Someone close to our family was put on hospice care this week. She is entirely too young to be taken from her family and friends. It's really made me think again about how unfair life can be. It also makes me want to search for a reason of why this kind of thing happens. As humans it seems like if we can find a reason for the unfair experiences then maybe we can make a little more sense out of them. I'm not convinced we will ever know on Earth what all of the reasons are...but it's definitely one of the first questions I plan to ask when I get to Heaven.
Thinking about this person and her family and what they must be feeling this week has taken me back to my life in 2010 again. The year we lost Braelyn and then a few short weeks later my grandma. I am now nearly 3 years on the other side of losing someone special to me, and I have been blessed to see some of the good that came out of it. I know that in October/November 2010 I wasn't sure that would ever happen. I couldn't possibly imagine anything good that could come out of someone dying.
Right after losing my daughter and grandma, I found out that our church offered a small group session that was called Grief Share. I inquired about the small group and found out it was for people who had recently lost someone and were wanting support from others who were going through a similar ordeal. I honestly didn't really think I needed to go to this group, but I also thought that maybe I would gain a perspective that I hadn't yet seen. It was really out of my comfort zone to go to this sort of thing, but I figured it really couldn't hurt anything to go try it. Worst case scenario, I didn't have to go back.
The first night I went to this group, it was just me and one other couple who had recently lost their son who was in his 20's. They were a really super nice couple and I am glad I had the chance to meet them. Then there was the lady who was running the group, I'll call her Sue (to protect her real identity). I found out that the "class" had already been meeting for a few weeks and I was joining late in the game. They were watching a video series that was done about grief and the different stages you might go through. That night we watched the 30 min video and then discussed what we had watched. Before the discussion Sue asked that I share my story about why I came. I talked about our long road of battling infertility, to finding out we were pregnant, to unexpectedly losing our daughter. I also shared a little bit about how much my grandma had impacted my life and how she died. The other couple shared with me about their son as well.
Sue was qualified to run this course because she had watched her husband suffer with a disease that eventually killed him. I think she had also witnessed someone else in her family that was close to her pass away as well. So she understood death. However, what Sue failed to understand in my mind is that not everyone grieves the same. She was very set in the fact that there are stages of grief and everyone has to hit every stage. In her opinion, one of the stages that everyone must go through is being mad at God for taking a loved one away from them. I can honestly say that I have never once been mad at God for taking Braelyn away from me. I can't explain why I have never been mad, but I just have not. Yet, I know other people who have lost someone close to them who are very angry at God and everyone else. Sue pressed me for asking how I could not be mad at God when he took someone away from me. She said it was normal and eventually that stage fades. Again I told her that I was not mad at God for this and I didn't feel as if I was ever going to hit that stage. I just had an odd sense of calmness about the situation that I can't explain. I think part of it was that I realized very early on that there was nothing I could do to change what already happened and being mad was not going to solve anything for me. Sue said that if I wasn't mad at God now I certainly would be later on and that I would need to seek some sort of counseling later if I denied those feelings. It really rubbed me the wrong way.
I only went back to this class one other time, just to make sure that it wasn't going to turn into something I felt would benefit me. And I had also promised the other couple to come back for one more week after giving some thought to what we had learned in the video that night. There was something about Sue that just really bothered me and made me not want to go back to this group. After reflecting on it later, I realized that the reason I didn't want to be a part of this group was because they were teaching that everyone HAS to go through the same stages of grief. There is no skipping a stage, or mixing up the order of the stages. It was like she was telling me how I was supposed to feel even though I was telling her I didn't feel that way. She didn't seem to believe that I could skip a stage entirely. I didn't like being told HOW I had to grieve.
I guess the point of this entry is to share my experience, but also to help others who have not gone through a traumatic experience realize that there is no one right way to grieve. Some people might go through every stage of grief, and they may go through each of the stages in order. Others may skip entire stages or maybe go through some of the stages in random order. I think if you know someone who has just lost a person they love, you need to be patient and understanding towards them. Don't ever try to give advice on how you think they should grieve. Everyone is different. Some people may not want to talk about what happened at all, where others may only focus on that experience. Some people may become very angry where others become withdrawn and quiet. I truly believe that there is no one right way a person should grieve. If you know someone experiencing grief, just be there for them. Let them know that you are there to listen or talk or do whatever they need. Make sure they can see from your actions and what you say that you are not judging them because even though you may have experienced someone dying, you are not in their exact shoes. Feelings they have initially may subside and give way to new perspectives...or they may linger for a very long time. Bottom line is just that people are all unique. And it's probably a good thing that we don't all grieve the exact same way when we lose someone close to us.
For now, I'll be thinking about this friend of our family non-stop until she gets to Heaven. I know there is a very special spot up there for her! And may God bless her family and protect them as they learn to grieve their loss. <3
