07/30/2015

   One thing I realized fairly early on in my grief journey (thank goodness) was that in spite of my great concern for how my wife and surviving son and daughter were dealing with what had happened to Curtis, I really couldn't be of much help to them until I started to help myself. Indeed, since all of us were trying to figure things out in our own ways it was often impossible to truly understand each other's
perspective. One thing I had to accept (whether I wanted to or not) was that what I was feeling was entirely normal. The chaos, the anger, the confusion, the uncertainty, the hopelessness, the sorrow, and all the other things grief had suddenly unleashed on my life were completely normal and understandable. My life was not normal, and never would be again, but what I was feeling was normal.
Once I began to accept that truism, I was able to stop being so hard on myself. I realized that I didn't have to try to be in control of an absolutely uncontrollable situation. My problem was not going to go away easily, if ever. There were no quick fixes, no easy solutions, no short-cuts, no magic spells. I had to just take things one step at a time. As I was able to allow myself this freedom, I found myself in a better place to be able to help the rest of my family as well. I didn't expect my journey to be much easier, but I hoped I was becoming a little more prepared for what lay ahead. There would still be much to learn.

07/28/2015

     In my journey through grief, there were several realizations that came to me that helped me to try to put things into perspective in dealing with my grief. These did not usually dawn on me in a single moment of clarity, rather they more often appeared over time as I tried my best to work through what I was facing. In some instances, they were things I had to learn more than one time. Oftentimes I was not at a point in my journey where I was ready to accept a particular concept as being something that was true in my situation. There were many times when I refused to believe or accept what I suddenly perceived to be a truism about dealing with grief. I was fearful that if I believed and accepted this new thought regarding grief I would be led down another difficult path where fresh challenges would await.
I thought it was better to stay on the road that had become most familiar to me, and where I felt most comfortable, even if that meant I was often going in circles. Grief is like that. You can honestly believe that you are doing what is best for you and the people around you and that you are making good progress, when in reality, you are spinning in circles. You find yourself passing the same landmarks over and over again, dealing with the same issues over and over again. The question becomes: How do I get off of this not-so-merry-go-round of grief and keep moving forward?

07/27/2015

   How does a man learn to deal with grief? It's been almost a year since I posed that question at the end of my last blog entry. I'm again not sure why I have not been writing for so long, except to say that I was so focused on work and other issues that I just didn't have the energy to write. Oftentimes, my writing about grief takes me back in time to those first horrible days following Curtis's death, dredging up emotions and memories I thought were long gone. I realize at such times that there are still residual issues with which I am not finished dealing or now may need to deal with in a different way. I also understand that it is ultimately to my long-term benefit to face such things as they arise. Even all these years later, there are still ways I can help myself continue to move forward with my life. This situation again points to one of the most difficult aspects of grief-its unpredictability. I think as human beings (especially as men) it's this characteristic of grief that is so maddening-the uncertainty of it all. We may realize intellectually that each person involved in the same situation will grieve in their own way and follow their own timeframe, but emotionally, men find this to be a most frustrating factor of grief. We like to know how long something will last. We like to know how much time and energy we need to invest in this whole process. We don't like to think there may be no end to this entire thing. We don't like to think there may be times when we believe we have reached some kind of ending only to have to deal with the same things over and over again. The thought that we may never feel "normal" again terrifies us. We begin to feel paralyzed and hopeless that we will ever feel anything close to normalcy again. Why can't we fix this? Why can't we just make it all go away? Where is the magic spell or magic fairy dust that could make me feel like myself again? Dealing with grief may be the most emotionally, spiritually, and mentally challenging thing we may ever face in life. It can even leave us physically drained years after the initial event. So, after all these months between posts, the question remains: how does a man learn to deal with grief?