Building Resiliency Despite Multiple Deaths
Two years after my wife’s death, almost to the week, my mother passed away. As I gathered with my five siblings to honor our mom, I could not help but notice the difference in the grieving process. While I grieved for my mother, it was not as intense as the grief I went through for my wife. However, I did have a re-emergence of my grief for my deceased wife.
For many of us, the death of our spouse may not have been the first or be the last death of a loved one that we will experience. And for some of us, it may be just one of a string of deaths in a relatively short time frame. This has been especially true over the past two years.
I have heard of fellow widowers losing parents, children, siblings, close friends, and even beloved pets within a short time of losing their wives. Some have lost as many as three others in that time frame.
When these other losses occur, they can trigger all our grief symptoms again and again. It may feel like you have regressed to the first few months of grieving. Others may not understand why you are grieving so much.
If these multiple losses are a part of your experience, you can be forgiven for thinking that you are cursed, and for wondering just how much pain one person can take. As I hear these stories I am amazed at our resiliency and ability to keep going!
I gave up trying to reconcile or justify the different grief processes I went through for my wife and my mom. Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that they are just plain different. I had to accept these differences and process each one in its unique way.
I recognize that some widowers will have had a very special relationship with the parent, child, sibling, friend, or pet that they lost after their wife’s death. This might result in grieving that is just as painful and difficult to deal with as your wife’s passing.
For each of us, it will be different. But what is common for all of us is that we have learned some incredibly difficult lessons while grieving for our wives. This does not relieve us of having to go through more grieving when we lose someone else, but it at least prepares us for it.
Perhaps we are also more willing to accept help as we make our way through our new grief. Most importantly, our prior experience taught us that no matter how painful the new grief is, we know that we can survive it. We now know that we are not going crazy, but we are just experiencing what is the normal grief process.
So, if you are confronted with this multiple death and grieving scenario, don’t let your guard down, and be sure to employ every lesson you learned during your grieving for your wife to help you navigate this new trial.
We widowers are amazingly resilient and capable of handling these new challenges while continuing to grow and finding a new purpose in our lives.
© Copyright 2022 Fred Colby
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