day.
I have been one of those that avoid the question for fear of their honest answer and the accompanying panic because I have no idea what to say to comfort them. The saying, “You really don’t know until you know” could not apply more in this situation. God how I wish I didn’t know but now I do. To say I feel like an ass for all the times I was a terrible friend to someone who was grieving is an understatement. Worse yet, I think of my mother-in-law. She was my age when Rick’s dad died at 57, exactly the way that Rick did. Except she didn’t know CPR, so she sat with him and held his hand until he died. I didn’t know, I thought she was fine. I knew she had to be sad, but she seemed so fine on the outside that when we went home, I didn’t really wonder how she was doing. We went about our lives not knowing hers had just exploded before her eyes. We didn’t mean to, but we abandoned her, and I feel so much guilt over that fact. It continues to haunt me. I tell myself I will be more prepared and do better next time, I’m at an advantage since I have gone through it. Regardless, we all can strive to do better “next time.”
People who have been on this journey before us seem to know innately not to ask this question. They know the answer is “I am broken.” There are so many other ways to show they care. My favorite is when they simply offer their presence. The comfort I feel by just having them sit with me while I mourn my sweet husband is the kindest gesture of all. Even when someone says, “I’m sorry Dar. I don’t know what to say. But I think of you every day.” For me, that is a treasure that helps me feel seen and a tiny bit less lonely.
The other day an old friend asked how I was. And I shrugged and said, “I'm OK!” Almost like a reflex.
He replied, “No really that's why I asked, I want to know. If you want to talk, I’m here. And if you don’t feel up for it today, please know that when you are ready, I am here for you.”
That was the closest thing to perfect response, and it came from a simple country kid Rick, and I grew up with. Could it be he experienced a lot of loss in his life? Or would he be as understanding even if he hadn’t? Regardless, it was yet another effortless way to make me feel less lonely and isolated when I feel this way too often and at times it feels soul crushing.
Most of the time, in the real World this isn't the way that exchange goes. Most of the time, people ask this question to be polite and because they simply do not know what to say. I can’t help but think that if we kept having hard conversations around grief and how to support someone grieving then bit by bit, we can improve our grief culture. Perhaps it will put an end to the “secondary losses” as Megan Divine calls them. Where we lose our friends because they don’t understand how any of this works. They call us, but we don’t answer. After a while they give up. Not because they don’t care, but because they think WE don’t care to talk to them. When we want them to call, to stop by, to text us but some days we have been crying all day, haven’t eaten, and we are too exhausted to talk. It’s important to understand that we do notice. And we do want you to keep checking on us even if we can’t reciprocate. I lost three close friends after Rick died and I was shocked at how much that hurt me. I spent the next two years barely surviving, so I never addressed it with them like the old me would have. I still don’t have the energy and as more time passes by, I feel like it’s too late.
The tragedy is that during deep grief we feel so isolated and alone. The truth is, it’s a journey we must take on our own. There are a few out there that genuinely want to know how we are. If you know of someone newly grieving and you sincerely want to hear about their pain, don’t be afraid to ask in a way that conveys you are willing to sit with them in it. If they aren’t ready to talk yet, then perhaps later they will be. You simply left the door open and that is beautiful. Together, we can change the judgment and lack of understanding in this process because at some point we will all have the wind knocked out of us with the sudden loss of someone we love. And for an unknown length of time we are broken.