A Walk Through The Forest Of Grief And Death

This is a stream of consciousness walk through my journey of navigating grief and death. We all know death is a natural part of life and it hits everyone differently. The hope is to normalize and/or humanize the experience in an attempt to soften the textbook rhetoric around stages of grieving and there actually being a "right" way to grieve. Listeners could be anyone because we will all experience the death of a loved one and sometimes, hearing someone's experience could offer a helpful perspective. Background music by Narek Mirzaei, Synchronization-Music (30 Hz).

Transcript

A walk through the forest of grief and death. It was around 1 a. M. On September 14, 2015, When I experienced the change in his breath. For days it had been steady and soft. In that very early morning darkness, It deepened, And as time went on, It started to sound and feel more labored. As the sun rose, I called his family, The hospice worker, And our priest. Jeff was taking his final steps toward his death. I wanted to write a story. Maybe a sleep story, The kind I listen to every night as I fall asleep. Every night for 1, 393 days in a row now, I have a streak. They work, The sleep stories and the streaks. I cannot imagine falling asleep without someone's voice telling me a story quietly in the dark. I also cannot imagine breaking that streak. I have half-heartedly tried to think up a plot. No I haven't, Not really. I've just thought, I want to write a story, And left it at that. I hoped that I would be hit with some kind of inspiration. Then I decided to just sit down and type out my thought process. Stream of consciousness, If you will. What do I know anything about? What don't I know anything about? I know something about a lot of things. I am not particularly creative. I don't fancy myself imaginative. And I know something about grief. That sentence is kind of sad. The sleep stories I listen to are usually about walking through forests at night. Why is that? Why are people so drawn to walking through forests at night? Anyway, Back to grief. There is a lot written about it, And yet no one knows how to deal with it. I'm a counselor, And I talk to a lot of people trying to deal with grief. I don't get into the whole stages of grief theory. I meet people where they are in their present state. Then at some point, I ask them how they feel about death. Grief has a way of forcing us to consider our own mortality. Grief is kind of like walking into a forest at night. I think talking about our beliefs around death is helpful and can be comforting as people find comfort in their beliefs. Sharing about their beliefs helps to transition their emotional state of grief into a comforted state of acceptance. Acceptance does not mean agreement. However, Acceptance is necessary to begin healing. And yet it seems no one wants to talk about death when we are grieving. I do. I want to talk about how death affected me, How it propelled me, How it gave me a whole new trajectory, How it also slowly, Silently, And without warning entombed me inside of myself, Where I sit each day ready for it to release me from its hold. I embrace death for what it is, The end of life. And I am in no hurry to die. I welcome it, And I know I will not escape it. And I am ready for it when it happens. Well, Except I want to make an addendum to my current will. I also don't want to die before my dogs. I keep getting sidetracked. I was going to write about grief. To do that, I have to start before the grief. It was a Tuesday evening in December 2014 when Jeff was over at my house. We had been a couple for over 20 years and chose to live in our own homes four blocks from one another. It worked for us. He wasn't feeling well that evening. He had some kind of serious sinus headache and wanted to go home. I didn't hear much from him the next couple of days, Which wasn't abnormal. He worked a lot, And we were both pretty independent. I popped over Friday to find him in bed. Totally unlike him. He was awake, Yet not necessarily making sense or coherent. So much so that I thought he'd had a stroke. I'm not sure why I thought that. It didn't matter. I wanted to get him to the hospital for an evaluation, And Jeff was adamantly not going. I tried to reason with him, Begged, Pleaded, Probably threatened to call an ambulance. Finally, In an act of desperation, I called his father and told him about the situation. He came over to assess. He attempted all the same tactics I had, And eventually relented, Saying he and Jeff's mother had company coming into town for the weekend, And he would check in after their company left in a couple of days. Throughout all of this, Jeff would intermittently seem to be his strong-minded, Stubborn self. So I agreed to let him rest. This isn't what I wanted to write about. I don't want to relive this. And I'm saying that because the timeline is fuzzy in my brain. That makes me mad. Some of the most important days of my life, And I cannot remember every detail. It was nearly 11 years ago, And even though they were some of the most important days of my life, They were equally some of the worst days of my life. I ended up concocting a plan with Jeff's parents to get him to the hospital the next Tuesday by calling non-emergency personnel to either persuade him or take him without his permission. He went reluctantly. A couple of hours later, Jeff, His father, And I learned that what seemingly began as a raging sinus headache was actually an orange-size mass in his frontal lobe that was putting pressure on his sinuses. Jeff had brain cancer and her grief. The next several moments and hours and days were beyond my experience with surreal. Admission to hospital, Tests, Scans, And a huge decision to have surgery to remove part of the tumor. In a lucid moment, About a month after the surgery, Jeff told me that if he had known that they wouldn't be able to get all of the cancer, He wouldn't have elected to have his head cut open. He would have chosen to go home and live until he died. I get that. He said he had been under the impression that when the doctor described his options, They would go in, Remove all the cancer, And he would be back to normal. He thought that sounded better than possibly dying in a matter of maybe months, As the doctor predicted. And here he was, Staying in my home, Against his will, Unable to do really anything he had once done. Quite frankly, Dying within a matter of months, Maybe. So, Similar outcome. The surgery might have bought him some time. Time to what? Prolong his death? The surgery brought us, Meaning me, His family and friends, Additional time with him. To what extreme? His dignity? I sound like I am bitter or bothered. I am neither. I am realistic and, To be 100% honest, I was and am blessed for the entire experience. I spent Jeff's nine final alive months, His journey to death, Caring for him, Loving him beyond measure, And grieving, Both for him and with him. I can honestly say that I was not completely aware that I was grieving. I was in the thick of the forest. I know it now retrospectively. I had done something without even knowing why I had done it at the time that gave me the mental and emotional strength to walk that walk. Out of the blue, A month before the infamous sinus headache, I had called my primary care provider and asked her to prescribe me an antidepressant. I cannot remember why I made that call. I wasn't depressed. And it does not matter because my prescription was on board when life changed and I was ready for it. Nothing happens out of the blue. There was a greater force orchestrating from beyond the veil. My entire mission was to surround Jeff with unconditional love and support for as long as we had. Throughout that, I took care of myself as well. I blogged the entire journey on Facebook. One of the really cool things I did was that I would read the blogs to Jeff every day. He would listen patiently, Laugh, Ask questions, And be surprised, Saying, I really did that? That was also my only regret. Not the blogging or reading it to Jeff. That was cathartic. I wrote everything for family, Friends, And strangers online to read. And it served to help me process at the same time. My regret is that I did not print off the entirety of it to keep. The page was gone. It is what it is. I made a weekly schedule around his appointments, Family, Friend visits, And my work. I thrive on routine. At the same time, There had to be flexibility built into that routine. We had to be ready for anything. Like the morning when I woke up to find that Jeff was missing. He had gotten up in the middle of the night and walked out of my house. Of course I freaked out, Called his parents, And immediately called 911. I have never been more thankful for tattoos. When dispatch asked if he had any distinguishing marks, Scars, Or tattoos, I shared about his Tennessee Titans ink. They had picked him up wandering aimlessly. And incoherent. And had taken him to a local crisis center. I sped across town to retrieve him. Jeff was a runner. There were several times he escaped in plain sight from whoever was in the house with him. That's when I had a security system installed in my home. I had to have extra measures to keep him safe. Throughout all of that mischief, And countless other experiences, I had a lot of support from people around us. I had people to talk to. That was invaluable at the time. I also worked full-time. As I said, I am a counselor. So listening to other people's stuff took my mind off my reality for several hours each day. Work has always fulfilled me. It gave me energy to go home and fully immerse myself in my time with Jeff. I had the opportunity to experience every emotion I can possibly think of in those nine months with Jeff, With family, With friends, And with strangers online, As well as alone. I laughed, Cried, Was afraid, Became frustrated, Was angry, Felt hopeless and hopeful. I was exhausted and exuberant, Overwhelmed and overcome. I felt unconditional love, And I felt desperately lonely. The best part of the entire nine months was what I can only describe as being given the blessing of seeing Jeff at every stage of himself. Let me paint a picture with words. After the surgery, He was fortunate to retain use of all of his faculties. This means he could walk, Talk, And was in control of his bells. However, A side effect of the surgery, Combined with the continually growing cancer and all of the various treatments, Meant that his cognition was fleeting. At times, Jeff was lucid. He was himself. You could almost forget the reality of cancer in those moments. At other times, He was like a curmudgeonly old man, Grumbling and complaining, Or like a shy little boy, Blushing and giggling when I would give him a kiss. That is why I say I got to see him at every stage of himself. We had officially met when we were 27, So I didn't know him as a little boy, And he died when he was 48, And he hadn't gotten to the old man status. I felt like the universe was giving me glimpses of his whole walk. This is going to sound totally crazy. I also felt like I got to experience bits of his afterlife. There were two times when we were sitting in the living room, And he would be staring at the ceiling, Smiling, And seemingly peaceful. At first, I didn't think anything of it, Until I noticed that our Rottweiler Emma, She was a year-old pup at the time, Was staring at the same spot on the ceiling. So I asked him what he was looking at, And he said, Don't you see it? The angel? She's right there, Like, Shimmering. The other time, I didn't have to ask. I just observed, And I saw what I think he and Emma were seeing. That time, I smiled and said, I see the angel, Jeff. He smiled back and said, I know you do. That was a very special connective moment that I will always treasure. The other time he shared the afterlife was in a dream, A couple of years after he had passed. Our golden retriever, Cassiopeia, Had died about a month after he did. In the dream, Jeff and Cassie were together, And we were all standing in the room of my house where he had passed. He was beautiful, Whole, Healthy, And happy. Cassie was by his side, Tail wagging and smiling the way pups do. He reached out to take my hand and told me that it was time for them to go. He said that he had been here as long as he had to be sure that I was okay, And he knew that I would be. He said he loved me, And then they seemed to slowly fade away. I woke up weeping, Tears of loss and joy. It has been ten and a half years at the time of this writing, And I still miss Jeff with every fiber of my being. At the same time, His passing was a beautiful gift I got to share with him. I am blessed to have been holding him and breathed his last breath with him. Emma was next to us on the bed as well. My mother told me a couple of days later that moments after Jeff died, She was focused on Emma, Who was looking at Jeff, And then seemed to watch as his soul left his body, Her eyes tracking upward toward the ceiling. I believe it. Emma is perceptive that way. I am still grieving, Still in the forest. I believe I will grieve until I die. Grief has so many expressions and comes up in times of sadness and in times of joy. Every time I find a penny, See a hawk, Hear a particular song, Or see a magnificent sunrise that I'd like to share with him, Then I remember he is sharing that sunrise with me and I thank him. I have to share a song moment. I was traveling in Greece with my friends in 2019, Four years after Jeff had died. We were in Santorini on the anniversary date, Actually. Sidebar. Why do we call it an anniversary? Anyway, My friends and I decided to dedicate the day to Jeff by cheersing him with each beer we drank and sharing memories. Sounds lame, Unless you know how much Jeff enjoyed beer. We were sitting down at an open-air restaurant for lunch and beers when the song To Make You Feel My Love began playing. That song had been sung at his memorial, At my request. All three of us just stopped, Teared up, And began to sing. He was with us. There are no rules around grief. It is as unique as every person who experiences it and no expression of it is wrong. The key is to embrace the current expression and ride the wave. Feel the feels. Don't question or second-guess it. There is no time frame. Don't have expectations of, I should be over it. That's arguing with the reality that you aren't over it. I was blessed to grieve throughout and this many years later, I still have my moments. Jeff's death was as beautiful as it was sad and it gave me wings. It gave me wings to fly in so many directions I might not have flown otherwise. I am exploring all those directions for him as well as myself. He is still with me as those wings and experiences everything with and through me. I've got us and Emma is lying at my feet sharing my walk and my grief until we are both reunited with Jeff when we emerge from the forest and into the light of what is beyond.