Health Goals: Tips for Grieving Widows or Widowers
Part of achieving your health goals might include learning how to grieve for a lost partner. Here’s how one widow, who lost her husband after a six year battle with Parkinson’s Disease, coped with death. She offers tips for grieving widows and widowers, plus a few extra tips for healthy mourning.
“If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble,” said Moliere.
Don’t avoid your grief. Instead, consider George Eliot’s wise words on mourning:
“She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.”
Accepting - and maybe even embracing - loss may be one of the healthiest ways to cope with death. For more tips for grieving widows and achieving your health goals, click on the book Widowed Too Soon: A Young Widow’s Journey Through Grief, Healing, and Spiritual Transformation by Laura Hirsch. And, read on for tips for grieving widows, and how Kathleen Airdrie coped with the death of her husband.
1. Grief Support Groups. Sometimes talking to people who have experienced similar losses can help you cope with your grief. Just knowing you’re not in it alone can be reassuring; spending time with people who care helps you deal with your painful feelings. Another tip for grieving widowers or widowers: the bereavement counselor who leads the support group should be experienced and supportive. If not, don’t be afraid to try a different bereavement support group.
2. Cybergrieving. Many people are now using sites like MySpace and their own personal blogs to deal with their feelings about the death of a loved one. To help you deal with grief, visit the blog or website of your loved one and you can write to them on it. You can write poetry, letters, songs, or even a one-liner, simply stating how you feel and what you think. This tip for grieving widowers or widowers involves finding different ways to say good-bye, which could help you achieve your health goals.
3. Letting Go of the Past. Feeling your grief, anger, guilt, and all your emotions is important. Let yourself grieve. You may feel like your heart will break or you’ll fall into a black pit and never get out - but you have to feel your feelings before you can heal. Letting go of the past is a healthy and appropriate tip for widows and widowers, and it’ll help you achieve your health goals.
4. Letting Time Heal. It’s a cliché because it’s true: time does heal when you’re dealing with grief. Whether it completely heals ALL wounds is a different story, but it does dull the pain a little. Your feelings of loss and sadness may never go away, but with time the grieving process will lighten.
A Grieving Widow Rediscovering Personal Inner Strength
by Kathleen Airdrie
My husband bravely, but with sadness, faced the truth of his fading good health and active life. He was a man who loved the outdoors, our canoe journeys on the rivers and lakes, and our gardens. A musician, he entertained at community events that included wedding receptions and charitable functions.
The diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease was frightening because we knew that there was no cure. Throughout the following six years as his condition worsened we cried together often. Deprived of his balance, he couldn’t enjoy the canoe, and with the tremors increasing and his strength lessening, he could not play his fiddle. We faced it together, in our home, until pneumonia ended his life one cold February day.
After his death, a profound sense of loss overwhelmed me. Family members were helpful, but I had the terrible and terrifying feeling of being lost - away from myself. I could hear their voices, understand the actual words, but not really comprehend enough to participate in real conversations.
My meals were merely snacks; enough to sustain me. Sleep was fitful. While walking through my home in the semi darkness, I felt a strange comfort. During those awful, long days I tried to tend to daily tasks, but accomplished very little. The loneliness and pervading sense of loss weighed heavily on me.
A wonderful friend who truly listened to me and was supportive during my darkest days, shared my first ‘breakthrough’ moment with me. About three months after my husband’s death I told her that a family member reacted angrily to my response that I was just sort of coping. Raising her voice, she told me to ‘get over it’.
I told my friend about how that remark made me sad, but mostly angry, then suddenly realized that the spark of anger was something I’d not felt since my husband’s death. We saw that as a hopeful sign.
Winter faded into spring. I wandered down to the gardens where we spent so many wonderful hours. In one of our flower gardens that still held snow, a tiny blossom peeked through - a Johnny-Jump-Up. I smiled at the lovely example of survival.
While giving all of my attention and energies to the gardens that summer I gradually regained my physical and emotional strengths. I began to eat better meals and sleep through most nights. Sometimes I sat in the garden and cried then continued the work with my renewed sense of purpose. While walking through my gardens a friend commented, “I know how difficult this year has been for you. Your garden is your victory.”
From that day I knew that I would be all right, or as all right as possible under the circumstances. No longer a recluse as I was during those awful months, I became involved in a few community activities again and travelled occasionally to visit family members. Most importantly, I was taking care of myself.
Now, it’s not all sadness, it’s not all loneliness, it’s not all wonderful or humorous. It is a combination of all of those, as are most peoples’ lives.
I don’t have all the answers, but I offer these tips for grieving widows:
- Tell a family member or close friend what you need, whether it’s a good meal, a good listener or help with daily chores.
- Try to acknowledge the legitimacy of your feelings; be patient with yourself.
- While reminiscing with family members or friends, don’t let feelings of guilt intrude if you hear the sound of laughter from them or yourself
