I feel like I have been perpetually sad since November of 2004.
I’m a happy person. If you meet me, you’ll think I must have constant joy inside. I smile a lot, laugh easily, heartily, and from the belly. It’s not an act. With the blessings of my life, to not convey happiness would be hypocritical.
At the same time, there is a gnawing grief that started with the accidental passing of my cousin that year, which has never abated through other family and friend tragedies and deaths.
Losing Family Members
One of my dear uncles died after a long battle with many maladies. I’m using that word because he would have liked it. He would have laughed at the old-fashioned sound of it and the way it rolls off your tongue when you say it aloud.
My uncle suffered, but he didn’t complain and he didn’t let issue after issue beat him down. He smiled, laughed, kept adapting and dealing with a long roll of health issues, always moving forward. Despite the physical limitations that hit him, he kept doing. When I’d visit him at the nursing home, so far removed from the house and garden he loved tending, he’d always say, “If I have to be somewhere, this is a good place to be.”
I like to think I am somewhat similar to him. As each hit pounds another blow on my shoulders, I keep going forward, reminding myself, “This is a good place to be,” coping, handling, figuring out how to survive the latest overwhelming loss.
Maybe I give myself too much credit.
Maybe not.
Losing Dad to ALS
Did I know what went on in Dad’s mind in the fourteen months he dealt with Lou Gehrig’s? No. Did I have an inkling of what my uncle thought as he went through years of one thing after another attempting to force him to a stop? No. Their bodies let them down while their wit and intelligence stayed rapier sharp. What thoughts did they keep to themselves that let them manage their diseases and yet look forward to every day, knowing their last was coming?
Reading about Life’s Losses
As open as people can be with one another, there are those deep places inside us that we tend to shelter, to hide away. In re-reading Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, it is again striking how honest he is discussing his pending death from pancreatic cancer. He opened up to let us in, unveiling his emotions with grace and wit and humility.
We’ve heard the phrase that you never really know anyone. Read the lyrics to Billy Joel’s song, The Stranger. (Note: lyrics are proprietary and cannot be quoted without written approval.)
Sibling Support
My older sister and I stand a chance of knowing most of what goes on in the other’s head. That said, during a recent conversation, we agreed that people are mysteries. We are well-connected with our much-loved younger brother and kid sister. The four of us have a unique bond that always existed but that developed into a tangible entity when our parents were passing away. We try to understand someone’s motives for behavior, knowing that ours are a puzzle to them.
We came together in a manner we took for granted, but that astounded the hospice folks. Jackie would fly in from Montana every so many weeks and stay for at least two. She was in charge of medications and interactions with the Veterans Administration for Dad.
I handled finances, scheduled, and attended doctor appointments, and dealt with the ALS organization.
Joe was, because he lived on the same dead-end country road, the primary onsite caregiver—spending every night with our parents through Mom’s death from cancer, until Dad’s passing.
Joanne took up the cooking chore. She prepared meals they could both eat, then as the ALS erosion continued and Dad could no longer chew, she pureed dishes for him.
Coming Together During Life’s Losses Means Everything
In that time of infinite sadness (we are still sad), boundless laughing, and carrying on, we came together to cope with the pending loss of both parents. First, we faced the death of Mom, helping Dad deal with her passing. Then we lost him eight months later. It changed everything and as a result, we are closer than we ever were.
I’m close to my husband. We talk beyond surface conversations, we share humor and frustration. I find that we’re growing together over the years. But do I ever really know what goes on in his head or he mine? No, I don’t and he freely confesses that he doesn’t track me. We are fortunate to share so much humor because that fundamental joy keeps us on the same plane.
Did we siblings know what each other was thinking? I’m writing a family memoir, working title, 110 Pounds, for what each parent weighed when they died. I am sure when my siblings proof it, they will say, I don’t remember this, why don’t you mention that, and you got this wrong. We will have each placed those memories in the deepest recesses and will dig them out differently from one another.
When you are struck with great sorrow, you search for answers in the world around you, asking, “How can I survive this and move forward?”
Authorities Cite Five Stages of Grief and the Ways we Cope with Life’s Losses
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
But I’ll add two words to evoke different feelings: Sadness and Resolve.
My family is full of pragmatists. So, denial over our heartaches? Not so much. We usually take what slaps us in the face, acknowledge it, and immediately begin dealing with the situation. There is downheartedness, there is resolution, and then there is life. We go forward day after day, fighting through the sadness, resolving to be happy, to shove the anger aside.
For me, sadness is as different from depression as resolve is different from acceptance. Being sad is a state you slip in and out of during a day as you go about living. Suddenly, you have a moment of bereavement come to the forefront of your thoughts. You’re sad, you dwell there, then you go back to your life. Depression can be a state that you are captivated by, coming out of it occasionally, a disease that requires medical and or therapeutic help.
Resolve is squaring your shoulders, confronting life without a person you love and determining to keep getting out of bed each morning. Acceptance is realizing they are gone forever—unless your beliefs allow you to think of being with them in the after.
Admiring Dad
During Dad’s ALS housebound time, I would catch sight of him sitting in the wretched wheelchair the disease confined him to, staring out the living room window, the window he’d looked out for forty plus years. I’d wonder what he was thinking. For every incredible conversation we had and emotional connection we shared, I never knew what Dad was thinking as he sat there, body failing, mind as willing as ever to live life to the fullest.
Even though we frequently wear those stranger-masks with each other, sometimes in order to cope with our despair, I take mine off and openly weep. I say to my husband that today is a sad day, which inspires him to provide extra hugs and laughter-causing antics. Those days, I write about the hard things and let the world know that despite the challenges: I’m happy. I am the happiest I have ever been in my life.
But man, oh man, am I sad.
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Read: For Dad
Hi RoseMary. Thx for sharing your intimate thoughts about grief. I am one who, until this point in my life, have lost many loved ones, but never felt an intensity of grief from it. Not to lessen any of those losses, but somehow I have managed to process each within its context. And that has helped me accept, understand & move on. May it always be that way.
I hope that you are always able to handle grief that way, Doreen. I admit that I’m quite emotional and that I just get wrecked. The Colorado school shootings found me despondent with grief the other day. I don’t understand these things and they total me. Rose-colored glasses and a prayer that bad things would stop happening–that’s me.
Beautifully written RoseMary. I agree that people are complex and often a mystery which is probably why I enjoy people watching.
None of us can escape grief in our lifetime. It is so painful to lose a loved one whether suddenly or because of an illness. You never ‘get over it’ as such but it becomes easier to bear. It has made me realise that life is so very short.
Thank you, Phoenicia. Life is short–that’s why I try to keep positive people like you in my world!
Grief is so complex. I can relate to your addition of sadness and resolve in that it helps to articulate what been formulating in the back of my mind.
It truly is, Jeri. I thought I understood it decades ago when I lost elderly relatives or high school friends. But there is something in losing your parents that gives you another entire level of grief…
I am sorry for our loss,my husband died 4 months ago,your words are so true. I laugh I’m happy,but yet so sad.
Hello, Rose,
I am so very sorry to hear about your husband’s passing. It is hard to not be consumed by sadness when we are struck with such intense grief. It is good to find reasons to be happy with the small things, laugh every opportunity we get and fully indulge in our grief and sadness when we need to. I will keep you in my prayers. Rose
Thanks for this, Rose. And thanks to Annette for her attention to it. My husband was just diagnosed with ALS. This is a new marriage, and I have been happier than I’ve ever been. And now the sadness. “I have had about 5 years of horrible struggles in my life, and sometimes wonder how to keep going. As a dear friend of mine says, “You just do.” Again, thanks.
Yes, Sherry, we just keep getting out of bed day after day and work toward each one being better. I am sorry that your husband has this challenge ahead of him. ALS is a tough one, but there is good help out there. I will keep you in my prayers.
Rose, so well written. To be so sad and so happy at the same time seems impossible but it’s not. Life happens and we are given the strength to deal with it…sometimes we just have to dig a little deeper. AND rely on friends and family to help us through. I’m here for you! PK