This article is part 1 of 4 from my soon to be released book – Suddenly a Caregiver. I was the primary family caregiver for my wife who battled brain cancer for nearly four years. The chapter – Grieving – shares the grieving and recovery experience. I hope my experience provides a source of learning for you.
Visit the book page and the Facebook page for book release information. The first 100 people that register will receive a coupon for a free eBook edition upon release.
Grief is a universal human experience that will affect every one of us at some point in our life. Although grief is universal, each person prepares for grief, 
experiences grief, and recovers from grief in unique ways. There are guiding principles that we can apply to our grief but your recovery is unique to your circumstance. You may judge yourself. You might feel as though you recovered from grief too quickly. You might feel as though your grieving is lasting too long. Just keep in mind that your grief is as individual as you are and so is your recovery. It is also natural to believe that others are making judgments about your grief. While that may be the case, your grief is your path, which may look very different compared to the path of someone else.
My grieving process started at the point of Lynne’s diagnosis, not her death. The week following her diagnosis, I spent nearly every evening shedding tears and agonizing over the future that lay ahead. Thoughts of unfulfilled dreams and goal circled my mind numerous times throughout each day. As I researched the disease, the certainty of Lynne’s eventual death moved to the forefront of my mind. I tried to balance those thoughts with the hope that Lynne’s case might be different in some way, but it was an internal struggle.
Like any couple, we held onto the hope that our plans for the future would remain intact. We discussed goals throughout our marriage about retirement. We shared about the continued ability to travel. We shared thoughts about the enjoyment of watching grandchildren grow up. We discussed our dreams of a slower paced life hoping to enjoy the simpler things in life. Those kind of things we tend to take for granted in our younger years as we focus on building our lives and careers. In one day, the plans and dreams we made together seemed to shatter like a glass hitting a tile floor. Forever lost with no possibility of ever putting the glass back together.
About six years earlier because of my responsibilities as a deacon at the Sun Valley Church of Christ, I enrolled in a course to help me enhance my skills and abilities as a people helper. As a people helper, people often approached me to share personal struggles. I desired a better foundation of knowledge to help me guide them through their struggles. A few of the classes within that course of study helped me to prepare for what was ahead in my own life. One class covered forgiveness, letting go of the past and the pain. Another covered marriage and keeping the love alive. Another covered pain and suffering, for learning to help people in a hurting world. Yet another covered managing stress and anxiety. The most important class that would bear on my own future was a class about grief and loss. While my intent was to learn about these topics to assist others, the importance of that learning helped me to understand the emotional turmoil that I was facing and some techniques to help me manage my way through the pain.
Grief is a process that causes psychological pain, creating emotional turmoil with feelings of guilt, depression, anger, sadness, helplessness, rage, loneliness, resentment, and hopelessness. I learned that the emotions that swirled within me were a normal part of the grieving process. Recognizing that early, helped me to be easy on myself as I worked through the grieving process. I believed that I moved to the acceptance phase of the process more quickly than most, in part because of the training I had received.
Another source of strength at that time was my spiritual upbringing and lifestyle. This was also a big part of Lynne’s life. With this similar outlook on life, we were able to be in tune with one another. I reflected on one biblical passage frequently, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11, New International Version). Despite this tragedy, I believed that God had a plan. His eternal nature, unrestricted by time enables Him to see what we refer to as the past as well as into what we refer to as the future. Time limits me, by allowing me to see only the past and the immediate. Because I cannot see into the future, I reasoned that God could see some future event in Lynne’s life that might be much worse than glioblastoma. To me, there could be no worse event but that might simply be due to the limitations placed on me by time and the inability to see into the future.
After Lynne’s death, I read a grief recovery book that helped me understand why the depth of grief for one person might be different when compared to the depth experienced by another person. Recovery from grief suggests the ability to recall the good memories you hold fondly while minimizing those feelings of remorse or holding on to the regrets that you are harboring (James & Russell, 2009). I see this as key to understanding the relatively short duration of my personal grieving period.
Lynne and I were very compatible and truly enjoyed our 31 years together as a married couple. We had our fair share of disagreements and disputes along the way. However, we did enjoy a marriage that others recognized in positive ways. The enjoyment of our marriage increased dramatically during Lynne’s illness. This may seem very strange to you, so please allow me to explain this phenomenon.
Throughout the early years of our marriage, I appreciated and was grateful for Lynne’s concern for others, her willingness to help others, and her support and care for me and our children. Lynne impressed me with her ability to run our home, her industrious nature and attention to details, and a slew of other traits. Yet in the last four years of Lynne’s life, I witnessed a courage, vision, and personal strength that I had underestimated in our earlier years together. During those final years, we also discussed topics that most people try to avoid such as death and dying. We discussed what we hoped for one another. She shared her desire that I find another woman to love and care for after she passed. A topic like that may seem like a ridiculous discussion when in health, but it is not whenever someone faces the last stages of life. Lynne shared her appreciation of my care and love for her and her acceptance that I would love and care for another woman in the future. Even before her death, she released me from the anxiety of the considerations concerning moving on with life, after she passed. In that discussion, she released me from the anxiety or guilt associated with moving forward in life.
In the next part of this series, I will share information about grief recover models. Understanding grief models help me to understand the grieving process.
Please share your comments, thoughts, and suggestions.
References
James, John W. and Friedman, Russel. (2009). The grief recovery handbook (20th anniversary expanded edition). HarperCollins e-books.
Zondervan. (1984). New international version Holy Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan
At the urging of friends and family, I started working on a book about caregiving for someone diagnosed with gliobastoma multiforme (GBM) – a stage 4 brain cancer. Glioblastoma effects over 10,000 Americans per year (CBTRUS, 2012). In a single day, I suddenly became a caregiver. I received a crash course about brain tumors and cancer and my new role as an advocate to communicate with doctors to ensure the best treatment plan possible. I learned about the needs of someone suffering from this deadly disease. I want to share the story of one person’s courage in her fight against this disease and the lessons that I learned along the way. My hope is that our story will be a source of encouragement and strength for you if you find yourself Suddenly a Caregiver.