Adversity, Grief
This week has been an interesting week full of memories. 23 years ago today, our daughter, Hannah, was stillborn. I’ve taken a lot of time this week to reflect on some of the events that took place and some of the emotions and thoughts that I experienced that week.
On Tuesday April 9, 1996, we were very excited as we went to our first childbirth class. I was 30 weeks pregnant. It was our third pregnancy, but we never had the chance to attend the classes before, as we had a miscarriage for our first pregnancy and then I was in the hospital for 10 weeks with our twins and one of them died the night they were born, 7 weeks premature.
What was supposed to be a joyful night and celebration of life ended with news that our daughter had died.
The doctor sent me home from the hospital to wait and see if I would go into labor on my own. They scheduled me to come back 2 days later to be induced, if needed. It was a long night.
No expectant couple should have to do this
The next day was spent making funeral arrangements. Picking a casket, ordering flowers, buying a doll with a cute dress so we could bury her in the dress… (It turns out it was a dress almost exactly like one I wore as a baby.) The day was surreal, full of things no pregnant woman and expectant daddy should have to do. It was hard. I think we were on autopilot and somewhat numb. It was awkward for everyone helping us too.
I was induced 2 days later. That was 23 years ago today. What a weird day. Knowing I was going through the pain of childbirth only to bury my child…. Our family and some friends were able to be present and share the day with us.
Stillbirth and miscarriage are emotionally and mentally messy…
It’s always interesting when this week comes and the memories bubble back up to the surface. Stillbirth is so messy. So many complicated details. It wasn’t just a one-day event. It took place over several days. The whole week is full of difficult memories.
The thing about miscarriage and stillbirth that makes it extra challenging is that even though you know the pregnancy is over, in your mind you still “finish” the pregnancy. You’re always thinking about the milestones you would be experiencing until your due date. “I would be _____weeks today”, etc.
I healed with time
I can tell my story without pain now. Most of the time. But sometimes a tear still breaks through. The beginning was definitely harder, as the emotions and experience were so fresh and raw. I truly found my comfort in God and felt His presence. I prayed that one day we would heal enough that He could use our story to help others. I wasn’t ready yet at the time, because I needed to go through my grief, but since then, God has used our story in amazing ways.
My Hannah and David have made an impact on the lives of so many people. I’ll never know “why” this side of heaven. And I’ll probably never know the extent of the impact their short little lives made. Hannah, who never took a breath, and David, who only did so for 40 minutes. But I do know that they fulfilled the purpose God had for them and I can’t wait to see them again and maybe understand why our story has been written this way.
What about you?
- If you have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss, what have been the most challenging aspects for you?
- What has God shown and taught you about Himself and about yourself through this experience?
Adversity, Grief, Living intentionally
Does it sound terrible if I say that I enjoy grief coaching? While I don’t enjoy seeing others suffer in grief, my favorite part of grief work is the stories. The first thing I ask grief clients to do is to share their story. It’s such a beautiful and special thing to have those I work with share their stories and memories of their loved one with me. I think it’s actually their own stories that help them to process through their grief and to move forward.
You never know what will trigger a memory, or even a tear. Just this week I had one of those moments myself. My mom died of inflammatory breast cancer in 2011. I miss her so much, but what wonderful memories I have of her and our family life.
My memory trigger came in the form of a school lunch menu my kids brought home. I’ll be honest, I forget to look at them most of the time and I’ve been known to make spaghetti or something for dinner that they just had that day at school on more than one occasion. Oops! 🙂
My son’s lunch menu fell off of the refrigerator and landed on the floor in front of me. (I do hang them. I just don’t read them.) Suddenly, it reminded me of my own lunch menus when I was a child. My brother and I would sit and listen while Mom read them out loud to us. She used this really fun, dramatic voice that made everything sound delicious. We would laugh and giggle and ask her to read them again. (more…)
Adversity, Grief
Losses often go unrecognized and are never addressed. This can increase the intensity of other losses later. Losses are not just those experiences involving the death of a loved one. Any event that destroys a person’s understanding of the meaning of life is felt as a loss and all change involves some form of loss of the way things were.
Creating a Loss History Timeline is a helpful way to identify the losses in your life.
To do so, start by drawing a horizontal line. On the left-hand side of that line, indicate your first conscious memory and date it. Then, working your way toward the right side of the horizontal line, identify each loss you can remember experiencing. As you do, draw a vertical line below the horizontal line and write a brief description of the loss and the date underneath it. The length of the vertical line will indicate the intensity of the loss. If it is an ongoing loss, or one in which the impact isn’t over yet, you can shade the vertical line.
Making a graph such as this not only allows you to visualize the losses you have experienced, but it also helps you to identify the grief work that you still need to complete.
If you would like, you could then add a blessing time line to this same graph. Identify each blessing you remember and use the same process to make a graph above the horizontal line. As in the loss time line, the length of the vertical lines will indicate the intensity of the blessing.
Adversity, Grief
Phase 1 — Impact
Hours to days
Response: Should you stay and face it or withdraw
Thoughts: You are numb and disoriented. Your insight ability is limited and your feelings overwhelm.
Direction You Take to Regain Control: You search for what you lost.
Searching Behavior: You often reminisce.
Phase 2 — Withdrawal / Confusion
Days to Weeks
Response: Do you feel intense emotion or feel drained? Are you angry, sad, fearful, anxious, depressed, raging or guilty?
Thoughts: Your thinking ability is limited. It is uncertain and ambiguous.
Direction You Take to Regain Control: Your are bargaining–wishful thinking. Detachment is involved.
Searching Behavior: You are puzzled; things are unclear.
Phase 3 — Adjustment
Weeks to Months
Response: Your positive thoughts begin returning along with intense emotions.
Thoughts: You’re now able to problem solve.
Direction You Take to Regain Control: You begin looking for something new to invest in.
Searching Behavior: You can now stay focused and begin to learn from your experience.
Phase 4 — Reconstruction / Reconciliation
Months
Response: Hope has returned. You are more self-confident.
Thoughts: Thinking is clearer.
Direction You Take to Regain Control: Progress is evident and new attachments are made to something significant.
Searching Behavior: You may want to stop and evaluate where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Adversity, Grief
There are 3 periods involved in surviving and rebuilding after the loss of a spouse.
Bridging the Past
During this phase, the widow or widower will begin to accept the death of his or her spouse and loosen the ties to the deceased spouse. Shared experiences become memories and the surviving spouse learns to use the word “we” instead of “I”.
Living in the Present
A shift in family structure needs to be made. Roles will change in order to take care of the daily, routine tasks. This will affect everyone.
If children are involved, they need the support and security from the surviving parent. It’s important to note that an individual cannot function as both mother and father without wearing himself or herself out. Instead of trying to fulfill both roles, it is best to focus on being a better parent.
One area to take note of is housing. Although there may be a panic about financial burdens or pain from the memories shared in the home, it is best to wait to make a decisions to sell or move. Good decisions are not usually made during this time because emotions are intense. This applies to all significant decisions.
Finding a New Path into the Future
Life stabilizes during this period and the surviving spouse develops new roles and functions independently. He is or she is able to reorganize life without the deceased spouse.
New relationships may be sought and developed. The purpose is not to replace the original spouse but to have comfort and companionship, to refocus life, or even to find a new parent for his or her children.
Grief
Dr. Susan J. Zonnebelt-Smeenge and Dr. Robert C. DeVries describe grief work as five tasks that must be completed. These five tasks do not have to be done in a specific order. They are like puzzle pieces: there are many different orders in which you can put them together, but the pieces are designed to be used in specific relationship to other pieces. There are corresponding behaviors for each of the five tasks that need to be addressed as you work grief.
Task #1 — Accept the reality that your loved one has died and is unable to return. This is hard to do, even though it seems pretty obvious.
Task #2 — Express all your emotions associated with the death. Holding them in makes it more complicated.
Task #3 — Sort through and identify the memories of your loved one and find a place to store them so you can begin to move on.
Task #4 — Identify who you are independent of your deceased love one. This is a really important part of the journey. Who are you now? If you lost a child, how many children do you say you have now? If your spouse died, are you married? This is a big adjustment stage as you determine who you are.
Task #5 — Begin to reinvest in your life in a way that is consistent with your reshaped sense of identity. What are you personal interests and desire at this point in your life?
Adversity, Grief
Losses never come as isolated events. They are either connected to other losses or they create ‘secondary losses’. The full impact of these may hit you later. At first, you may not even realize all the losses that will occur as a result of the primary loss you are experiencing. If you can identify the secondary losses in advance, you can lessen their impact, which will disrupt your life less than it would if they occurred suddenly and ambushed you.
Here are examples of some secondary losses that a wife who loses her husband could experience:
- friend
- handyman
- lover
- gardener
- companion
- sports partner
- checkbook balancer
- mechanic
- parent
- teacher
- counselor
- protector
- organizer
- provider
- cook
- bill payer
- laundry person
- confidante
- mentor
- prayer partner
- source of inspiration or insight
- encourager
- motivator
- business partner
- errand person
- tax preparer
- Sunday school class
- couple friends
As you can see from this extensive list, loss involves more than just the primary loss an individual is facing. Every type of loss will have its own secondary losses. They are painful. When grieving a loss in the present, you often grieve for what you will never have in the future as well.
What are some of the losses you have faced and what were the secondary losses? How did they impact you? Which loss has been the most difficult for you? What helped you to work through it?
Grief
When grieving the loss of a loved one, it is very helpful to become the historian and celebrate his or her life by writing about it. One way to do this is by compiling a list of 1,000 memories. There’s nothing magical about the number 1,000, but by the time you get to 1,000, you will probably have a fairly complete picture of the person and all of the key things that are significant for you to remember.
This can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. Just take a notebook or journal and write down every memory or thought that comes to mind about that person. You can make it a collection of one-liners, or add details. It’s up to you.
With time, details often fade or get jumbled up together. Having a notebook or journal available when a memory or thought comes to mind is a great way to remember all of the details or stories that may get fuzzy with time. You don’t have to write all 1,000 thoughts or memories down all at once—it can be an ongoing project until you feel that it is finished.
What a way to honor your loved one’s legacy and memory! This is also a great keepsake to pass down to your children or other family members.
Adversity, Grief
Have you ever noticed that often a certain type of loss doesn’t seem as bad until it happens to you?
The worst grief and loss is your own that you are experiencing at this time.
This is an important concept in grief. Individuals facing loss and grief are subject to hearing a lot of unsolicited, and often unhelpful, advice and stories about others who have gone through similar or worse situations.
We should be mindful of the fact that, to the grieving individuals, their current loss is the worst loss and we should always use appropriate, supportive words and attitudes when we talk to them.
Adversity, Grief
When a person is in crisis or traumatized, the words we use, our tone of voice, and the suggestions we make have a bigger impact on them than they would normally have at other times in life.
Our words can heal or they can harm.
We need to say things that are supportive and helpful.
I’m sure that, like me, you can probably tell stories of things that people have said to you during a time of crisis or things that you have heard said to other people that were neither supportive nor helpful. Unfortunately, we could also all probably list some things that we have said ourselves that may not have been healing or helpful.
It seems that when you are in a crisis situation, facing a loss, or grieving in some way, you get a lot of unsolicited and unwanted advice. It’s not always good advice either. It’s often insensitive and really hurts. Suddenly, everyone has a story like yours, or one that is supposed to show you that yours isn’t so bad and could be worse. They know someone who went through the same thing or they have good reasons why you should be glad that ______ did/didn’t happen, or that it happened when it did, the way it did, etc. Trust me, I’ve been there. Many times.
We call these people secondary “wounders”. (more…)
This week has been an interesting week full of memories. 23 years ago today, our daughter, Hannah, was stillborn. I’ve taken a lot of time this week to reflect on some of the events that took place and some of the emotions and thoughts that I experienced that week.
