Grief is a long and lonely ordeal

As I reflect on one year since Mum passed away, I know it’s been a year, a full 365-days, and it’s neither the feeling that it’s been that long or even that it’s been short.  But I do know from this vantage point, having lost a parent is partly both a loss and a gain of the self.  Part of myself is gone, no longer to be touched and heard and felt except via the memory.  But part of myself is invited to go forth beyond Mum’s existence.

I guess as look back, one year on, apart from my own family, Mum is essentially forgotten.

That might be harsh to say, but my Mum lived for her family, and unless others remind me that they acknowledge she is gone, she does feel forgotten, and that doesn’t seem fair, even if it is inevitable.  She will never be forgotten by those who have her blood and that’s the main thing.

When I say that grief is a long and lonely ordeal, I mean that it doesn’t end.  If I go on another 30 or 40 years (and I hope I do), I will ever miss Mum.  I know this because Mum outlived her own mother nearly 32 years and never stopped missing her.  And believe you me, Mum was very comfortable going to that feelings place.

Grief is a lonely ordeal in that it is long and there is an inherent inability to resolve it.  All anyone can do is accept that loss involves losing in the permanent sense.

I see so much courage in my family as they live on beyond Mum’s loss.  Each has their way of coping and moving on with their life.  But each of us is pragmatic enough that we can talk about Mum and relate old stories that make us either laugh or ponder.

But one thing for sure, though grief is long and lonely, it is trustworthy, it is no foe, it is a safe space for one’s enduring sadness.  Perhaps this enduring sadness is best for taking us to the eternal spaces where there are no answers, just more questions.

Depths of sorrow take us to nether places and those regions are sublime and unfathomable.  Though death takes us there, life is ever copious because of the living depths we are invited into and to partake of.  These spiritual realities are vast and safe, and linger on the palate of the soul.  One can live there. 

Whatever, however long and lonely grief is, it is well with my soul, because it must be left to eternity.

20 years of sobriety and new life

This day 20 years ago I had the first waking clue that my life was about to be upended in three weeks’ time—my 13-year marriage was about to end overnight.  My daughters at the time were 11, 8, and 5.

It hadn’t been an overnight process for my then-wife; it had been months in the making.  In those days I was wedded to my job as a safety and security manager for a global-brand oil company, travelling the vast country at the whim of my employer and to satisfy my clamorous ambition.  In those days I wouldn’t do marriage counselling—didn’t think it was required.  I was sorely mistaken.  It’s ironic now that I’ve counselled over 50 couples as a couple’s counsellor.  It’s also ironic that in those days I managed an alcohol and other drug program, breathalysing truck and train drivers when I was the one who had the problem.

20 years ago today I was still trying to understand how I could control my overuse and abuse of alcohol.  I used it to destress from a work life that had a course of its own.  In those days I didn’t have the capacity (or desire) to feel my emotions—instead I loved pleasure and would numb my feelings and feel the euphoria of tipsiness, tobacco, and top it off with a little marijuana.

Pleasure was my weakness.
It dominated my second 18 years.
But not my third 18...

These days, and for the past 20 years, I’ve been stone-cold sober, and it has been THE BEST life.  Not only have there been no regrets, but there have also been unequivocal joys, amid many realms of gratitude untold.  Not that life in the past 20 years has been without pain—separation, rejection, loneliness, divorce, career transitions, workplace trauma, child loss and grief amongst others.

BUT.  I have not one single regret for having QUIT drinking all those 20 years ago.  Not one.  Not one hangover have I had.  Not one embarrassing encounter to regret because of my drinking.  Not one single thing to cover up because of my drinking.  Not one day where I would need to change a narrative or manipulate a plan just to drink.  Not one seedy morning.  Not one day worrying about my overuse and abuse of alcohol.  Not one day feeling paranoid driving to work because of the alcohol I consumed the night before.  Not one single day of agonising when and how I was going to wrest control from the demon drink—and the drink was a demon to me.  Not a day concerned about the health consequences I was reckoning for myself in bathing my organs in a carcinogen.  

Not one.

In the genesis of my recovery from alcohol I spent 11 months in AA, attending 159 meetings, most weeks attending 4-5 meetings a week.  In many of those meetings I shared my story in the 10-minutes generally allowed, so many times saying, “Hi everyone, I’m Steve and I’m an alcoholic.”  Sharing my story like this, honesty was applauded because that is where the power is at.  The last six months of my time in AA I was secretary of the Kwinana Town Group.  I opened up each Thursday night and set everything up, tea, coffee, biscuits, welcomed newcomers, invited someone to chair the meeting, the last to leave having tidied up.  

I was so grateful to be free, 
free from the drink and any resentment, 
to have benefitted from age old wisdom, 
to have had the opportunity to serve.  

In a paradoxical world, service is freedom.

My journey as an “AA” started the night after my marriage ended.  I needed the fellowship of AA more to get through the grief of losing my wife, home, and family as it was than I needed AA to recover from alcoholism.  AA connected me with its tenets: RECOVERY (in my case, not only from alcohol, but more in terms from grief), UNITY with others especially wiser men and women I needed, and SERVICE—I learned a servant heart principally from AA not the church.

20 years later and I look back on a couple of decades with a grateful bittersweetness that comes from a period of life that has had countless astonishing ups and myriad calamitous downs. 

Yet, by faith, especially as I look back, 
God has been with me every step of the way!

Even through the rock bottom sleepless pain-riddled nights crying myself eventually to sleep because I missed my wife and kids so much.  Even through those jarring moments of panic in broad daylight as I bore the stark reality of my seemingly hopeless circumstance.  Even as it was so clear that one life had ended and another life that I at times resisted had begun.  Even as I existed solely for God, my girls, my parents, my family.  I had little of the material world left, and the paradox is there was freedom in that.  Not much more could be taken away from me.

Even though I’m often overwhelmed with my workload these days, I am so grateful that my life has turned out, that I DID recover, that I arrived at many forms of reconciliation.

20 years ago today, my parents had no idea how much they would be called upon to listen to a broken son.  But they never missed a beat, as they have always been, right there in the thick of it for their entire family. 

It’s a year since Mum died, 
and in honour to her, 
I say, Thank you, Mum.

~

My message to you in this: 
you that perhaps may be struggling today;
hold on by your faith and hope that things 
will turn for the best, because they will.

That’s the message that my 
Mum always communicated.
Hold on, you will make it through.

~

Today also marks one year since we 
learned Mum had just days to live. 

Rest with Jesus and all 
our lost precious ones, Mum, love you.

2 key decisions to direct our daily destiny

I’ll never forget one of my pastoral mentors saying, “you cannot formularise faith,” nearly 20 years back now.  There’s no magic bullet, no secret to life.  There are just too many nuances and exceptions to rules to be considered. 

But this doesn’t stop us searching for some ‘holy grail’ that can help us master this journey called life.  It is inbuilt in many of us to search for the ‘secret to life’.  I believe God put that instinct inside us.

Here is my attempt to formularise a way of thinking that helps.  It involves fully exploring two decisions and holding the tensions between the two.  They are two opposites.  Two equally occurring truths.  Dichotomies if you like.  Bridging the tensions is wisdom.

These two decisions are:

What do I have control over and how do I take the initiative?
~AND~
What do I not have control over and need to work to accept?

Life’s destiny is often rooted in both questions, sometimes it is more of one and at other times it is more of the other.  Knowing what’s in our wheelhouse from that which doesn’t concern us is crucial. 

I’d venture to say that wisdom is in the hands of those who answer both these questions the best they can as they journey life’s path.  I’d also say that these two decisions must ultimately be borne on a person’s operating philosophy for life—their modus operandi.

Simply put, to enrol in this wisdom it must truly 
become CORE to our inner belief system.

To achieve this wisdom, 
it must become part of who we are 
and intrinsically part of ALL we do.

~

Let’s assess these two questions in turn:

1.              WHAT DO I HAVE CONTROL OVER?

How (and when) do I take the initiative?  This is the courage, action-oriented diligence of wisdom.  This is what the psychologists call the Internal Locus of Control: 

The belief that one has control over the outcomes 
that are important to his or her own life.

For those who are arranged by the externals of life, who don’t feel they have control over the outcomes that are important to their life, a radical disempowerment is experienced.  

Sure, one of the biggest challenges is the paradox 
that we are not in control of many things.

But there are a good many things that ARE 
within our control; those we must own.

The opportunity here, therefore, is to DECIDE what will be important to us.  Will something that is well out of our control be important to us?  Or will we keep our interest and concerns to those things that are always in our control?  These are the things we think, what we say, what we do, where we invest our energies, what our focus is, etc.

Whatever is important to us 
must be within our control.

The degree of our success is 
the measure of our maturity.

See how we’re merging the things that are personally important with those things that are well within our control?  This is wisdom.  If we were to consider those things that are out of our control as vitally important to us, pressure builds, anxiety runs, and we waste our precious and finite resources of energy—on the wrong things, things we cannot affect.

What is important, overall, are those things that are key to our success and the success of those we know and care about.  We must take responsibility for those things that WE must personally do—to ensure our personal success and the success of others who depend on us.

Regarding those things we think, say, and do,
over these things we must ever remain true.

~

2.             WHAT DO I NOT HAVE CONTROL OVER?

Opposite to the above is the restraint to accept what we can never change.

What do I need to work to accept?  There’s stuff in this for us all.  This is in essence the other part of wisdom; this is where the virtue of prudence looms large.  And this really is a massive part of wisdom that is impossible to master—it can only be practiced imperfectly.

The quest of living ‘by faith’ 
posits acceptance as surrender.

That is, in having faith in God, let’s say, we release our grip of control to our higher power such that our refusal to stubbornly insist on having things our own way would help us lead lightly.

But ‘letting go and letting God’ is easier said than done, and besides, we don’t always know how best to apply this philosophy and practice of surrender.  Sometimes we surrender when we shouldn’t.  Sometimes we fail to surrender when we should.

Being able to resist controlling that which 
we cannot control is sensible living.

The key is being cognisant in our instinct and our early order decision making, right at the point where we might otherwise be triggered.

The truth is, accepting things in theory is a different thing to accepting things in practice.  Wisdom is applied intelligence, it’s not just knowhow.  Being able to let things occur that we don’t like isn’t easy.

A prior commitment to surrender is crucial, and this is all borne on the humility of the heart, which is a character trait that takes years to develop.  There are no shortcuts.

This is why wisdom is applied intelligence 
that makes a fool of the theorist. 

Humility is the bedrock of growth in wisdom.

~

This article can easily be summed up in the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, 
and the wisdom to know the difference.