Excerpt
from Chapter 1: The Worst Thing That Could Ever Happen
Heather Lindquist was in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch when she heard a dull thud. It sounded as if it came from the hallway,and it was just a little too loud to ignore. “Boys!” she yelled. “What are you up to?” There was no answer. She found her two boys playing quietly on the couch in the living room. They giggled. “You jokers,” she said with a smile.“What was that sound?” They shrugged. “Where is your father?” Without waiting for an answer, she ran toward the hallway. She cried out in fear when she found her husband, John, writhing on the floor. John had severe asthma. He was taking a new medication, and it had seemed to be working, but suddenly he had collapsed in the worst attack he’d ever had. Heather tried everything she could think of to save her husband’s life. Then she called an ambulance. The rest was a blur. John died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.
Most of us are so fearful of harm coming to those we love that we find it difficult to even think about. With time,though, we have no choice. Surveys on stressful life events put the death of a loved one right at the top of the list. We imagine grief to be a relentless shadow that can lock onto us and follow us everywhere. Grief, as we imagine it,turns light into dark and steals the joy out of everything it touches. It is overwhelming and unremitting.
Grief is undeniably difficult. But is it really always overwhelming?...
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Heather’s story illustrates a curious irony in the way we think about grief and mourning. We can’t help but know that the pain of loss in is inevitable. Death and taxes, as the saying goes. Eventually,grief confronts everyone, and probably more than once in a lifetime. Yet,despite its ubiquity, most people know next to nothing about what to expect. Even people who have alreadysuffered a major loss often do not know whether the grief they experienced wasnormal or whether they will experience anything remotely similar if they haveto go through it again.
The questions we might ask are endless: What does it really mean to lose someone? Does grief feel the same each time? Is it the same for everyone? Is it always dominated by pain and anguish? How long does it last? How long should it last? What if someone doesn’t appear to grieve enough? What if someone talks about having an ongoing connection to the person who died? Is that normal? These are big and important questions. If we understand the different ways people react to loss,we understand something about what it means to be human, something about the way we experience life and death, love and meaning, sadness and joy…
The good news is that for most of us, grief is not overwhelming or unending. As frightening as the pain of loss can be, most of us are resilient.