Dear
On a Personal Note
Welcome to a new year,
even though we're well into it. May you experience blessings and abundance in between the challenges and trials that inevitably come our way. We know ahead of time we'll have both sides ot the coin!
I’m settling back in at home in the UK, after 11 weeks in South Africa. And gosh, do I miss the gorgeous sunny blue
skies!
I went to SA urgently in mid-October in the hope of spending a few days with my Dad after he got critically ill.
On arriving there, we discovered he had sepsis that started in his gallbladder. Andrew’s mom died of sepsis in 2019, so this was alarming news for me. He was already weak due to other health
issues. His COPD meant he could not have an operation to remove his infected gallbladder. He had a ‘gallbladder flush' to remove some of the infection and a drain stayed in for many weeks – to no avail.
I am grateful to say I could spend 3 weeks there while he was still in High Care (the only difference from ICU – in High Care they don’t ventilate). We had around a week of relatively good
‘quality time’ with Dad, if you could call it that given the circumstances. Then he started to lose many functions. He could do almost nothing for himself anymore, becoming completely dependent on other human beings for even the most basic things (like taking a sip of water).
My heart broke many times when I arrived in his room… he had spiking fevers, could only breathe through his mouth, and could
not even reach over to his side to pick up the glass of water. He often waited till someone offered, which could be hours. He did not like admitting he needed help – and that comes with a cost.
The second last week of his life was very unpleasant, the last one agony – both for him and us. He suffered, and we did too.
Moral difficulties
Fortunately, he had a living will - which meant the medical personal were not allowed to keep him artificially alive with ventilators and such. I’m sure the process would have been much longer, given doctors wanted to (and must) do everything they possibly can to preserve life.
I had a few conversations with the High Care nurses. Some of them share very different opinions from the drs who make decisions. One told me: “We see this so often – the rollercoaster that the family goes through. When we know that a patient is not going to recover, our hearts break, too. It’s just as hard for us. And if we were in Switzerland, it would be different. But now the only option is to do our best to make your Dad as comfortable as we
can.”
My sister and I had very interesting conversations around the difficult position that medical people are in. They can’t do harm, yet how much harm is caused when they can lengthen a person’s life interminably with no real cure or quality of life in sight? Definitely no easy answers. And we don’t blame anyone. We both believe things turn out the way they should. It’s just really interesting
to consider all the angles.
Processing the experience
I spent 5 weeks with mom after dad passed away. I already wrote about the enormous task of completing a person’s affairs at a time you least feel like it. Mind-boggling, really. Though in a way, it helps to give a purpose to the
days after the passing. And perhaps keeps the mind busy enough not to dwell too much… On the other hand, it takes away from actively grieving and assimilating what's happened.
Throughout those weeks, I had the sense that I had no time to process the whole episode - I was too busy sorting out and arranging things. I still have that feeling now, weeks later. It was like being caught up in a whirlwind –
no time to think. And introverts need quiet thinking time to ponder and let the dust settle!
I got to spend wonderful quality time with mom, though. I’ve never been with her for so long since I left home at 20 (35 years ago). It was a revelation to experience our relationship on such a different level. I gained new respect for her - she is living with Parkinson’s and still managing so extremely
well. Her amazing sense of humour keeps her going. We shared many, many laughs and giggles during even the most stressful times.
Given that I could write many stories about different days during this journey, today I want to share a few general things about grief and loss. I hope somewhere this can be useful for your own journey. Not even one of us is spared this painful human experience. And yet
we’re so reluctant to talk about it. Yes, because it hurts so much - we don’t want to even consider the possibility.
Five things to consider about Grief and Loss
One: It’s completely unique for everyone
Our experience of grief and loss is as unique as the person experiencing it. Some people grieve and cry straight away. Others take months or years to feel anything.
When mom lost her own dad about 30 years ago, she did not shed a single tear until 3 months later. Then it all came rushing in. Now, with my Dad’s passing, she had many different emotions I helped her to process
with EFT. Sometimes a whole hour of intense sadness, other times a few minutes. And it’s early days yet for her grieving journey after a marriage of 58 years.
My sister spoke to a friend who was besides herself with grief after the death of her dad, during the same time we lost ours. She felt devastated, broken… and assumed my sister was having a similar experience. Not so. My sister had a complex
relationship with Dad and she’s simply not able to tune in to the grief yet. It may come, or maybe not. We don’t know how it will show up in future.
My relationship with Dad was less complex, and we were not close. Dad was most definitely an introvert – a man of few words. I’m an introvert too. Put us together, and we sat in silence. We had trouble keeping a conversation going. (That is of course
something that I feel the loss of now - could I have tried harder?)
Like many of his contemporaries, he didn’t ‘do’ emotion until very late in his life. I can count on one hand times that I saw tears in his eyes – and 3 of them were in the last year.
My grief has so far showed up as intermittent waves of
sadness, some more intense than others. When I allow them, they pass within minutes. Of course, mostly I tap while I feel it. On the morning of Dad’s death, I went for a walk at the beach and felt exquisitely grateful for a stunning day. It really was almost like the Light had broken through after the very dark few weeks. Sad, and glad, all at once.
I absolutely believe all the tapping I did (by
myself and with a swapping partner) over the last few months as I experienced events, helped me to process it piece by piece. It’s not going to come down on me like a ton of bricks. I think. One can never tell, though...
So there we have 4 different experiences already in 4 different people. Not one of them is right or wrong. You are unique, and so would your grief journey be,
because….
Two: We do not come to our grief journey as a clean slate
All the issues that we had with a person before they passed away, do not magically disappear when they take their last breath.
In fact, our long-standing issues and patterns with a person can make that grief journey more complex and sticky to sort through.
Not only do we have patterns with a person – we also have patterns as individuals.
For instance: I usually feel almost instantly responsible to help
people, and I feel awful if I’m unable to help take their pain away. So a part of my journey these past few months involved really facing how much of the time I’m suffering because of others’ suffering.
It was horrible to feel so helpless when my dad had intense physical pain. Similarly, it is very hard for me to know that my mom is facing her days alone, and that she is deeply sad some days. So not
only do I have the loss of a parent to process – it is also very much intertwined with my ‘responsible to help’ pattern.
If I’m not careful, I could allow my ‘responsible for others’ pattern to overshadow my own healthy need to grieve my loss: the loss of a parent, a pillar who used to be in my life since the day I took my first breath. That is a big thing to contemplate… and that’s
when a wave of sadness appears again. The thought of ‘never, ever again’.
Three: Mixed emotions are totally normal
A period of grief does not mean we’re only feeling 1 emotion (sad). Most often, the contrary is true.
When the hospital phoned at 4 am to say my Dad had just taken his last breath, my first emotion was of relief. Thank God that his suffering was now over! Only a few minutes later, the sadness. But not a huge sadness… more a few silent few tears that fell for him. And, mostly, because I was so sad that he had to endure so many weeks of awful suffering. Not yet for my own loss.
My mom, bless her heart, was heartbroken the last time she said goodbye in the hospital. Then, she did incredibly well on the day of the funeral and for many days after that. We did a tapping session the night before the memorial service, and an hour ahead of it too. Both helped her tremendously.
A few days later what hit her suddenly was intense anger that my dad was gone and
left her alone with all her troubles. She has Parkinson’s and she does not have an easy time with all her own health issues. How was she going to cope without him?
We did a beautiful EFT session that morning - tapping through all of her thoughts, concerns, welcoming every last thought. Every last emotion or thought is welcome when we tap – they all need Light and Air. After that session, she was ready
to look at his photograph again, and naturally, some loving thoughts and good memories came up.
When we clear feelings with EFT, no ‘forcing’ a layer of positivity is ever necessary. They arrive naturally when we’ve thoroughly processed a difficult feeling.
I have experienced waves of sadness, and also waves
of anger and frustration. Loss that we never had the kind of relationship I see other daughters have with their fathers. Disappointment (which is a milder form of grief and loss) that things didn’t turn out differently in our relationship. Anger that he sometimes made it so hard for my mom. Guilt that I didn’t do more to reach out to him. All sorts.
During those weeks, my sister, mom and myself
had many hilarious moments of laugher, too. Laughter is such a beautiful healing tool in the midst of challenges. It lets in some Light and Lightness and has profound effects on the body's chemical factory.
All of these different emotions are part of mourning a loss. We need to make space for all of it.
Four: We don’t experience loss and grief only when we lose a loved one
I’ve worked with many clients in recent months where their grief, loss and sadness had nothing to do with losing a precious person through death.
There was grief and loss about a body part
that was no longer working well. The loss of that part of the body inevitably has a big impact in the rest of life somewhere.
For instance – loss of eyesight leads to a loss of independence. That has an enormous impact on a person’s life, and how they see themselves. Our Identity (the kind of person we think we are) is affected in a big way. It’s a huge change in our brain and nervous system to get
used to and doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s important to sit (be) with and allow these changes to filter through. Ignoring them casues them to simmer and creates a low-level-discomfort that impacts our life on many levels. We know there’s something bothering us, but it’s so below the surface we can’t quite put our finger on it.
Another client worked through loss about not having the mother that every little girl wants - one that kept her safe in childhood.
Another processed grief about a body part that has become deformed. Again – our Identity changes when that happens. We saw ourselves as a person who looks normal. When a visible change occurs that we can do nothing about and it invokes
some judgments from others (especially when we’re still a young person), it can be very painful. We grieve not only the loss of ‘normal’ but also of the way we saw ourselves. Now we’re no longer a ‘normal’ person – our identity has to shift and adapt to that. It’s a big thing.
5 years ago I had to grieve the loss of my former home, a very special tree in that garden that I loved so much, the loss of
leaving my cat with another family, the loss of precious friends I would not be able to see in the flesh anymore, the loss of sunny skies and gorgeous winter weather. The loss of everything that used to be ‘normal’ for me as a South African.
Yes, I know – I gained a lot in another country. But loss is loss and we cannot smear a little positive layer on top of it. We need to really get to grips with
the loss, taste it, chew on it, digest it, assimilate it - then we’ll be able to fully appreciate all the new bits that the change brings.
Five: Process your grief so it doesn’t compound
There is a type of grief
called ‘compound’ grief. (There are many types of grief: normal, disenfranchised, compound, anticipatory, chronic, complex, delayed, exaggerated, masked, traumatic, collective, inhibited, abbreviated, absent and others).
Compound grief arrives when we’ve not processed previous losses – and then the final straw breaks the camel’s back, so to speak. That’s when it hits us like a ton of bricks and
the pain of it is unbearable.
I worked with a client in the last year for whom that was the case. The client had experienced many personal losses of precious people in the short space of a year. He did not have a chance to properly grieve all those who passed away, and tried to carry on as normal. And then, a deeply personal loss set off a big cascade that stopped him from functioning
normally.
When we hit this point, it takes a little while to unravel and work through it all.
My short and simple guidance
I don’t usually tell people what to do, it’s not in my nature (umm…
except my husband of course… I tell him what to do all the time and sometimes he even complies. And he still puts up with me after 17 years! <Grin>.)
Jokes aside.
With a lot of love and respect for your journey: if you’ve experienced a loss anywhere in your life that you’ve not properly acknowledged
or processed, find someone you trust who you can do that with. Of course - it’s not always easy to find a person like that. Our friends and family have a hard time with grief, too… when we talk about our own pain, they are reminded of what could happen for them. They would usually want to avoid that.
The best bet is often a professional person who can be with all your pain without being personally
affected. They have had training in how to do that, and you won’t feel that you need to tiptoe around their feelings.
Expressing and processing our loss and grief is important for not only our mental health, but also physical. Unexpressed grief can wreak all sorts of havoc on the body, too. That’s no fun - it can lead to mysterious aches and pains and symptoms. Our mind, emotions and body are
intricately connected!
___________________________________________________________________________________
