Most of us know what a GPS is, right? Global Positioning System. It’s what we now use in place of a paper road map to get us from point A to point B. Heck, I even use it to get to my daughter’s school 5 days a week because it will even alert me to traffic jams and road work delays. Wouldn’t it be nice if grief also had a GPS device we could use to get us through it?
A few days ago I posted a question on our social media page. I asked the readers, “If you wanted to get from Fall River MA to New Hampshire, how would you get there?”. That was all the information I supplied. I also posted this on a few community pages as well. All in all, I got back a total of 88 replies. Here are many of the answers that were given:
- “24N and take a left at the split to take 128N to 93N”
- “drive”
- “Drive 93 north all the way”
- “Head north on 79”
- “I195”
- “Drive in a car up 24 then 93”
There were more but you get the picture. Do you know out of 88 replies, I only received ONE question seeking more information about my question, which was “Where in NH?” Almost every person immediately assumed they had all of the information needed to answer my question. Of course, I too would probably have assumed an educated guess would be that anyone asking had a driver’s license or even a car, but no one asked that. For that matter, if one could assume I have a driver’s license then why not assume that I had a helicopter or pilot’s license. which would be much quicker and statistically safer? Furthermore, what about public transportation, especially considering there is now a train in Fall River that could get you to Boston and onward to some parts of New Hampshire? If I was heading up to NH in a car on Friday at 5pm, would I want to go through Boston or around it? I think it’s not just where do I want to get to but also, when will I be heading there.
I could go on, but here are the 2 points I wanted to make. One is for those of you grieving and the other is for those of you who know someone living with a loss of a loved one.
For those of you who know someone grieving: It’s natural to feel empathetic and want to help someone we care about who is in need. This is a Godly attribute that most of us possess. Where we have to try not to get lost is in assuming that you have all of the information needed to help the person you are caring for. As you can see from the replies to my question, only 1 person out of 88 even asked a follow up question whereas 87 others saw someone in need and immediately jumped into action mode. When it comes to being there for someone who is learning to live with loss, it’s okay to stop and ask for direction…from THEM. Too often the mistake is made that in order to help someone through grief there needs to be action taken when in fact, the ability to just listen can do wonders. I cannot stress the importance of listening to what the person grieving is saying and THEN responding in a suitable way. For instance, if you went to visit someone you know that is grieving and in basic discussion they told you all about how absent minded they have been lately and that they can’t seem to get anything done. Now, if you ask them, “Is there anything I can do?”, they will most likely say “No, no. I’m okay”. I mean, who would find anything wrong with this interaction? Though there was nothing at all inappropriate here, I ask you to read between the lines and if you want to help, then perhaps don’t ask “What can I do?” and instead just DO. Drop off some groceries or pre made meals, don’t ask if they would like you to do this. Drop by and mow their lawn, don’t ask if you can do it. Listen, and THEN react. In my experience people want to react and do a good deed but totally leave out the listening part. I wish I could tell you that there was GPS directions for those of us who are trying to help someone through grief so we could get them from point A where they are deep in loss and sadness to point B where they regain some control of their emotions and regain balance in their daily lives, but there are no shortcuts or backroads around grief. You have to go through it.
For those of you grieving: Look back at all of the answers to my “Fall River to New Hampshire” question. Were any of the answers given incorrect? Even if you add in all the answers that were left out, none of these answers was wrong in itself, BUT, they also are not correct for EVERYONE. Just like travel directions to go somewhere, the path you take through grief is not a one size fits all prescription. There are many ways people cope with grief but not all of them will apply to you. What works for one person may not work well for you. What did not work for someone else may be the exact thing you need in your situation. “Grief” is not something that comes with one set of rules on what to do or not to do. It is a personal experience and this also is another reason it is so scary, because it makes you feel alone knowing that no one else can navigate for you. You need to be the one involved in chartering a course. Now am I saying that people can’t help? Of course not. Therapists, family, friends, heck even this page is meant to help you. My point is that no one else can dictate to you which path you have to take to get to where you are going, especially not without asking you where is it you are trying to go and how do YOU want to get there. I know what helped me with my grief, and I’d be happy to share that with you in hopes it could help you, but I can’t mandate that it will or will not. I actually drove to New Hampshire last Friday at 4pm… the day after I posed the question asking how should I get there. I was travelling to the south eastern seacoast part of the state so the most direct path would be right through the heart of Boston, but is that smart on a Friday at 4-5PM? Well my GPS seemed to think so, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Now I used to live in NH for a few years and often visited my family in Fall River on the weekend, and I can’t tell you how many times I avoided Boston like the plague because of road work and traffic, but on that day my GPS said to go through it, so I did. It was the lightest traffic I’ve seen in Boston on a weekday in as long as I can recall. No bumper-to-bumper traffic. Though we slowed down at parts, we never came to a stop. Now, there was a lot of suggestions of how to get to NH, but in the end I even had to go against my own better judgement and listen to something with more experience… GOOGLE MAPS.
Assume I had ignored it though and went around Boston, adding another 40 minutes onto my trip? I STILL would’ve gotten to where I was headed, just at a different time. Remember this! We all grieve differently. We take different paths. We drive at different speeds. We get to different places on our grief journey at different times. HOWEVER, NONE OF THIS MEANS YOU WENT THE WRONG WAY! Grief is your own journey and the choices you make on it are no different than the choices I made in how I got to my destination in New Hampshire. Choices I made on that drive could’ve cost me time or maybe into unforeseen road work, causing me to backtrack. I could’ve missed an exit making me feel like I lost my way. This is NOT important. What IS important is that because I knew where I wanted to get to, I just kept moving forward. I got in the car that Friday afternoon ready for the worst. I expected traffic… my drive time to be doubled… and I even pondered not leaving until Saturday morning to avoid the headaches, but once I committed to getting there, nothing was going to deter me. I was ready for the hell I expected on the drive. What’s funny is I know someone reading this will be thinking “There is no way Id drive through Boston on a Friday night. He is crazy. Last time I did that I sat there for 3 hours because of an accident.” Now imagine if THAT person had said that to me before I went on my trip and I let them influence my decision. I probably would’ve forfeited a day of my trip and left Saturday. Do not let someone else’s negative experience impact your expectation of your own journey. Just because someone else faced a “traffic jam” doesn’t mean you will too. After my wife passed I remember meeting widows who were 10 years into their grief and telling me about how their pain never got better and that they felt like it was just yesterday. This rocked me and I was so defeated at the thought of the next 10 years of my life looking like….well, like THEIRS. I wish I knew then what I know now. That their journey is their journey but mine is mine.
I can’t speak to ALL the reasons why one person can be remarried in a year after losing a spouse and another can struggle to get out of bed 10 years later. I can’t say I know exactly why one person can lose a parent and process it to a point where they return to work in 4 days but another person finds they can’t sleep or eat much 6 months later. I can’t generalize those situations with a specific cause, but when I think about this whole process like a journey, I analyze it like any other journey, and the most important thing you need to know is your destination. Where do you want to get to? What is your goal? In grief we need reasonable and attainable goals. Maybe not so much a goal with a time specific deadline, but rather, where is it we want to get to. Of course, we all want our loved one back, but that’s not a reasonable goal. For me it didn’t even start so much as where I WANTED to get to but rather, I knew where I DIDNT want to be in 10 years. I knew for my daughter’s sake and my own that I needed to work through this grief in a healthy way, knowing it will never leave but that I could at least eventually regain control over IT and not IT over me. See, no matter where you’re travelling, you can always change direction and try another route. Sometimes this may feel like a setback or I’ve heard people say “I had 3 good days and then 4 bad ones and now I feel like I went backwards”. No. You didn’t go backwards. Those bad days were just more traffic jams on your travels. They slowed you down and maybe caused you to lose control of your emotions temporarily (think road rage), but in the end, you got through them No one I know ever got into a major traffic jam and is still there today. We always get through them, even if we had to turn around and go another way.
This post… this page… none of this is here to tell you how to get to where you are going. What I hope it does is help you remember that there is always more than one way to get there and its okay if we don’t all arrive at the same time. Grief isn’t a race, it’s not even a marathon. Those have finish lines. Grief doesn’t. What grief is to me is another part of me I will always work on improving how I react to it, just like I work on improving my patience when I’m stuck in traffic (especially around my daughter!). If you’re someone who isn’t grieving but you’re “giving directions” be sure you stop, ask questions, and listen. If you’re someone currently grieving, ask yourself where is it you are trying to get to, and then remember, it’s okay to stop and ask for directions.