The Beach Ball
Note #1: This might seem extra rambling. More so than my normal. But I think the subject matter excuses me, at least somewhat.
Note # 2: I have been going to write this for quite a while. But I hesitated. Maybe it’s just too much; too disturbing. Also, I was afraid that because I wanted to write it meant that someone who reads it might need it. As if there were a causal relationship between my writing it and someone else suffering the death of a child. I know. I know. Not rational. And I am not a superstitious person! But I’ve found that with extremely emotional issues, rational thought dissipates. Completely, at times. And I have learned that realizing something isn’t rational means nothing. Fear of a certain kind overrides sound thinking.
Then I thought I would write it only for myself. Because the writing is helping me. But then I flip-flopped again and remembered what I’ve said all along; that I hoped this experience wasn’t “all for nothing”. That if we had to go through it, I wanted it to somehow help someone else on the face of the planet. Even if only one person.
And so I write it to post.
In recent days I am back at crying my grief. No idea why. Because I’ve been sick? Maybe. I doubt that, however. From what I understand, it is the nature of grief.
They told us in the hospital that the death of a child is not something people ever “get over”. Rather, they said, that we must work at assimilating it into our lives. They assured us that we would learn to live with it. And the grief counselor herself had lost a child, her Sammy. It was more reassuring, coming from someone who’s “been there”. We received a good amount of literature and lists of support groups. Allan’s and mine were support groups for grandparents. I might have glanced at it. But I don’t remember really examining any of it. I didn’t go and do research on the Internet regarding grief for the loss of a child. I started a book and never finished it. I wasn’t ready.
I remember, instead, thinking I had to survive for my child. I could grieve later, but she needed me and that was what got me up every morning. I would put one foot in front of the other. Consciously and with concentration. I focused on the fact that I needed to get out of bed and start towards the shower for her sake. One step at a time. (That phrase takes on a whole new meaning after something like this. It is sound advice that is easy to hear and gloss over until it is needed. Yeah, yeah, I’d think on some unconscious level. Whatever.)
If there is one person on the face of the earth who is doing what she was meant to do, it is, Snowy, our grief counselor. There are the “stages” or “steps” of grief that we hear about. But Snowy’s description and explanation of grief was far more helpful to me. It was/is something within my experience. Something I could visualize. That made it more tangible. It gave me something I could grab on to and use to try and understand. Here’s how she presented it.
She gave me a sheet of paper on which a circle had been drawn. Within that circle were drawn different “pieces” of varying sizes and shapes, resembling pieces of a puzzle. The pieces of this puzzle were labeled with various emotions related to grief. They included being: sad, scared, worried, shocked, confused, unprepared, angry, exhausted, anxious, empty, helpless. Or feeling: panic, resentment, and irritation; like the world is unreal. Feeling like you’ve been cheated. And in some situations, relief and guilt. I tried to count all the pieces. I counted at least forty. I remember being surprised there could be so many emotions!
Snowy suggested I think of the circle as a beach ball. In the same way a beach ball is easily blown around by even a slight breeze, so go our emotions during the grief process. (I hesitate to use the word “process” in this case. Because I now believe what we were told in the hospital. Grieving a child isn’t a process. To say process indicates an end to the process; a result, arriving at some intended/hoped for point. Rather than a process, this grief is an agent. An agent that changes the structure of life. And having changed life, it stays. It stays and becomes part of everyday life. The fabric, the weave, the texture, the color, the design, the pattern of life, all of it, is now completely altered by the presence of this new thing. And, for me, there is a need to figure out what to do with this new, altered life.) The beach ball can roll forward, sideways, back, in circles, every which way, and then be blown back to exactly where it was when the breeze first caused it to blow around. And the movement can start all over again. I don’t know, but that seems so much more descriptive and explanatory than “stages” of grief. With stages I would want to know which stage I was at and when would I get through all those stages? How soon? And it would basically be over, right?
Here’s how I’ve come to use the beach ball analogy. Imagine a windy day on a beach; waves are hitting the shore so strongly it appears to be an attack. An attack much like I envision I would see if I were in battle. The enemy is rushing towards me, yelling their anger and determination to overtake me. I know I’m in trouble because I don’t have a whole lot of people in the foxhole with me, seeing the same wave of enemy and fighting the same battle. “Battle” is wrong. It’s a War. With a capital “W”. Probably one like the Vietnam War. I won’t win. I’ll just have to learn to live with the reality of that war.
Anyway, leave the foxhole, and return to the beach. The shore can’t defend itself either. Its sands are being washed away to who knows where. I can’t hear anything because the waves are as loud as any horrible thunderstorm. In the same way I can’t hear, my cry for help can’t be heard. The beach ball is being whipped around, not only from one direction to another, but the onslaught of the waves lift it up and slam it back to the ground. Different parts of the ball hit the ground each time it lands. And the force with which it hits the ground varies. So goes the emotional attack.
Now imagine a second day on the beach. It is calm and beautiful. There is no discernible breeze. Anywhere. There is a deserted beach ball a little ways down from you. You see it roll from time to time. You simply cannot figure out what is making that ball move back and forth. THERE IS NO BREEZE!! Sometimes the grief beach ball is like that. It just moves back and forth. I can’t see any specific cause.
As much as the beach ball works for me, I would add several other descriptions of this grief. From my perspective, one descriptive narrative can’t portray the very elusive and very individual nature of grieving for a child.
Another illustration from life that works for me is a partially sunny day. You know, the kind of day when the weather is pleasant enough when the sun is shining and you’re sitting there soaking it up, enjoying its uplifting quality and its warmth. Then the clouds sneak in front of that life-giving sunshine. And you don’t like the shadow. You miss the warmth. It’s chilly in that shadow. So you move to the patch of grass or sand, to wherever the sunshine fled. But as soon as you do, the clouds sneak up again and blot out your sunshine. That happens repeatedly. You can’t stay in the sunshine, no matter how hard you try.
That’s what happens some days. I want to be in the sunshine. I search for it. I want to be warmed by it and all that it represents. But those clouds of grief and confusion will not let me be. It’s as if they have a determination to keep me chilled and in the shadows. So I doggedly fight all day to be where the sun will shine on my face. I do that not only for myself, but so I can be energized to help my daughter. At night I am exhausted from the struggle and wonder if the clouds didn’t win after all.
A second illustration I would use to define this grief is less representational. But it describes a different type of day. I have a jack-in-the-box. Not one that provides me with moments of laughter and fun when I turn the handle and Jack pops out at me. That’s because my jack-in-the-box would better be called grief-in-the-box.
In the same way we leave behind our childhood toys, and actually forget them, I can have some days where my grief and confusion are forgotten. Or so I think. I can have done the right things. I’ve made myself get to work. Or I’ve pushed myself to be with people. Or I’m trying a new recipe for Allan, Ale, and Trista. Or I’m reading. I’m actually enjoying it. Then without any warning, my grief-in-a-box jumps out and startles me. Takes me completely by surprise. Unlike the toy jack-in-a-box, I cannot, on days like this, control “Jack”. I don’t even know what mechanism has released him. There is no handle I can refuse to turn. He would be well suited for a Stephen King novel. And as badly as I want to keep on enjoying the day, I either can’t get Jack back in the box and contained. Or, if I do, he keeps popping back out, insistent on disrupting my day and destroying any peace I might have been feeling.
I hate Jack. He’s a master at surprise attacks. He’s sly. And he’s sneaky. He lies in wait. He’s a thief. He taunts me. He absolutely sneers at my confusion and feeling of being lost. He wants me off balance. But I keep trying to regain that balance. Maybe some day he will get tired of aggravating me and leave me alone. At the very least I hope his periods of harassment become less frequent AND that the intensity of his attacks lessens over time. I hope this not only for us, but for anyone else living a grief-in-the-box experience.
