Bereavement Training

Sounds uplifting, huh?  It was actually one of the best things I've done in a long time.  Woodrow is a hospice volunteer - he loves it.  He eats it up.  Last Thanksgiving, he went to the nursing home and made his rounds.  Smiling (yes he can), he went from bed to bed and let everyone love on him.  Pet him. Kiss him. Adore him. So many didn't have anyone to spend the day with, even an hour with.  No one came.  So when Woodrow pranced in like a horse, they lit right up.

Because of our involvement, I have to go to special training once in a while (woodrow stays home and sleeps, the irony).  I showed up early one Saturday morning, not in the mood.  I was tired, I was hurting, I was just not up to get sappy.  I was told that this would help certify me to help those families who recently lost their family member on hospice, but it would also help me with any losses that I had suffered in my life.  I read past deaths of my loved ones, I was wrong.

Everyone went around the room, introducing themselves, stating how long they have been a volunteer and talking about a loss they have suffered in their lives.  One woman rawly talked about how she had lost her dad just a week earlier, another broke down over her niece that had died at only 6 months old. One told of her divorce, how her entire life as she knew it, as she expected it to be, died the day her ex filed.  I was amazed at her honesty.  No one in the room piped up with, 'yeah - lots of people get divorced, they get over it, you should to.'

My heart hurt for these people.  The leader told the story of her cat.  She sobbed through the story of how he had died four years earlier and she hasn't been able to get another one yet.  I tried to empathize, I really did - even though I don't exactly enjoy cats.  One man talked about his daughter, how she had been diagnosed with MS 10 years earlier and has had to watch her slowly lose her life, and herself, as she moved back home and lost her ability to walk.  The leader, who knows my story, gave me a look and when it became my turn, I began to speak.

I had fully intended to tell the story of my beloved cute lady, Grandma Norma, whom I had grown so close to in the last few years of her life.  Losing her rocked my whole world and even though it was for the best, it just about did me in.  But that's another story, another post.  I was surprised, however, when the story that came out about a loss I had suffered was the loss of me.  the old me.  the one that is gone and isn't coming back.  even if I wake up tomorrow fully healed, she has taken her leave and this new hippie lady sits in her place.

I told the story, the one I haven't told here yet, and talked about how much I miss the way I used to think (ignorance can be bliss), the way I could run and run, the way I traveled, the way I laughed, and those thighs - oh, I miss those thighs.  Okay, maybe I left that part out.  I talked about moving home, staying home, living the life of a 14 year old in a 29 year old's mind. yada yada yada.  I kept it together, but as I was saying all of this, I realized I was speaking as if I had lost my very best friend, and had no idea to carry on without her.  I realized right then and there that I was grieving - that all of the meltdowns (my sister's call them my 'come-aparts'), the sadness, all of that - was from grieving this person that had left, and missing her terribly.

People have told me that I'm just really depressed and need to snap out of it.  suck it up.  we are all tired, too.  remember those starving kids in Africa (THANKS...not only have you not comforted me...now you've made me feel guilty).  I now realize that depression wasn't the sole accomplice, bereavement was the rock of it all.  The fact that I had yet to even realize this loss, let alone accept that I needed to grieve for it, was a whole new ball game.

So I ended my story.  I don't think it was any more poignant than anyone else's - but the thing about hospice people is they sure know how to listen.  Listen and not judge.  Some crazy stuff comes out of your patients' mouth when they are at the end of their days, and you've got to just let them speak it, and then let it go.  So that's what we did that day, we listened.  How many times have friends unloaded on me and I've quickly retorted with a similar experience of mine or a judgy solve all solution.  That's not what they are truly looking for and in that moment, the only thing they need to hear is silence, and then maybe an 'i'm so sorry.'

The session last about 4 hours, many things were said and I was given a lot of good advice on how to listen better to my 95 year old boyfriend, as I call him, and how to help him prepare for this next little road he must walk.  But selfishly, I finally accepted the grieving process I had been on these past few years.

When I look at the steps of grieving, and compare them with the emotional phases of this illness I have gone through (no matter how physical your illness is, there is always, always, an emotional part), I see things a whole lot clearer.

Step 1: Shock and Denial - check.

I remember when I first heard the words epstein-barr in Africa.  I was at a mission conference, the cell phone rang and I stepped out to answer it.  I sat on the steps leading up to the stage at church (I was always so good at finding spots to be alone on my mission, somehow) and nice doc said he was really surprised to see that the epstein-barr was positive, but that he could see that I  had recently acquired it, which is rare when you are as old as me.  YOU MEAN I GOT MONO IN THE MTC??  awesome.  great story to tell.

He told me to rest; I agreed but made no such plans.  The next year I worked, how could I not with so many in need. I denied, denied, denied.  I remember looking at the red dirt on the side of the road and begging myself to let me lie down in it. I remember driving up to someones house (how lucky we were to have cars), and just staring at the car handle. Didn't think I had it in me to lift my arm up to open the door and get out.  The minute that front door opened though, I was on.  At least until I could sit down on their couch again and beg my companion with my eyes to start. Now is this selflessness or stubbornness?  The latter.  My stubbornness was not always justified and many a night 6 appointments in a row would coincidentally cancel and we would take that as a hint that we should head home to rest me up.


Step 2: Pain and Guilt - check.


The Lord helped me so much at first, and then He helped me say no to it all.  And that hurt like hell.  The day I finally agreed to leave my mission early was the first day of the rest of my life, in my opinion.  I'll tell that story later but know that there is a lot of guilt coming home from a mission early, honorable release or not.  


And there is a whole lot more guilt simply being sick, simply staying sick, simply not moving in a direction of health or death.  People have a hard time accepting this stagnant state, it can be inconvenient and uncomfortable, especially the one who is doing the stagnating.



Step 3: Anger and Bargaining - yep.

This for me has been a step that had lasted throughout all of it.  I'm not one to get too worked up (although some not-as-southern might beg to differ), but I can only recall one time in my life that I have screamed at the top of my lungs out of sheer anger (that story will come it in its own due time).  But it definitely wasn't from this whole mess.  Frustrated is a more appropriate term, I think.  The whole, 'why me' argument was my song, baby (deep down inside, denial was on the surface).  Why on this green earth would the good Lord spend YEARS trying to convince me to go on a mission and the minute I finally concede (it truly was a concession, a blind one), anyway the minute I concede, take that leap of faith off the cliff and get there, AND LOVE IT, then, then is the time that I needed to get sick.  See the frustration. See the bargaining with the Lord.  How dare I.  We do this a lot, though. We try to tell the Lord what is best for us. We plead. We beg.  We bargain.

Oh that question played over and over in my head, so many times, but you know - after being able to step back years later and see a bigger picture - OF COURSE THAT WOULD BE THE TIME, it was the perfect time (although the hardest time), because to that, even to the Lord's work - I needed to learn to say no.


4: Depression, Reflection, Loneliness - check

When I got home.  When doctor after doctor shrugged their shoulders and gave me more and more of the happy pills.  When a year passed, then two.  When facebook (hourly) reminded me how alone I was (or thought I was...I'm so not).  check.  5 1/2 years of it.


5: The Upward Turn - the emotional one


It's coming. It might be here. And that's scary.  I had a friend once tell me that I was just scared to get better so somehow was not physically allowing myself to.  That's horseshit.  At least from a physical standpoint.  Now getting better on the emotional side?  That's is scary.  But it's good. It feels so very good.


6: Reconstruction and Working Through - getting there

I'm letting it all go.  I'm not anxiously waiting to get better anymore.  I'm no longer crushed every morning when I wake up realize I'm still sick.  It's okay.  I can't change my health but I sure as hell can change the way I think about it.  This is a whole new life, a whole new me.  This illness may own my body but it doesn't own my mind. not anymore.


7: Acceptance and Hope - is this one ever completed?

I had to get out of the denial that it wasn't that bad, (everyone's tired - you're just weak - you're just pathetic) and realize that yep, it's bad.  By no means is it the worse suffering anyone has ever gone through (by no means - please, please understand that) - but it is bad. and i had best get that in my head.  I had best realize that it is okay to just be sick and not sick but trying to hide it and work.  it is okay to just be sick and not make it out of bed on that certain day.  I am allowed.  no really, I am allowed.

You have no idea how hard it was to finally accept that statement.  I am allowed. And so are you - with whatever you are going through that is hurting, you are allowed.

Psalms 46:10 baby - it's my new jam.