Grief -a look back at the past 8 months
November 1, 2009

After reading the book "A Grace Disguised," by Jerry Sittser, my eyes were opened more so to the world of loss. You think you can understand a person and their pain from a distance but you can't really ever FULLY understand a loss until you have gone through one. I was thinking today of all the losses that Jesus experienced when he was on earth -He experienced everything -He understands EVERYTHING that we are going through -literally.

People suffer losses everyday whether it be a child, a job, health, a marriage, a friendship and we can respond to one the same way we would respond to another -with intense grief.

I wanted to share a little bit of our grieving process to encourage anyone else who has lost a child. There are a few models on "grief" but I chose the Kübler-Ross model listed below but I have also added one that we felt strongly about and that is guilt. It might fit in with some of the other categories but I felt it needed its own.

People are expected to jump in and out of the phases below. It is like a slippery slope. Ups and downs, over and under. Minute by minute. But as time goes by...the ultimate goal is acceptance.

• Denial —We didn't stay in this phase for very long. It was such a quick and abrupt ending to our happy little dream that there was no denying that our son was dead. Physically though, for almost 3 months after, if I had butterflies in my stomach, I would relive the thought of Everett kicking, it was just a split-second thought and then reality would settle in. I do remember thinking just a few times...maybe the doctors made a mistake...he is really alive.

• Guilt — This was a BIG one for me in the first 2 months. What did I do wrong? Why didn't I go to the hospital the minute I felt the first pain? Were my sugars out of control that day? Did I get bumped in the stomach? So many things go through your head that you can't even think straight and you just cry and cry. I don't even want to think about the losses that occur due to an accident controled by another. I don't know how anyone crawls out of the guilt without a divine miracle from God. The unknown for me is hard as to why this happened. Would I have felt better if I had a clear-cut answer? I probably wouldn't be beating myself up as much but still the guilt is pervasive.
  

• Anger —Dale and I tend to be bouncing back and forth from acceptance to Anger. Acceptance to anger and it varies by the hour. One of the hardest things we see right now are the "happy little families" we see on the street corners with their 2 kids or the glowing pregnant woman who doesn't have a care in the world. Now, a lot of these thoughts are irrational and completely not true (who knows what the pregnant woman is going through), but that is where our anger seems to boil up. We would never lash out at anyone of these people, but our hearts just ache to be around them.

• Bargaining —I tend to keep telling myself, God would never allow this to happen AGAIN...right? I think that fits in here with bargaining, that I can somehow say the words enough that God wouldn't even think of bringing another tragedy on us. Silly hugh?

• Depression —The grief these days is more of a subtle, underlying pain that just doesn't go away. A dull ache, a sadness that only God can heal. It was hard to go a month of family and friends taking care of us to an empty house with all the reminders that Everett was not with us. We'd chuckle and say, "Let's go buy Lindy a gift" and that bought us some temporary happiness. "Let's go out to eat" was a constant thing we said, it got us out of our house and lifted our spirits. Thoughts of hurting someone or yourself should be taken seriously and you should talk with someone immediately.

• Acceptance —Acceptance is the ultimate goal. We bounce back and forth a lot between acceptance and anger these days. It is not hard to accept the fact that we don't have a little 8 month old boy playing in the room with us. It's hard not to accept the fact that his room is empty. It's hard not to accept the fact that the gravestone will be delivered soon.

Read more of the Kübler-Ross model