Grief is a lifelong journey
The Taos News has committed to a weekly column to help educate our community about emotional healing through grief. People may write questions to Golden Willow Retreat, and they will be answered privately to you and possibly as a future article for others. Please list a first name that grants permission for printing.
Dear Dr. Ted:
My husband of 30 years died about a month ago, and I just seem to be overwhelmed. My entire world seems so daunting. I just can’t seem to make any progress, and I don’t see a finish line in this process. I only see this enormous black hole. Is this how this grief thing works or am I off track?
Thanks, Jackie
Dear Jackie,
My heart goes out to you in this very difficult time. Having a partner die is such a difficult loss and can leave an enormous void which feels insurmountable. When you have a life that has grown each day and is comfortable, then experience that comfort disappear from a loss, it shatters the foundation of your everyday life, plans, hopes and dreams. When you have a loss, it is as if you find yourself caught in the past and overwhelmed by the future.
As the past and future collide, it puts you in an emotional tailspin with no controls to straighten the directional course. Slowly, you will start to rebuild an internal and external foundation in which you slowly start to normalize your present situation, even if it is not what you want, and in reestablishing your new situation you start to rebuild autonomy, which feels like it has been completely hijacked from you.
This process happens through the natural and normal healing process called grief. Grief helps someone reestablish a new norm and slowly that enormous vacuum and the excruciating craving to have life as you once knew it subsides.
Please remember this does not mean that you don’t wish or want the past, it is just something that cannot be the way it used to be before your loss. As you move back and forth through the phases of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and relocation, time allows you to incrementally build that new life, or as you stated, “to see a finish line.”
But in actuality, there is no finish line. Grief is a lifetime process in which life starts to seep back into your world as you adapt to a life with a certain void that does not go away. What goes away is the constant anguish and craving.
Slowly there is more of a balance of joy and sorrow which is a healthy life. Loss and grief live on a pendulum and at the beginning, most time is spent in the overwhelming pain of loss, as time moves forward and you continue to show up, a new life drumbeat where there are more moments of smiles, along with present and historical joy.
The goal is not the finish line but living your life, honoring your past, and finding that new foundation in order to reach new levels of potential and the journey of life on life’s terms … even when you disagree. I wish you well and please stay safe. Until next week, take care.
Golden Willow Retreat is a nonprofit organization focused on emotional healing and recovery from any type of loss. Direct any questions to Dr. Ted Wiard, EdD, LPCC, CGC, Founder of Golden Willow Retreat GWR@newmex. com or call at 575-776-2024. Weekly virtual grief groups, at no charge, are being offered to help support emotional well-being. Information can be accessed through goldenwillowretreat.org.