Saturday, August 31, 2019

Grief in a Survivor's Second Year

During our first year of grieving for our son, I heard often enough at my Survivors of Suicide support group that the second year of grief would be harder than the first. I didn't know how to take this. Anything had to be easier, I thought, than what my family and I were facing. But in many ways, over the second year after losing Michael, I have found the statement to be true.

Jennifer Ashton, a TV personality who lost her husband to suicide, writes that the second year for her was full of second guessing, a lack of energy that she used to have for daily routines, and occasionally being blind-sided by her grief. The second guessing I can attest to, certainly. As the initial shock wears off, the second year, for me, has been one of going between wondering if I am getting better or just forgetting what I've been through. Ashton writes of really wondering if she and her children were getting better or just ignoring their pain and filling their lives with business (171, 172).

She also writes of being blind-sided by meeting a friend from many years ago who was unaware of her loss and who asked how her husband was. She had to recount everything, and the scene was one of being triggered again.

Everything that Ashton notes has been true of my experience. As my family nears the end of our second year, most people I've been around have been gracious and well-meaning. But they have all gone on with their lives. This also happened in the first year soon after the memorial service. But now, in the second year, as the memory of my son becomes more distant, it has seemed that few people even stop to ask how I am or to talk about my son. They and the world have simply gone on. And that is painful for me. There is a great discomfort to what I am experiencing. I sense my own life moving forward into making new memories that Michael will never be part of. His life has ended, and mine goes on, and this is unsettling enough that a part of me really resists this. I am in many ways wanting to stay in two years ago.

Another aspect to my second year has to do with the shock wearing off, and there are two parts to this. First, I've moved on to have good days in which I enjoy my job, my life, and my friends. To others, it may appear that I am over things already. But my awareness of my enjoyment also brings feelings of guilt and a reminder of how much my life has changed now. I can make jokes with others, I can enjoy the meaningless moment. Yet I'm also aware of tragedy and human suffering around me, and I am much more quick to side with the suffering, to want to stay with those who are suffering loss.

The other side to getting past the shock is that the natural anesthesia is gone. Recently, in this absence, I've begun to remember the last night we had with Michael in some fresh ways. I have begun to relive the last night with powerful feelings of guilt, going over and over again what happened and blaming myself for it . This has become recurring and painful in ways that it wasn't a year ago.

Perhaps this is a relapse for me. I have heard that the "stages" of grief are not neat, linear stages. They are messy, back and forth. I know that I have always felt responsible for what happened, and it is difficult to listen to others trying to rationalize what happened for me. When they start telling me that I am not to blame, I simply shut down. It is hard to listen to them.

Perhaps I will eventually get past this. But for now, toward the end of my second year, the grief comes in moments and is isolating. I experience it and then let it pass. The experience of it reminds me that my son was once with us. It reminds me that he lived and that he mattered. So in that sense, the grief is welcome.

Passing through this seems to be important. My life has been changed forever. But this seems to be important to understand. To dismiss it and to act as though I am completely well again would be wrong and a denial of love. I have, this second year, been most grateful to those who have understood this and haven't tried to force me to move on.

I will do that when the time comes--I don't know when that time will come.

Work Cited
Ashton, Jennifer. Life After Suicide: Finding Courage, Comfort & Community after Unthinkable Loss. New York: HarperCollins, 2019.