Grief Sucks

I know, the title is stating the obvious.  But I’ve got to be honest, grief goes well beyond sucking; it is literal torture sometimes.  It’s draining, depressing, temperamental, emotional, overbearing, oppressive and the most covert of all covert operations currently coming against my soul.  To be frank…it’s stupid and I hate it!

*deep breath*

There, I feel better now.  We can move on…

As much as these adjectives properly describe the feelings of grief (I had more, but should probably keep it PG-13), I also have to come to terms with the cold, hard truth that it is absolutely necessary no matter how much it sucks.  Grief is a process and it is different for everyone and every situation.  Your process of grief is going to look, feel and act very different than mine.  So trying to make sense of it from different perspectives may make the current process you’re in even worse.

Let me preach on it…

December 1, 2014, my Dad passed away due to complications resulting from a 2 year on and off fight with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  His immune system had grown so weak from treatments that the slightest cold could turn ugly.  He had gone to the hospital, for what he thought was slight pneumonia – on Thanksgiving morning, of all days.  Long story short, he went into septic shock and passed the following Monday.  I was in his room with him at the time – I was holding his hand, knees to the floor and I had to give the nurses the command to stop working on him so he could rest.  It was the hardest “Please stop” I ever had to speak.  Though his cancer was a battle, his passing was unexpected considering all seemed hopeful.

September 15, 2017, my Mom passed away after a long-suffering battle with a rare form of cancer called carcinoma. Saying she suffered is a bit of an understatement since her type of cancer is incurable.  However, she was offered a clinical trial-type of treatment called Photo-Dynamic Light Therapy.  Basically, you drink a chemical that goes into your system and, after a time, they take a special light and place it in the area of cancer which activates that chemical in order to fight against it and shrink the tumor (hopefully).  Her tumor was in a spot that prevented it from being removed via surgery, so this was our best option.  She and the doctors knew that eventually either cancer or infection would take her life.  Ultimately, the infection won.

I’ll spare you the details of visits to see her after treatments and witnessing her in pain while her body slowly began to give way.  I’ll keep to myself the night before her passing and the ordeal my sister, her husband, my nephew and myself had to undergo as she went through the final stages of her life with us.  I hope none of you have to go through it.

In less than three years I bore witness to my parents passing from this life on to the next in sad, yet dramatic fashion.  While my faith does bring me comfort in knowing their hearts and beliefs, that does not exempt me from the process of grief.  It certainly helps in a big way, don’t get me wrong.  But I have not been excluded from its fury.

The primary issue I have had is the overwhelming feeling I get of loneliness (if you haven’t lost both parents, you won’t get it, so I’m not going to try and help you make sense of what I can’t explain myself).  On top of that is the vast emotional difference between the two, while at the same time learning to cope with both losses and step into this “new normal.”  The main chasm that I’ve experienced is simply based on the fact that my relationship with my Dad was very different than with my Mom.  This is very normal in real life when they’re living, but I did not expect it to translate like it has in their passing.  For me, it has taken the process of grief to whole new level.

The loss of one parent is hard enough.  But when you add in the loss of the other in such a seemingly short amount of time, it compounds.  All of the sudden you are alone in the world without the two most influential people in your life.  It’s terrifying.  But it does get better…..slowly.

Nights like last night are difficult and tend to highlight every struggle and insecurity I have; everything gets magnified.  Often it is the smallest detail that sparks a memory that reminds you of your plight.  A dear friend of mine sent out a text yesterday asking us to pray for his Dad.  Something had happened and they rushed him to the hospital.  Then he made this statement, “As you know, it is hard to see your Dad as frail or broken when he has always been a superman.”  That’s all it took.  Memories from that day flooded my mind like an overloaded server.  I was immediately reminded of my condition and the grief process began again.

For me, it goes something like this:

It almost always starts with thoughts and memories.  I have vivid images of the hospital room and the nurse doing chest compressions.  His eyes are open and he has a breathing tube in his mouth.  I clearly see myself on the floor and hear those words “Please stop” repeated again.  After a long cry, I remember the walk down the hallway back to my family.  The phone calls begin and survival-mode sets in.  I begin to remember the times we played music together, which are easily my fondest memories.  I’ll pull open an app I’ve saved that contains a few of his original songs and will listen to them for the thousandth time.  Then the real tears will flow.

My mind keeps telling me that I need to go to bed, but my body seems incapable of obeying that order.  Some nights, like last night, I will go from one memory to the other – bouncing from Dad to Mom.  It becomes physically and mentally overwhelming.  After I feel as if I’ve been tortured enough, I make a sad attempt to eliminate it all by playing video games or mindlessly scrolling social media – hoping it stops.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.  One of my biggest mistakes (probably) is isolating myself when it begins to get heavy.  I may send out a text for prayer, but I will leave and go to another room away from my family.  There, it’s not uncommon for me to stay the whole night – sleep or no sleep.  However, I do everything I can to be verbally honest about where I am when asked.  But in the process of it all, I just want to be alone.

Fortunately, I am blessed with an amazing wife who allows me to have the necessary space that I need.  After a long night and feeling as if I had lost another battle, I let her know what happened, how and why.  She offers encouragement which convinces me that I’m not crazy, and the day continues on as usual.

Grief has become like an extremely annoying uninvited guest who comes in, makes a mess and leaves without an apology or saying goodbye.  We all have that person in our lives.  We hope that if we ignore them long enough, they’ll just go away.  It’s not always that easy, though.

But like I stated before, my process looks very different than anyone else’s.  No matter how much I hate it, I have to embrace it and take from it every possible lesson I can.  In the long run, it will make me better.  And, hopefully, it is preparation for walking alongside someone else who may be in my position one day.  Though their process will go a different route, I will still possess a roadmap that may help them traverse the rocky terrain that lies ahead.

So like I said…..grief sucks.  But it is necessary.  I’m trying to view it from the perspective of renovations – grief is the process of building back up that which was torn apart.  Only this time it’ll be better and stronger.  It is vital to embrace it and let it run its course.  The lessons we take from it will change our world and someone else’s.  God is there through it all whether we realize it or not.  He’s always waiting in the midst of the struggle to provide the comfort needed.

**Writing these blogs is a way that I can process the process.  If you would like, please feel free to leave some feedback.  It would be greatly appreciated as I am potentially stepping into the freelance writing world on the side.  So feel free to critique with constructive criticism and leave me any helpful tips or encouragement**