As I prepare for return to the specialism of oncology nursing - I have to look at the subject of death and dying - though in essence this as followed me around through my midwifery too... Loss is a part of life... Not all make it...be it in new life or in life with all its challenges of disease and treatments. We all never know when the end will come to us or our loved ones.. In some ways just thinking about it let alone talking about can provoke an inner fear of not wishing to face life without someone you love.
I am re-reading all the work by Kubler Ross, Colin Murray Parkes, Bob Wright and Bowlby with the model of grief..
I personally have always had in my mind the model of a pebble that as been thrown in water. That the impact of the loss is like a pebble hitting the calmness of the water surface. That impact sends ripples throughout the immediate loved one left behind, through family and friends.
The loss ripples are measures of time that result from the impact. There is the first hour to live through following the impact. This maybe with numbness of the shock or intense pain as you feel the tearing out of a part of you, a core feeling at the loss of the one you love. That first hour may have in all the confusion, a tinge of relief if you feel you have been watching someone suffer and been feeling helpless to relieve this suffering. You may feel a sense of release of that loved one from the pain of their suffering. I use the word feel as this is certainly more than a thought but something that reaches in the very centre of your being.
That first hour may be so intense as to provoke nausea and vomiting or irritable bowel symptoms as the whole of your body is infused with the shock..
The ripples are intense as you move through the following hours, then the first day the second into the first week... All with the challenges it brings to you from funeral and religious ceremony to spending long and lonely sleepless nights with the longing for the one you love.
The ripples become months and make the first year.. this is poses challenges as you move around special dates, birthdays, wedding anniversary, with Christmas and New Year being the most challenging for many...
But has you move through the ripples of the years from the impact of your loss...you find that the intensity lessens and you learn to adapt and harmonise as you return to some form of normality within the new life without the person you lost.
Maybe you never ever get rid of the pain completely but you learn to handle it and are able to move forward into your life without that person, or the grief of the loss...
It is hard to say Goodbye ...to let go... but maybe we never do let go ... as that person you have lost as been and always will be part of your life... will have made an impact on your life, influenced your life in some way...People come and go in our lives to enrich us for that time they are there, for us to learn and to grow from...
If that person is a parent then they have given you your life! With this they would expect you to live your life as a form of honour to them.
Clearly it all depends on the circumstances of the life influence and the character of the person we lost... but the most important is to recalibrate, rebalance and let the water surface settle again....
For those of you reading and going through your grief now ... healing thoughts and lots of love to you... If you feel you need to chat or reach out then you can - come to www.communitycancercentre.org.uk - register with this site and we can help you by supporting you through the loss ripples. You can share your thoughts and the memories of your loved one with us... and we will help you move to calmer waters.....
image from Google image search and I like the autumn leaf on the water - this reminds us that it is the whole essence of nature for life and death...the leaf has had its life, supported the tree and now fallen from that tree... the cycle complete, the life mission complete....Our worse situation of being humans with our thoughts, our life wishes, expectations and dreams is when we feel that the death has come before the cycle is complete... so in our grief is the loss of what could have been as well as what was....
