Grief; Coping with the death of a spouse

[cold]

Manitou I'm hoping this finds you gaining a little peace each day. 

The decreasing day light and holidays / holydays make this a particularly difficult time for one who is grieving ...

Please keep in mind you got people who care.

peace

[manitou]

thank you, cold.  You are one sensitive and caring person, much appreciated.  Yes, it is a particularly hard time.

[cold]

Manitou I just want to encourage you to continue your efforts to persevere and remind you that you have people whom care ...

[cold]

Manitou you remain in  my thoughts and prayers for increasing peace each day.

When you see this if your so inclined look for Earl Grey post I'm sure you two have much in common presently.

Peace!

[Rishi Das]

hi manitou - just wanted to check in and send you some lovin...

after reading your initial post in november, you have come to mind often.

during those times i hold you in my heart and send nothing but pure love your way. 

 

i hesitate to offer you any recommendations because in truth i have never lost anyone so close and i can only imagine the grief that comes with such a loss. that said, i'm going to listen to my heart here...

i've recently finished listening to an audio book and thought of you often during that exploration.

the book is titled, The Five Invitations: What Death Can Teach About Living by: Frank Ostanseski

quoted below is a summation in case you have any interest...

 

Quote

What have I learned from companioning 1000 people on the precipice of death?

Death is not primarily a medical event. Believing the most we can hope for is to make the best of a bad situation lacks imagination. Too many people die in distress, guilt, and fear. We can and should do something to encourage another possibility.

Many people, ordinary people, develop profound insights and engage in a powerful process of transformation near the end of their lives. One through which they emerge as someone larger, more expansive, more essential and real than the small, separate selves they had previously taken themselves to be. This is not a fairy-tale happy ending that contradicts the suffering that came before, but rather a recognition that transformation is possible even in tragedy. The discovery of this capacity regularly occurs for many people in the final months, days, or sometimes even minutes of life.

“Too late,” you might say. And I might agree. However, the value is not in how long they enjoyed the experience, but in the possibility that such transformation exists.

If that possibility exists at the time of dying, it exists here and now.

Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight. She helps us to discover what matters most. And the good news is we don’t have to wait until the end of our lives to realize the wisdom that death has to offer.

To imagine that at the time of our dying we will have the physical strength, emotional stability, and mental clarity to do the work of a lifetime is a ridiculous gamble.  And so, I want to extend an invitation—five invitations, actually—to sit down with death now, to have a cup of tea with her, to let her guide you toward living a more meaningful and loving life.

Over the past thirty years, as the co-founder of the Zen Hospice Project, people who were dying generously invited me into their most vulnerable moments. They made it possible for me to get up close and personal with death.  In the process, they taught me how to live. I distilled their wisdom into five heart lessons for living fully and without regret.

1. Don’t Wait.

When people are dying, it is easy for them to recognize that every minute, every breath counts. But the truth is, death is always with us. Everything is constantly changing. Nothing is permanent.

This idea can both frighten and inspire us. Yet, embracing the truth of life’s precariousness helps us to appreciate its preciousness.  We stop wasting our lives on meaningless activities. We learn to not hold our opinions, our desires, and even our own identities so tightly. Instead of pinning our hopes on a better future, we focus on the present and being grateful for what we have in front of us right now. We say, “I love you” more often. We become kinder, more compassionate and more forgiving.

2. Welcome Everything; Push Away Nothing

In welcoming everything, we don't have to like what's arising or necessarily agree with it, but we need to be willing to meet it, to learn from it. The word welcome confronts us; it asks us to temporarily suspend our usual rush to judgment and to be open, to what is showing up at our front door. To receive it in the spirit of hospitality.

A friend of mine was once invited for dinner at the home of a renowned psychiatrist named Sidney. Sidney was a man of unusual intelligence, insight, and grace. However, in the few years prior to this dinner, his Alzheimer’s disease had taken a toll on his short-term memory and ability to recognize faces.

When my friend arrived, she rang the doorbell, and Sidney opened the door. At first, he had a look of confusion. He quickly recovered and said, “I’m sorry. I have trouble remembering faces these days. But I do know that our home always has been a place where guests are welcome. If you are here on my doorstep, then it is my job to welcome you. Please come in.”

At the deepest level, this invitation is asking us to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.

3. Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience

We all like to look good. We long to be seen as capable, strong, intelligent, sensitive, spiritual, or at least well-adjusted. Few of us want to be known for our helplessness, fear, anger, or ignorance. 

Yet more than once I have found an “undesirable” aspect of myself—one about which I previously had felt ashamed—to be the very quality that allowed me to meet another person’s suffering with compassion instead of fear or pity. It is not only our expertise, but exploration of our own suffering that enables us to build an empathetic bridge and be of real assistance to others.

To be whole, we need to include and connect all parts of ourselves. Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means no part left out.

4. Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things

We often think of rest as something that will come to us when everything else in our lives is complete: At the end of the day, when we take a bath; once we go on holiday or get through all our to-do lists. We imagine that we can only find rest by changing our circumstances.

There is a Zen story about a monk who is vigorously sweeping the temple grounds. Another monk walks by and snips, “Too busy.”

The first monk replies, “You should know there is one who is not too busy.”

The moral of the story is that while the sweeping monk may have outwardly appeared to the casual observer as “too busy,” actively performing his daily monastic duties, inwardly he was not busy. He could recognize the quietness of his state of mind, the part of himself that was at rest in the middle of things.

5. Cultivate “Don’t Know” Mind

This describes a mind that's open and receptive. It is not limited by agendas, roles, and expectations. It is free to discover. When we are filled with knowing, when our mind is made up, it narrows our vision and limits our capacity to act. We only see what our knowing allows us to see. We don’t abandon our knowledge - it’s always there in the background should we need it – but we let go of fixed ideas. We let go of control.

The night before my open-heart surgery, my 26-year-old son Gabe and I had a tender conversation. Our sharing was filled with reminiscing, kindness, and laughter.

At one point, Gabe became quite serious and asked, “Dad, are you going to live through this surgery?”

Now I love my son beyond words, and like any father, I wanted to reassure him that I would be just fine. I felt into my experience before answering. Then I heard myself say, “I’m not taking sides.”

My answer surprised us both. What I meant was that I wasn’t taking sides with life or death. Either way, I trusted that everything would be okay. I don’t know where the words came from; they spilled from me without censorship. I wasn’t trying to appear sage or to be a good Buddhist. Yet we both were reassured by my response. I think it was because we knew we were in the presence of the truth spoken with love.

I view these lessons as five mutually supportive principals, permeated with love. Five bottomless practices that can be continually explored and deepened.  They have served me as reliable guides for coping with death. And, as it turns out, they are equally relevant guides to living with integrity. To be understood, they need to be lived into and realized through action. They are five invitations for you to be fully present for every aspect of your life.

 

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1657/five-invitations-what-death-can-teach-about-living-frank-ostaseski/

 

the audio version can be found on audible.com.

Frank narrates and his voice and the presence he brings while reading is healing in and of itself.

 

much love to you, manitou. 

[Jessup2]

mo

Edited December 23, 2017 by Jessup2

[manitou]

Thank you for that beautiful post, Rishi Das.  That article comforts me in that Joe was of shamanic persuasion, and he often said that death was his advisor.  He was not uncomfortable with death at all.  I'm 3 months into this thing now, and I feel like I 'should' be getting better.  And yet I still do nothing but cry.  I suspect this is going to be a long process for me.  I've never lost anybody that meant this much to me before.  This attachment is just being ripped away from me a little at a time, and it is pure torture.  I just have to walk through it, that's all.  Everybody gets their turn - it's just mine now.

[manitou]

Jessup2 - your post gave me a chuckle.  Thanks for telling me that story.  You allow the anger to linger maybe for the same reason I remain unwilling to tell the grief emotion  go away - because it's all I have left of him at the moment.  It is almost as if it would be a disloyalty to stop crying.  I do absolutely nothing to help myself, to move myself along.  I don't want to talk to people, I don't want to go outside, I don't want people calling.  I feel like a cat curled up licking its wounds.  I suppose the kittie will just get up one of these days and get back to life when she gets sick enough of this...

[manitou]

I just figured something out.

 

Grief is the price tag for Compassion

[C T]

Grief imparts lessons we all need to learn in its presence. 

 

Some do not feel it, not even in the slightest. 

It can be masked over by other emotions coming to the fore instead.

Yet, its likely to resurface, though years might have passed. 

Its better to immerse in it when fresh, to literally under-stand it, 

Serve the time, as it may. Offer deference, submit to its might. 

Its the only way to wear out its interest. 

 

Grief and other powerful emotions are wrathful deities waiting to sooth the tormented. 

 

[blue eyed snake]

Hi Manitou, I think of you and your hurt

 

what canm to me is that your seemingly unending grief is not only the grief for Joe, but that the flow of tears unearthes all your other unshed tears. So if that's true you may be washing away a lot of old buried pain.

I maybe wrong of course,

 

my love is with you, me thinks many people love you, even though at the moment you may not be aware of it

[C T]

18 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

Hi Manitou, I think of you and your hurt

 

what canm to me is that your seemingly unending grief is not only the grief for Joe, but that the flow of tears unearthes all your other unshed tears. So if that's true you may be washing away a lot of old buried pain.

I maybe wrong of course,

 

my love is with you, me thinks many people love you, even though at the moment you may not be aware of it

 

...and you too 

[manitou]

1 hour ago, blue eyed snake said:

Hi Manitou, I think of you and your hurt

 

what canm to me is that your seemingly unending grief is not only the grief for Joe, but that the flow of tears unearthes all your other unshed tears. So if that's true you may be washing away a lot of old buried pain.

I maybe wrong of course,

 

my love is with you, me thinks many people love you, even though at the moment you may not be aware of it

 

 

Yes, this is this it exactly.  Last night I was crying so hard....thinking of the life that Joe had as a boy.  He was taken from his (aunt?), or whomever it was that raised him, and put into a reform school.  He was a bed wetter in reform school and was mocked daily for this.  He was raped at the age of 9 by 3 men.  It goes on and on.  It occurred to me, as though a voice said it in my ear, "you are crying for your own childhood" - most of which I can't remember.  What you say is exactly true.

 

I just can't believe all the crying.  This is transference to the nth degree.  Three months, for god's sake.

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2017 by manitou

[blue eyed snake]

oh darling, your childhood was worse then mine, I know that.

but still, I dare to say the next thing.

 

for many years I could only remember the unnice/hard things from my youth, except for the memory of my father, the sitting on his lap as a young child.

 

then, some years ago, something seemed to burst through...can't really explain it.

 

then, the good memories of my childhood bubbled up. Memories of toys and games, of the little me, playing in the sanctuary of her own soul so to say. It was a strange but very good happening, overwhelming too. All those memories were still there, including smells, the feeling of fabrics on my hands... just...unattainable.

 

26 minutes ago, manitou said:

It occurred to me, as though a voice said it in my ear, "you are crying for your own childhood" - most of which I can't remember.

 

maybe, through the lifestory of you beloved Joe, you attach to your own pain, as an intermediate because you cannot go to your own painful memories, seems to me that even though it's so hard on you. It's also good. 

 

sometimes it's good to retreat into a box and stay with your grief, hope you'll come through it more a relaxed and shiny woman, in fact i trust you will.

 

[manitou]

2 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

for many years I could only remember the unnice/hard things from my youth, except for the memory of my father, the sitting on his lap as a young child.

 

 

 

The memory I have of sitting on my dad's lap is after he would hit me with a belt and I'd be crying, he'd make me put my arms around his neck and tell him I loved him.  Yes, I have much to be released.

[cold]

 

The holidays are a particularly tough time for anyone grieving and your in my thoughts.

As the New Year approaches I hope you will find increasing peace.

[manitou]

thanks, cold.  I'm here at a 55+ mobile home park in Florida awaiting a Christmas dinner up at the rec room.  Whoopie.  I'm forcing myself to do this, just to get out a little.  Remind me to never again buy anything in a 55+ setting.  Too damn many old people.

[cold]

Yes, I'm often most lonely when I'm in a crowd.

But getting out can be entertaining to say the least.

[cold]

Hovering around the shortest day of the year is hard enough, add in grief and you have some tough times.

But the good news is minute by minute day by day, the day length and light quality are increasing.

The days are hard.

But the lessons learned are really earned.

You remain in my thoughts and aren't alone in your grief.

 

[manitou]

Nice metaphor, the day length.  I agree.  And things are actually getting a bit more tolerable. 

 

I'm meeting with a grief counselor this coming week - I'm thinking a bereavement group may be a good idea for a while.  I tried a group a few months back but I wasn't ready - still in shock.  It's been 3 months now.  Oddly, a big part of losing someone who has been such a huge part of my life for so many years, is what to do with my time now?  There is an emptiness that I haven't felt in a long time.  We did everything together.  Having to change my thinking, change my habits - this is a very big part of the grief process too.  As sad as all this has been, I must admit that this is also incredibly interesting when viewed from a more detached perspective.  There is a definite dovetail with the pursuit of conscious awareness when something this monumental happens in one's life.  One gets to see the breadth and depth of the attachment, to feel it, to feel it being ripped away.  And this can only result in further awareness and understanding if one keeps their eye on the ball and actually uses the experience for growth.  As hard as that is.  The tears certainly get in the way.  But they are lessening, although love remains.  There's the beauty.

 

A very happy new year to you, cold.  And your friendship and care during this process is greatly appreciated.  I hope to be able to do the same for others, as you have, when their grieving time comes.  This is something that all of us humans must come to grips with at some point in their lives - the loss of someone dear.  There is a strange comfort in telling myself "it's just my turn, that's all".

[cold]

Manitou

I am so glad to hear things are getting a bit more tolerable!

I am honored by your appreciation. I am sure you will be as well, when you "do the same for others "...

I'm in the take comfort however you can, strange or not camp!

I hope your meeting with the grief counselor goes well.

Please share after you have had the chance to weigh the suggestions / ideas.

[manitou]

45 minutes ago, cold said:

 

Please share after you have had the chance to weigh the suggestions / ideas.

 

 

Ten-four, good buddy.

[Stosh]

On Friday, December 22, 2017 at 7:29 PM, manitou said:

I just figured something out.

 

Grief is the price tag for Compassion

I wont tell you not to look at it that way, but Im just going to point out , that if you then wish to consider yourself compassionate, you cant finish up with the grieving. 

 So if you realized you have been thinking in this vein,, maybe youre getting ready to.

[manitou]

4 hours ago, Stosh said:

I wont tell you not to look at it that way, but Im just going to point out , that if you then wish to consider yourself compassionate, you cant finish up with the grieving. 

 So if you realized you have been thinking in this vein,, maybe youre getting ready to.

 

Maybe I didn't quite word it right.  To go through something this horrendous will give me an entirely different depth of compassion when it comes to empathizing with others who have lost someone dear.  That's what I meant when I referred to a price tag.

And Stosh, I think you may be right.  Things are lightening up.  I got sick and tired of feeling this way, so today I pulled out some art supplies and did a really nice abstract with colored pencils and marking pens.  I feel like I'm letting a bit of the grief go.  Love remains.

[blue eyed snake]

too tired to really say something, but glad you've come through the christmasdays and now are making some art,

 

I still think of you every evening before bedtime