Grief: Act I

Kuber-Ross made a major contribution to western civilization when she distinguished between the stages of grief. Regardless of whatever information was released about her change of heart in her later years, she is a hero of mine. Her individualizing and naming specific emotions brought them out from hiding and helped remove some the shame enveloping a mourning process that takes its time.

Not that my grief has proceeded in an orderly sequence, but still I can see how grieving proceeds in stages, although often for me it's one step forward and two steps back. I believe in my eventual evolution because I know widows of sensitivity and substance who have arrived at a perspective of life that appears more balanced than how I feel most days. Some of my friends were widowed before me, and I know their lives. Their stories have helped me to believe that sometime in the future, my acceptance of my husband's death and resolution to live a full life will carry me over into another state of being.

I keep reaching for that acceptance, but for now I'm still mostly in the first act. My determination to move on dissolves into anger and tears at the drop of a hat. I'm at odds with myself. On one hand I want to be done with grief. I want it excised from my mind and spirit. On the other hand, letting go of it feels like letting go of my husband, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to do that. Trying to overrule my ambivalence doesn't work. My grief acts up when I attempt to ignore it. Sometimes I'm rougher and try to kill and bury it, but that doesn't work either. My grieving needs to die of natural causes. Or go to sleep. Or transform. Or remain a part of me, but in a more bearable state.

I don't know how it will be for me. My friends can only share so much of how it's been for them. This deepest and most mysterious of experiences renders dumb even the most articulate among us.

Patience, I tell myself. Be patient and have faith.