Helping Children Cope with Grief – Rosemary Wells
Child waiting for parent
When my husband passed away suddenly in a traffic accident, I was faced with the terrible task of telling our three year old daughter.
But how do you tell a three year old? Would she even understand what I was saying, what do I say and how much of the truth do I tell her. I had no clue and even wondered if young children grieve for a parent. I was struggling with my own grief and needed advice on what to do, say and what to expect as time moved on without Daddy coming home.
Eventually I found a book shop at Knock, Co Mayo and searched through all the different categories, eventually stumbling across this title.
It helped me to understand that even though our daughter was only three, she would also grieve. It helped me understand the importance of telling her the truth in a manner she would understand. I leaned the importance of letting her cry and that she will ask the same questions over and over. I was afraid of doing or saying something wrong that may effect her in later life.
In early widowhood its very hard to sit and read a book to the end and I found it hard to read this book too. But I always found myself coming back to it for snippets of advice that I feel have really helped. Its one of the few books that still, nearly seventeen months later, sit on my desk ready for the next evening I feel able to glean from its advice.
The writer Rosemary Wells grew up in Scotland and England, and settled in Africa where she married. On returning to England, she was widowed and left with three children. She is a former teacher, and still enjoys teaching writers’ workshops, but is now a freelance writer. She is the author of many other Children’s support titles.
In: Book Reviews · Tagged with: children, grief
GRIEVING VALENTINE
Valentines Day & the Bereaved
Valentine’s Day. Celebration of Love. Pictures of Cupid flying above. Valentine’s Day. Your loss more immense. Heartache increased. Pain more intense. Valentine’s Day. Remembering you. There’s no place for singles when everyone’s two.
For many people, Valentine’s Day is yet another of those annual events when consciousness of being alone in a world of couples is heightened. Phychological research shows that the confluence of commercial forces, societal norms and personal pressure to participate in St. Valentine’s Day all contribute to stress surrounding the Westernised celebration of the day.
This is not surprising. Valentine’s Day is the day when romantic love is privileged. Therefore, all those whose relationships have ended, who have broken up with boyfriends or girlfriends, who are single, who are separated, divorced or bereaved, feel the singularity of their situation on this day. It is a busy day for the Samaritans because the depths of loneliness, of difference, of exclusion, of feeling unloved, unwanted and unattached, are confronted by many on Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day is a day when the death of a spouse, particularly if the death has taken place in the past year, is felt even more acutely. An aching loneliness lies in knowing that there is nobody from whom a Valentine’s card with loving messages will be received. It is a time when the display of cards, “Happy Valentine to My Loving Wife” of Valentine’s Wishes to My Darling Husband”, are excruciating reminders of a world of loving that has ended. It is a time when the finality, the lived reality of the death of a person one loved is once more confronted.
There will be no florist at the door, no surprise present, no mobile message, no restaurant booking, no clink of champagne glasses, no shared bottle of wine, nowhere special to go, no one special to go with, on this day dedicated to togetherness.
There will be memories of past times. Of other Valentine’s Days, when being a couple was taken for granted and, like many losses, unappreciated until it ended. There may be guilt, because guilt stalks lovers and mourners, finding the minutiae with which to torture the bereaved, to berate them unfairly, on special days and especially on Valentine’s Day.
Guilt finds the moment of carelessness in a lifetime of devotion, the one request refused in the generosity of giving, the minute of anger in a marriage that was a loving partnership. This is why people often have regret at what now seems like neglect when romance was ridiculed, a gift not given, love not romantically conveyed, when a Valentine’s Day in the past was allowed to pass uncelebrated. Guilt forgets that one single day does not define a relationship; that love is not always articulated in conventional ways. Guilt forgets that couples have their own way of celebrating Valentine’s Day some subscribing to its commercialism, its excuse for celebration and romantic expression, while others participate in a perfunctory way.
But when one is alone, celebratory events can take on new meaning. On Valentine’s Day, therefore, for those who have lost a partner there may be loneliness, stark and sharp, sadness at the amputation of the future that was planned together but that now must be undertaken alone. There may be envy of others who are unconscious of their privilege, casual in their coupledom, unaware of the awkwardness of being alone on a day that celebrates having a special “other” in one’s life.
For some there will be consciousness that the relationship with the person who died was not perfect, sadness that what might have been was not and now cannot be; that death has denied the hoped for difference; that disappointment is concretised by death.
For others whose marriage seemed perfect, the light of its perfection may overshadow the possibility of ever finding happiness in life again. Or so it may seem on Valentine’s Day.
Grief is relentless. It finds ways of reminding, admonishing and ruminating. It is seldom predictable. While universal in pattern, it is personal in its particularity As poet Emily Dickinson wrote, “I measure every grief I meet with narrow probing eyes. I wonder if it weighs like mine or has an easier size”. This is because grief is immeasurable, complicated, complex and incomparable. It is our surest sign of our capacity to love.
Grief on Valentine’s Day is, paradoxically, the ultimate marker of love. For Cupid’s arrow does not just pierce to attract, but to attach. If pierces most deeply those who love most profoundly. Grief for another is the ultimate marker of love of that other. It anoints with remembrance. It embraces with regret. It enfolds the person who was loved in loving recollection.
And therefore, while one may be alone on Valentine’s Day, that aloneness is a special kind of loving not accessible to those who have not passed through the mire of mourning which is the ultimate expression of love. Those who mourn are blessed, for they know they have the capacity to love.
The above is an extract from the book “Living Our Times” by Marie Murray,Clinical Physchologist and shared by kind permission of the Author, Marie Murray and her publishers (permission granted 12/2/2010 – Patricia Hannon,for Gill and Macmillan Ltd ) & Eoin McVey of the Irish Times granted permission to use that article.
Thank you Marie Murry for kindly permitting Widow.ie to use this piece.
In: Book Reviews · Tagged with: grief, love, valentine
YESTERDAYS WIFE – TODAYS WIDOW.
Yesterdays Wife - Todays Widow
Yesterday I was a wife. Today I am a widow. Yesterday I had a life. Today I do not know what I have, where I am, or who I am. I do normal stuff. I do not cry. I get up and behave quiet as I always do. I wash, dress, make our bed, it is less disturbed than usual. The pillows on my side bear the imprint of my head but the other pillows are fat and plump.
Down stairs I boil the kettle, take down two cups and put the teabags into them – make the tea and bring it to the table. I sit in my chair and stare. I stare at the nothingness before me. My neighbour calls in and sits in the empty chair. He called in last week and discussed his new purchase with my husband Tony, a new vehicle. My husband wished him well with it. A customer of mine poked her head into the kitchen “are you measuring him up Tommy” – the two men laugh, I laugh, Josephine laughs. Tommy is an undertaker, its his job and he does it well.
How could any of us have known that Tony and Tommy would journey together in the new black hearse, one in the front, one in the back. My neighbour has tears in his eyes. Like all good neighbours he is here to make my life easy today. He drinks the tea I made for my husband. Habits of twenty five years are not going to stop in sixteen hours, the first of my widow-hood. My daughter, young and pretty, joins us in the kitchen. She will go to Dublin with Tommy to bring her Dad home to us. She will pick clothes to dress him for the journey and a coffin to shield his lifeless body from the curious. This slip of a girl on the edge of womanhood takes on the adult role as I exist in numbness.
People gather, a small army of helpers, clean, polish, make ready. Comfort, cook, comfort. Fill our home with flowers and food. First women I greet at my front door are widows – I see them through widows eyes – they know how I will feel when the numbness wears off. I thankfully do not.
In: In Memory · Tagged with: despair, grief, sadness, solitude, Widowhood
Last Will & Testament of a Lover by Clifford Ellis
I found this book in the first few weeks after my husband’s death when I still could not even say the word death. I felt desperate to make myself acknowledge the reality of his dying inspite of the fact that the funeral was over. The sympathy cards had stopped, the phone calls and visits from friends had slackened and I felt so alone in my feelings. I scanned through several books in the bookstore but they all seemed too glib, too simplified, as if this process of grief would be easy.
As I started to leave the bookstore, my eyes fell on the “Last Will and Testament of a Lover by Robert Ellis.” Intrigued by the title, I picked it up and leafed through the contents page, amazed at how many chapter titles echoed my own thoughts.
Though my husband had been ill for some time, I was totally unprepared for the intensity of my emotions after he passed away. I did not realize that grieving my husband would make me feel physical as well as emotional pain.
I had wanted to give him a “perfect funeral, a perfect memorial, a perfect eulogy”, if there could be such a thing. I poured myself into writing thank you cards trying to express how much he was loved, knowing that people in our own circle of family and friends would soon forget yet scared that they would.
But as I read this book, I realized, as Robert Ellis wrote, that “the funeral and all the other ceremonies are parting gifts for you, the living”. Being a firm believer in an afterlife, this book confronted and reaffirmed my own belief at a time when I had difficulty making it feel personal. After reading it, I felt that my husband was now ok, and that his life had evolved into what he was born to be. I felt that his will would truly be for me to now become who I was destined to be from this point on until we meet again one day.
I cannot say the book was an easy read, it was gut wrenching at times and I was forced to confront feelings I wanted to run from. I cannot say I have arrived at an acceptance of my own destiny without my husband of forty years. But I can say, that after reading this book, I felt as if I had been left a tangible gift of love willed to me forever.
As I turned the last page, I could almost hear my husband’s words to me, encouraging me as he had done throughout our entire marriage, ” babe, you will be ok, and I will see you soon.”
I wept through the pages of this book, only to cry even more when I read the epilogue. I was amazed at the insight of the author and his ability to portray the love between a husband and wife.
Grieving – A Beginners Guide by Jerusha Hull McCormack
Jerusha Hull McCormack
When i was widowed in 2006 my sister came across this book in the library. The author had been a Senior Lecturer in University College Dublin, already a published author and widowed suddenly mid-life. The book chronicles her grief journey for the benefit of others. Her opening line “Chances are if you are reading this, your heart is broken” invites the reader to follow her voyage of discovery from a similar beginning.
Very early in the book Jerusha states “we are all amateurs at grief”. She describes becoming marginalized, feelings of loneliness, fear, sadness, chaos and the loss of self, but she also shares the journey of self discovery, of meaningful new values and all the positive things that are born of grieving. “Grief expressed openly and honestly can be one of the most liberating experiences of life”.
From the initial shocking numbness, into the acute pain she logs ways to sustain well being. She advises “trust that the pain will be bearable”. She states grief does not have a script, it is not one emotion but many. It also has the capacity to ambush you at any time. Attended to in a positive manner it “does not impoverish; it enriches” Jerusha boldly tackles the “secondhand lines” directed at the grief stricken by the well meaning but uninformed and dismantles them encouraging the bereft to do the same.
The book is honest, it does not hide the awfulness of grief. “Social isolation is inevitable” and “one of the most valuable things the grieving can do is to learn to live with a certain degree of loneliness. It is painful”. Throughout the book there are poems and quotations, words of wisdom and encouragement. It is the kind of book to return to again and again, with every reading its guidance grows. It is a thoughtfull book to pass on to a friend experiencing grief, a book full of feeling and solace, a book to take on a similar journey.
Elizabeth Turner – The Blue Skies of Autumn
Elizabeth & William Turner
