On Grief and Grieving

One of the many things I learned from Ilene over the course of our dealing with ALS was the importance of grief and grieving IN THE MOMENT.

Perhaps it was her training as a psychotherapist and life coach. Perhaps it was her intense desire for honest expressions of feelings. Ilene had the ability to recognize a loss of any kind, even a small one, and grieve for however long it took to acknowledge the loss and move on.

The grieving in the moment was freeing for her. It allowed her to move on to the next challenge. Even more, the practice of fully grieving small losses enabled her to confront bigger losses with greater confidence and less baggage carried over from the small losses.

About mid-way through the progress of the disease, Ilene came up a mantra to help her grieving process: feel the pain, grieve the loss, let it go, move on. In the last year or so of her life, she added two alternative endings: Let the child play or closer to home.

For her, the “child” was her spirit/soul. It was that ineffable part of her that would find something funny to comment on in the middle of the most difficult situations or feelings. I am sure it was her ability to authentically feel the pain and grieve the loss when it occurred that made it possible for her to let it go and move on.

I must admit, I rarely practiced her mantra through the course of the disease.

The result was that I held on to those feelings (and sometimes still do) until after her passing. Consequently, my grief in the months after her passing was often overwhelming, almost paralyzing.

My intention at the time was to be strong for her. After all, she was the one dying, not me. Yet in making that choice, not only did I make it harder for myself afterwards, I robbed both of us of the opportunity to be fully conscious of my experience in the moment. She did not get to share, not only my loss, but also he freedom that comes with the recovery.

I share these thoughts now, not out of guilt or regret, rather as a way of acknowledging the pain of a lost opportunity for even greater intimacy; to grieve the loss and let it go; to move on and let my spirit/soul play with the next challenge.

I know Ilene celebrates that.

Nick