My first husband, Doug, died two months ago. Doug was Brett, my son’s father, and though our marriage only lasted five years, Doug has been a part of my life and a good friend for 60 years.
We have celebrated most of the holidays and grand occasions of our children together. When his daughter by his second marriage got engaged, at the same time as Brett did, we had a party at my house, and we loved them all up together. I had a ridiculously tough time when Doug died. This was partly because my son was so upset. He had been driving to his Dad’s house for months as Doug became increasingly ill from what was to be heart failure, and Brett was there when Doug died around midnight one night.
Despite having reached the age of seventy-nine, Doug was not ready to leave us all, and Brett wasn’t prepared for him to go, either. Frankly, I wasn’t ready for him to go. Doug and I had known each other since we were nineteen, and even when we were estranged for the first few years after the divorce, he continued to be a fixture in my life. I cried about it several times, always feeling a bit like I shouldn’t be crying because, after all, we’ve been divorced for over 50 years.
My second husband, Robert, died last year as well. Robert was the father of my daughter, Alexis, and had joined in on all the holidays and celebrations with Doug, the kids, me, and my third husband, Larry. They were lovely occasions, and we all looked forward to them and enjoyed them. It will be weird this year without either Doug and his wife and children or Robert and his family for the holidays. The kind of grief I feel about their deaths is called “complicated grief.” Our relationships were complicated. We had known each other a long time and loved each other despite the turmoil, though it may be hard for other people to understand. “Complicated grief” happens to people who, for whatever reason, feel that they don’t have the “right” to grieve. Girlfriends of married men are a good example, as are boyfriends of married women. No one even mentions that at the funeral, if anyone even knows about it.
The parents of babies who die in childbirth or because of a miscarriage suffer from complicated grief. People feel they should move on, have another baby, and press forward with their lives when they are emotionally unable to do it. Most complicated grief derives from relationships that are not sanctioned by society or relationships that one is supposed to get over quickly. Other kinds of grief that cause problems include anticipatory grief and prolonged grief.
Anticipatory grief is what we feel when we learn that someone is dying from a terminal illness, like cancer. Anticipatory grief includes feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, and helplessness. People who are dying feel anticipatory grief about losing their lives, while the people around them are grieving the loss as well. If they become obsessed with worrying about what will happen when the dying person is gone, it can make it difficult to get through a prolonged prognosis. It can create distance and a level of anxiety that makes it hard to continue to be close to the dying person. In addition, if a family member is taking care of the dying person, that person can become exhausted and feel guilty for feeling the way they do when that person is still alive. When the person dies, the caregivers may feel relief for the deceased as well as for themselves. Relief can become another reason to feel guilty, but it is quite normal when the end of life is extended and the dying person is suffering.
Prolonged grief is hard to diagnose. How long is too long to be grieving the death of a loved one? A year? Two years? Most kinds of grief tend to decline in intensity after 3 or 4 months and resolve themselves within six months to a year. It is not unusual, however, for the death of a spouse or a child to take longer. In some ways, these losses are grieved throughout the rest of one’s life, especially on holidays and birthdays. On the other hand, when grief interferes with one’s daily functioning and quality of life, it becomes problematic.
When my son-in-law died at 46, leaving two small daughters, 6 and 10, it was the hardest thing I have ever been through. I don’t know if we will ever get over it. I still think of him often and want to cry six years later. My daughter and the children are doing fine, but that doesn’t mean that there are not moments when it is still tough that the girls don’t have a father.
Prolonged grief is marked by intense feelings of longing, sadness, and a preoccupation with the loss that makes it difficult to move on despite the passage of time. Intense grief can actually kill a person. It can trigger broken heart syndrome, a condition that is associated with the weakening of the left ventricle of the heart, especially in postmenopausal women, and can mimic a heart attack. It requires treatment by a cardiologist and may take weeks or months to alleviate. Of course, postmenopausal women are most likely to lose a spouse, which is the most stressful thing that can happen to a person under normal conditions. It changes one’s life completely. There can be financial problems with such losses, the need to move often arises, and, on top of that, the surviving spouse is alone for perhaps the first time in many years.
Recently, many writers on the subject have also recognized the grief of people who lose a pet they have loved for a lifetime (of the pet). The pet supply website Chewy lists a set of tips for coping with the loss. They advise that you not fight your feelings. You might be sad, angry, or full of sorrow, but they point out that you are feeling what you are supposed to be feeling, and you can’t compare it to what anyone else feels. They encourage people to take their time, take good care of themselves, and use their support network to talk to other pet owners. They suggest that, if children are still at home, you express your feelings and talk to them about theirs. They advise you to plan a little memorial service and share happy memories of your pet.
Those tips are not bad advice when you lose a human you have loved. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. If you read the lead article on this website, you know that there is little evidence for any stages of grieving. There are feelings—anger, sadness, acceptance, and sorrow—but they come and go in no particular order, triggered often by seeing or hearing something that reminds you of that person.
If your grief is worrying you, if it has been going on for more than a year, consider professional help. Some therapists specialize in grief, but most are good at managing the normal grief experiences that people have in their lives. There are also helplines that you can call if you experience a difficulty. There is even a pet-loss line at Cornell University’s hotline, staffed with veterinary students and supervised by veterinarians. Putting “grief counseling” into the search machine brought up “Grief and loss counseling hotlines in California.” I’m sure you would find them in most states. There was also a list of hotlines across the U.S.
Complicated Grief
