Dealing With It

[lph]

Um. Very good thread. I'm sort of at a loss here, because so much of what you have been writing is stuff I've been spending a lot of time and thought on the last few months. My brother died 3 months ago of a heart attack, 41 years old and leaving a wife and 9 yr old son, and a stunned family. We had no prior warning at all, one day he was somewhat overweight but healthy, the next day he was dead. My grandmother died a few weeks later, sad, disoriented and lonely. Since then I've been observing my own reactions at a distance, and writing down some of it.

I've realized how incredibly privileged I've been so far. I've learnt to appreciate people's sympathy no matter the actual words they say, and I've learnt to never, ever again be too embarrassed or shy to say something sympathetic to someone in grief. I've learnt that grieving for someone is not a linear process, where it's awful at first but gets better each day - it's more that it's awful at times, but the awful times get fewer and further apart, and slightly less awful. In the meantime everything can be fine, I can tell jokes, and laugh at things and enjoy life.

I've learnt what used to trigger a bad mood can now trigger black despair, so I've learnt to not get too hungry, not get too little sleep, and to exercise every day if possible. Hey - I can use all the endorfins I can get, and decided pretty fast to become a fullfledged endorfin junkie I've learnt that the smallest things can trigger a crying jag - hearing a song from a record that my brother had - but that I can in fact just look away and it does pass quickly. I don't have to tell everybody around me what I'm thinking or feeling, even though it may feel good at the moment.

I've learned how self-centered one gets in a crisis, and how people stop feeling sorry for you quite fast. Which is sometimes nice - to feel normal again, and sometimes very lonely. I've found out that the hardest part is not the grieving bit - grieving is easy! - but how to stop grieving, how to cope and pack it all up small enough to take with you but not overwhelm you. There went my syntax.

All of this isn't really much help in how to cope with bad stuff in the long run, but small bits of insight that come in handy in my own personal Owners Manual...

PS. "What's in my hand?" Excellent. I'm keeping that one.