Tag Archives: compassion

Is It Normal to Grieve a Deceased Spouse When You Remarry?

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      One thing I have learned from losing so many people (and pets) is that everything you feel is normal, for you.

 

      I have been remarried for over 15 yrs, after nearly 15 yrs before spent as a widow raising my kids (and adding a fourth child as a single adoptive parent).  My current husband is a wonderful person and the way in which we found each other, as well as the commonalities we found in each other were clearly (to us) decreed by destiny.

 

     Still, on the anniversary of the tragic, untimely death of my first husband who died in his 30′s, I often have a very bad day.  I remember him by lighting a candle and saying a prayer of remembrance that is the memorial ritual of my religion, even though he was of a different background.   I don’t follow all of the other traditions of my birth heritage, but this one I do.  Sometimes, though not often, I visit his grave and have some quiet moments there.  On holidays and special family occasions I sometimes find myself  overcome with sadness, thinking that my first husband is not there to share the moment, has missed so much of the lives of his children and has never known his granddaughter, the talented and bright teenaged daughter of our only biological son, my eldest.

 

     A cousin told me that it is not appropriate for me to visit Kim’s grave. I don’t know whether she meant she didn’t personally find it appropriate for someone who has remarried, or whether she felt there was a prohibition against this in our religion.  My culture is important to me and our holidays hold fond memories and special meaning for me, but I can’t pretend I am very observant in the faith of my forefathers and foremothers.  My cousin meant no harm when she said this, but she made me a little curious  about whether it was simply her opinion that what I did and the way I felt wasn’t appropriate, or if there is some law or rule in our faith that addresses this issue for widows and widows.  I can’t say I have ever bothered to find out because I know how I feel is “normal” for me and is ok.  In my life and through my work I have also known many other widows and widowers who still grieve a deceased spouse even when they are very happily and successfully remarried.

 

      I don’t live in the past and in the last decade have consciously worked quite hard on learning to live more and more in the moment.  That doesn’t alter the fact that I have a good memory and that there are many wonderful and vivid images and stories etched in my head that are very much a part of the person I have become.   I treasure these memories and don’t want to obliterate and forget them.   The life that I lived with my first husband created  precious and happy memories, in spite of the struggles we had with his illness the last few years of his life and the horrific way he died (in a fire) that caused me to suffer for years from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, much diminished now in severity, but still there.

 

      I cannot forget, and don’t want to forget, our time together at college, our first summer on Martha’s Vineyard and subsequent visits there, our life in San Francisco as young adults, the birth of our son, the adoptions of our other kids, our early years of parenting, the purchase of our first home together.  I will not forget our transition from the Haight Ashbury to the more traditional life we began in Connecticut, or all of the other small, commonplace, everyday events we lived through, as well as the momentious ones that fill pages of photo albums and that occupy space in my brain.

 

     When you are fortunate and blessed enough to find a new love after losing someone  through death or divorce, your new partner is getting a person who has been pounded and transformed by the waves of  loss and life.  Who you are is a composite of who you were and what you have  become as a direct result of all of your life experiences.  In most cases your perspectives have changed and your maturity, compassion and wisdom have deepened because of what you have endured.  Your new spouse also has a history.  You must accept each other and forge a new path together that doesn’t dwell on the past, but that recognizes and even honors it.  There is no place for jealousy in a healthy, committed relationship.  Some dictionary synonyms of the word “jealousy” are envy, resentment, covetousness, suspicion, wariness, watchfulness, mistrustfulness and these surely don’t sound to me like good characteristics on which to build a successful marriage or relationship.

        If your new spouse or partner is upset by your signs of grief for a deceased spouse, perhaps you can provide him or her with this article in order to open up an honest and heartfelt conversation about both of your feelings.  This may help your spouse or partner understand that love and grief are not really finite or easily explainable. Both love and grief make twists and turns, ebb and flow, even mutate. What you feel about your past is indeed normal for you and doesn’t diminish what you feel for, or your commitment to your present and your future.  I believe that when you truly love another you share in their joys and also in their suffering and that you feel and demonstrate  true compassion for them.

 

      Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, teacher, poet, peace activist said,

             “We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.”

      

THINGS THAT SCARE YOU HELP YOU

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“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
— Pema Chödrön

 

     If you listen to the news on a regular basis you know that there are many scary things happening in the world and many changes in process.  Depending on your world view, these things may feel distant and unimportant to you, or they may have a huge effect on your anxiety level and how you face each day. You may feel a heightened sense of dread and foreboding.   Add your own personal troubles to the rest of the overwhelming events and maybe you walk around in a state of fear, feeling as though you are carrying a large weight.  When you try to shut the doors to thoughts that disturb you, you may succeed for a time.  This is why so many people self-medicate in a variety of ways, or why they indulge in habits that feel good temporarily and that stave off their facing the realities and pain all around them.  What happens then, when the floodgates open and the scary realities, the dreaded changes come pouring back into the consciousness? 

 

        When we take up abode in the dark corners of life, circumstances may initially push us to be there, but we have the ability to make choices about how long we will stay.  Too frequently we choose to stay in such spaces because it is less fearsome to us than the unknown and unexplored.  Granted, it can be a real challenge to find hope and opportunity when the world seems enveloped in gloom, doom and terrifying events. It seems easier to keep our minds and hearts closed.  It feels safer to resist the growth that happens when we embrace change and when we permit ourselves to be fully human and vulnerable, even if it involves more suffering.

 

     I know someone who lives in subsidized public housing that is undergoing some much-needed renovation. There are a lot of improvements planned that will make life easier for the folks who live there.  The city has made arrangements to relocate all of the tenants in his housing project while the work is being done.    My friend is someone who normally has many demons to battle. He has had a rough history and his feelings are raw at times. He has a great deal of self-doubt.  This change, this forced push out of his less-than-ideal, but safe nest has really thrown things into a state of chaos and fear for him.

 

     Change of any kind is pretty terrifying for most of us.  That is why we so often resist it, even when the change is a no-brainer and will ultimately be of benefit.  It’s easier to live in a world where things are familiar and secure, to a degree, though perhaps not ideal. Our safe refuge might even contain pain and sadness, but it is a known equation.   Few of us get to lead a completely safe and protected life  that still enables meaningful connections to others.  I am not sure anybody does.  Things are constantly changing and life is constantly throwing out new challenges.  It is the nature of the universe. You don’t have to be a Buddhist or a scientist to believe that, or to know it for sure.

 

       The reality of life is that sooner or later we will be thrown out of the nest, and the story of what once was, will become a tale you tell yourself in the wee hours of the night to call up memories that are growing faint. The world has changed, but you have not changed and evolved with it.   Living in the past may comfort us for brief periods of time.   Even when memories are sad, they are still less fearsome than the unknown of opening up our hearts and experiencing the world in a new way.  This is also true if we reside in a present that we keep roped off and guarded from the unpredictable.  Doing so will only keep us from growing and becoming the people we are meant to be.

 

      I invite you to decide how you want to live and if you are willing to slowly risk opening up your own heart to the power and wisdom that comes from not shielding yourself from life.  There will still be bittersweet moments but the joy will surprise you.    Are you still napping in the nest? Hang on because the wind is blowing and the branches on which your nest is perched are shaking.

 

      Pema Chödrön , in her book, The Places That Scare You, says to ask ourselves, “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

Should You Always Do More, Or Is Less Sometimes Enough?

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A woman stands in the rubble of her home the day after an earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

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      I just read a good blog post by Alex Lickerman on the blog, Happiness In This World-Reflections of a Buddhist Physician .  The title of the post is  “You Can Always Do More”.  I want to thank him for this article .  I, too,  thought about going to Haiti to help in some way and had significant feelings of guilt about not going.  I am in contact with a few of my friends and colleagues in the world of adoption who have relationships with Haitian orphanages.  They sent representatives there to check and to make sure that children who had already been referred to their clients and were in process of adoption were all right, as well as to determine what else they could do to assist.   I have not worked in Haiti, personally, but have had some contact with Haitians over the years.  At one point, years ago, a Haitian family, sponsored and brought here by a dear friend of mine, lived with me and my family for a period of time while in transition and looking for an apartment.  I remember well  the commonalities the mother of the family and I shared, in spite of being able to communicate only with some French and lots of sign language.  We spoke the language of women and mothers and we developed a real bond.  Of course, one would not have to have experienced such a connection to be overwhelmed and moved by the plight of Haitians now, as though life in Haiti were not already enough of a struggle for most.

      When it came down to brass tacks, I realized that I do not have the stamina at this stage of my life to face the arduous and dangerous conditions in such a time of devastation in Haiti.  It was hard for me to admit this, as I prefer to think of myself as still young, strong and energetic, but the reality is that I am in my sixties and though relatively healthy and thankful for it, I do have some health issues that might impede my stamina and ability to help.

     Yes there is always something in this world that we can do help others and to have an impact on lives less fortunate than our own.  I certainly related to the feelings of guilt mentioned in Dr. Lickerman’s blog, and to wanting to do all that we can in the face of human need.  I love the perspective he gives that if we are helping in one place, we are, thererfore not helping somewhere else, with something else.   I know that for many years I spread myself too thinly and often, as a result, could not always do my best job.  There are a multitude of ways to help and it begins with one to one, compassionate contact and reaching out.  Some of us are able to take that further and do magnificent, selfless things, but that doesn’t diminish the small meaningful interactions or the other ways in which we can make a positive impact on others.

     While I have been involved over the years in a variety of charitable works in different countries and in the US, one encounter touched me enormously, though it was only a small intersection of lives and emotions that occurred once, a long time ago in India.   I had participated in setting up a feeding program for needy children and a program to teach poor young women a trade, and had visited numerous orphanages too, distributing clothes and supplies. This was moving and rewarding, but nothing like what I felt one particular day when visiting a maternity home.  I was escorted to the bedside of a young Muslim woman who had just had a stillborn baby a day  before.  The translator shared her story with me and told her who I was and why I was there. It was explained that I ran an adoption agency and helped homeless children find loving families, and that I had adopted children myself.  I told her how much I loved my children and how I thought of the birth mothers of my children every day,  and of what it must feel like to lose a child, no matter in what way. I said that as a mother, my heart was very heavy for her and for what she was having to endure.   She began to cry and reached for my hand. I sat with her, mostly in silence, and held her hand for a long time.

      Sometimes  I sit in my comfortable office and wonder if my furture destiny will still include the privilege of traveling as I was able to do in the past and giving of myself to people who struggle for the basics of survival.  I don’t know if this path will be one that presents itself to me, or if I will be physically and financially able to take it if it does.   As my days of running an adoption agency draw to a close, and I continue to build my coaching practice, I have many examples of the ways in which I have already touched others and will continue to make a difference in people’s lives.   Still the thoughts creep in sometimes that I am needed elsewhere and perhaps am not doing enough to better the world.

     Dr. Alex Lickerman,  physician and former Director of Primary Care at the University of Chicago and a practicing Buddhist, says:

          “ But I am arguing that if we already focus on helping others as best we can (and obviously many of us don’t) then we need to realize our cups will never be entirely full—that we really always can do more—but that giving too much will at some point compromise our ability to give at all.  I’m saying that as you challenge yourself to do more to help others, be gentle with and forgiving of yourself.  The cup may never be full, but for those who take action to help others when they can, it’s always filled with something.”

     I remind myself of what I am always telling coaching clients and others in my life.  I don’t remember where I got this but I have liked it for a long time.

     “If your own bucket has  holes, then the sand will run out and you won’t have any left for anybody else.”  Not all of us are in positions to be able to travel to Haiti or to put ourselves on the front lines where other humans are suffering and in dire need. We must indeed be as gentle and forgiving with ourselves as we are with others and must take care of ourselves and  of others close to us first.  As warm-hearted and altruistic as we may be, if we neglect ourselves and the significant people in our lives, then we are not living and loving to our greatest capacity.  Each of us is presented with a multitude of opportunities to reach out and touch another human life. Each of us has unique talents and ways of being able to do that.  There are times when the universe presents itself to us and enables us to do really important and large things and other times when a small gesture that we make is appreciated and perhaps can even be life changing. Who is to say that what you do is “not enough”?  Your objective is to keep on being a giving, loving person for as long as possible, or at least mine is.

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