First Down

Washington Redskins

I recently called a woman I know whose husband died a number of months ago.  It hasn't quite been one year yet and I wanted to check in with her and see how she was doing.

 

She said Sundays were particularly hard especially when the weather is classically crisp and autumnal.  Her husband was a huge sports fan and the television would be on all day.  Pre-game shows, the games, switching between the games during commercials and post-game shows.  It was all about football.

 

Depending on who was playing, her husband would yell and scream good things and bad things at the players, the coaches, the referees and sometimes even the team owner.  Besides the screaming, there was sometimes banging on the coffeetable and pillows thrown around the room.  It made for a lively day and of course she loved every minute of it.

 

I could identify with everything she was talking about because this is the way my Sundays also used to play out when my husband was alive.

 

Now she turns on the television -- even if she's not watching the game -- because it doesn't seem right for it to be Sunday and not have the noise of a football game playing in the house.  She finds it comforting and at the same time surreal because there is no yelling and the whole experience is rather flat compared to what it used to be.

 

But she is taking the first steps of getting used to life without her husband and those can be the hardest.

 

She says it's a struggle but she is trying to stay in the moment and take each day as it comes to her. 

 

And that's all anyone can do to find out what real healing is. 

Re-Shuffle Please

Alex Katz Painting

The amazing thing about grieving is that it blows all the unimportant stuff right out of the water.

It immediately rearranged my priorities and what I once thought was important wasn't anymore.  New stuff appeared at the top of my priorities list after my loss.  Things I thought were important suddenly didn't matter, and other things I didn't seem to have time for before, I now made time to do. 

Life dramatically changed, life tragically changed and everything mixed together and changed its order.  Life re-shuffled.  I now have a different perspective on life because I saw how quickly life can turn itself around and how you shouldn't take anything for granted.  Instead, I know that I need to grab life and go for it!

When life deals you a blow, your first reaction is to withdraw and protect yourself. You want to crawl under the covers, lock the doors and wait for the bad stuff to go away all on its own. But guess what? That doesn't work.

In fact, denial can sometimes make a situation a whole helluva lot worse. I think it gets worse because ignoring a situation allows your thoughts and feelings to build up and build up instead of working through the pain.  I know it's scary but think of working through your grief pain like pulling off a band-aid.  Doesn't it hurt more when you pull the band-aid off slowly?

For me, this is where the joking comes in.  I tend to make jokes when I get overwhelmed by life because it's a great coping mechanism, tension breaker and it allows me to find joy when there doesn't seem to be any. 

I know that's not always the most effective way to deal with a situation, but cracking a joke can make something more manageable and it brings the situation into perspective; as in maybe the situation's not as serious as others think it is.

If I cook something and it doesn't taste right, I try to correct it and if it still doesn't taste right, then I let it go.  If my child comes home with a bad haircut, I'm annoyed, but then I say, "It's only hair"  and then I try to let it go.  Okay, so the grass didn't get mowed today.  I will get to it.  But I really try not to obsess anymore.  Are these truly the most important things in life?  Ten years from is anyone going to care?  I don't think so.

Sometimes you have to re-shuffle your priorities.  

Be open to spontaneity...Be in the moment...Especially today.