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Health, Spiritual

The Many Faces of Grief

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the Many Faces of Grief Shock, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Exhaustion, Isolated and Alone, Rebirth: hope, joy, thankfulness, acceptance
Thank you to Pixabay.

“The Many Faces of Grief” by Joan Y. Edwards

Grief is the normal internal feeling one experiences in reaction to a loss. You have seen them. You have experienced them. They are real. They are not a figment of your imagination. However, when grieving your imagination sometimes takes over. How long does grief last? It may last a lifetime. How long it impacts your life or stops you from living to the utmost is sometimes up to you and sometimes feels like it is out of your control. All of this points to the effects of your feelings after someone you love dies. 

1. One face of grief is shock. You know that everyone dies. You may have had clues this was the time God was calling your loved one home. Or you may have been rejecting that idea and thinking he was going to be healed and live longer with you. You remember well that everyone dies. It still is a shock when death comes. No matter how young or old the person is. It is a shock to your emotional system to find that they are no longer alive. 

2, One face of grief is anger. Anger that your loved one has left you all alone.  You can’t feel their touch. You don’t have their encouraging words, the warm hugs, the light kisses, the listening ear. They left you alone with all the financial, legal, household and personal items to figure out and take care of. You have to sort through their clothing, their favorite books and DVDs.  How could they leave you with all that headache and worry to go through by yourself. It really wasn’t their intention. Probably, they would rather be here on earth with you.

3. Another face of grief is sadness. You feel sadness that your loved one has left you all alone.  You can’t feel their touch. You don’t have the encouraging words, the warm hugs, the light kisses, the listening ear. You miss being with them. You miss looking into their eyes and seeing their smiling face. The memories of moments the two of you shared together are gone now unless you shared them with someone else.  I found myself telling my daughters and his daughter about things that my husband and I had done together. I think through sharing them it helped keep the memories alive a little longer and to let go at least once for those memories.  It takes many times of letting go. Perhaps a way of letting go of these memories is to write them down. If you want to share them with others, it is okay. If you want to shred them, it is okay. You can have a candle service and thank God for the wonderful memories.  You can also bury your written words in a flower garden or in the woods. 

4. Another face of grief is fear. The things you are afraid of can be numerous. Some of the fears are stronger than others. The fear of being alone if you were married to the deceased loved one can be hard to handle. Depending upon your background. If being abandoned at an early age was a prevalent memory for you, your spouse’s death may trigger those feelings of abandonment and fear of how you’re going to make it being alone.  Sort of like in the game of tag, “Ready or Not, Here I come.” Death says, “Ready or Not, Here I come.”

5. Another face of grief is exhaustion. After the death of a loved one, you can’t get to sleep. Once you get to sleep, you wake up in a few hours. You start thinking  about the events leading up to the death. Planning the funeral, going to the funeral,  attending the burial: all take energy.  After that you have the legal matters that must be taken care of. Why did your loved one leave you with all this to do? Even when your loved one leaves a will or trust and beneficiary on death papers signed, it is still stressful. Waiting to get connected by phone to the right party can take up to an hour. This waiting is stressful in regular times. It triples the stress after someone dies. The tears flow at unexpected times.  Having to say “My husband died” over and over again on the phone may take a notch out of your calmness. The tears flow. It’s okay. It’s a natural response. It is part of the healing process.  Crying levels your emotions and helps your body relax and start healing. 

6. Another face of grief is feeling alone and isolated. You don’t have the loved one who died to share the small details of your life: what you ate for lunch, to know if you took your medicine on time, what you watched on TV, or who you missed most from high school. You are no longer the center of your loved ones life. They are no longer the center of yours; although parts of you still think they are. It’s recognizing this reality that your loved one is not there anymore, that is the hardest to accept.

There is a feeling of alienation from usual gatherings of family and friends.  With COVID, you are even more isolated for good reason, You want your family and friends to be protected. You want to be protected.  Being with others that you and your spouse used to get together with is a time of healing for all of you. Somehow Zoom and other video chats aren’t the same as face to face and receiving a warm hug and encouragement from family and close friends. 

I am lucky and very thankful that I have family and friends who call to check on me or come by to visit; both Carl’s family and mine. I have been fortunate enough to see my family face to face.  Not every day, but occasionally. They check on me often. And whenever I tell them I especially miss them they set up time for the whole family to get together. Now that I’ve had the second Covid vaccine, I’ll be able to meet and see my family and friends who live close and those who live far away. Many have been sick  and others are going through rough times. I want to be there for them.

There is part of the grieving process that you have to do alone. No one can do it for you. It is your grief. Other members of the family and close friends have to go through their own personal grief.  

7. Seventh face of grief is Rebirth of Self (hope, joy, thankfulness, acceptance, new purpose).  The stress of the death and your grief may even make you sick. Achieve a balance of eating the right foods, exercising, doing the things you used to enjoy: walking, reading, going to the movies. Doing something new may give you a new way to look at things.

Cook a new dish, bake a cake, buy yourself an ice cream cone with chocolate sprinkles. Draw a picture, write a song, take pictures, plant new flowers. All of these things are good.

When you get to the acceptance phase, you are ready to help other people. There is a need within you to find a new purpose or a renew the purpose you may have forgotten during all this grief. You find a purpose for living since your loved one is no longer there. You will designate a new emphasis or renew a past idea.

God made you to share his goodness and love with others. What you give to our world isn’t provided by anyone else. You are the one to do it. I think after a loved one dies, you have to do things to help rebuild yourself. No one else knows what you need better than you. But you have to speak up. You have to take note of the little nudges of wisdom that come to you.

Think about the flight attendant who tells you that you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you put it on your child. It’s important to remember to do what you think you need to do to pull yourself up out of the doldrums. Also, at least once a day, do something to make someone smile. Call a friend. Call a relative. Donate time, money or goods to your favorite charity. Call to thank someone for helping you. Call an old friend you haven’t talked to in ages. Do things that leave you with inner joy.  Share your joy with others.    

There are many other faces of grief. I only chose to elaborate on seven of them. You may see all of these faces on a given day. You may see other faces that I didn’t mention. Whatever face of grief you are experiencing,  love yourself. Be kind and gentle. 

I ask God to help you accept yourself and all of your feelings from the loss of someone you love.

Whatever you are going through today, I hope you realize what a gift you are. I know that you may not understand how important you are to all of the people who know you. It is important to love yourself. 

I am sending hugs and thankfulness for you for reading my blog. Thank you for being the love that transforms the sadness of others into joy. What seems little to you may be a life saver for someone else. 

Resources:

  1. Huffington Post. “A New Look at the 7 Emotional States of Loss:” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/loss-grief_b_5556644
  2. Medicine Net. “Grief Symptoms: Get Facts on the Seven Stages of Grief:” https://www.medicinenet.com/loss_grief_and_bereavement/article.htm
  3. Medicine Net. “Depression: Symptoms, Types, Test, and Treatment: “https://www.medicinenet.com/depression/article.htm#what_are_the_risk_factors_and_causes_of_depression

Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright © 2009-2021 Joan Y. Edwards

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Writing

Surprise Creates Best Sellers

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Thank you, Pixabay!”Surprise Creates Best Sellers” by Joan Y. Edwards

Readers crave surprise. That’s the element that helps a reader stick to a story from the beginning to the very end. Therefore, every good story has the element of surprise. The books that incorporate the most surprises are best sellers.

A surprise is when something unexpected happens that is far from what the reader thought would happen. It adds tension and excitement and keeps the reader actively engaged and committed to your manuscript. Any surprise element must present an image in the mind of the reader. If a reader can’t see the image, they won’t see the connection you are counting on to make your story sell.

Many intriguing two-sentence pitches, hooks, loglines, and short summaries or trailers for books and movies, include or allude to one of these seven elements of surprise.

L. K. Hill quotes Marion Jensen’s view on surprise: “Surprise in literature is something unexpected that evokes an emotional reaction in a reader.”

Beth Hill suggests that “you, the writer, include a revelation, introduce a new character, or devise an unforeseen event that is so unpredictable that it even surprises you.” So include unexpected consequences that surround your characters and have the element of surprise in them.

Tracy Richardson shows the powerful and surprising beginning of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love:

  • I wish Giovanni would kiss me.

Tracy points out that this first sentence hooks you right away and her next sentence is a perfect contradiction.

  • Oh, but there are so many reasons why this would be a terrible idea.

This beginning shows a good use of surprise.

Surprise

Here are seven ways to add an element of surprise to your story:

  1. Humor is when you exaggerate the unexpected and sometimes using the power of three to create a funny situation. Humor is shown in action, reaction, consequence, dialogue, and description.
  2. Shock is when you exaggerate the unexpected so much that what happened is the complete opposite of what a reader thought was possible. It can be positive or negative.
  3. Contradiction is action, reaction, consequence, dialogue, and description that shows when opposite emotions are present at the same time in a character or situation.
  4. Irony is action, reaction, consequence, dialogue, and description which is the opposite of what a reader expects under similar circumstances.
  5. Twist is action, reaction, consequence, dialogue, and description which is the opposite of what a reader expects in this genre under similar circumstances. I think of a twist as having to do with the plot.
  6. Revelation is when you reveal secrets or previously unknown information in your story.
  7. Introduce a new character who is unpredictable in a way that adds tension and validity to the theme of your story.

Here are best-selling books that fill you with surprises:

  1. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
  3. The Witness by Nora Roberts
  4. The Firm by John Grisham
  5. Junie B. Jones Has a Peep in Her Pocket by Barbara Park
  6. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, Betsy Lewin, and Randy Travis.
  7. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Readers crave surprise. Incorporate the elements of surprise in your stories and you will have a best seller because it has what readers crave!

Here are three stories from my life. I hope you enjoy them. Each of them contains at least one element of surprise.

The Expected and Unexpected

While I was in college during the summer months, my grandmother in Ohio loved for me to come unannounced. One Friday afternoon I left Western Carolina College in Cullowhee, North Carolina at 2:00 p.m. and arrived in Eaton, Ohio about 2:00 a.m. about five hours longer than I planned.

I knocked on Mother Meyer’s front door. Several minutes went by. I didn’t hear any sounds from inside the house. Then I heard a key turn as someone unlocked the door. As I stood there with my overnight case, a man I had never seen before peeked through the open door.

“Hello. Is Mother Meyer here?” I asked.

“No, she’s not.”

I proudly stated, “I’m her granddaughter, Joan.”

He looked at me like so what.

“My daddy is John Bernard Meyer.”

No signs of recognition on that man’s face. I thought maybe he’d know my Mother. Therefore, I tried again. “My mother is Ethel Meyer.”

The man with slightly balding hairline crossed his arms, “I don’t know them.”

I pointed down the hall to the first door on the left. “Mother Meyer usually lets me sleep in that room.”

I wasn’t getting anywhere. Visions of the nearby motel Mother and I stayed in with bugs crawling everywhere loomed in my head. My face grew white as a misty fog.

“I am John Campbell, your Aunt Betty’s husband. We got married last month.”

“Is Aunt Betty here?”

“She’s asleep.”

“Oh,” I said emotionally wilting into a small pile of rocks and sticky briars.

Then a warm smile donned his face. “Mother Meyer went to visit her daughter, Bea for the weekend. She’ll be back on Sunday. I see that you have your suitcase so you must have planned to spend the night. So come on in.”

I said, “Thank you very much.”

I moved quickly in the bedroom and closed the door. I shouted on the inside, “Thank you, Lord. I don’t ever want to do THAT again.”

That was my last surprise visit to my grandmother’s house.

Who was the most surprised person in this story?

Did I learn my lesson about surprise visits? My lesson came in two installments; one for each side of the family: Meyer and Bruffey.

Surprising Aunt Martha

One Friday in October, I decided to visit my Aunt Martha Bruffey in Kinston, North Carolina. She loved for me to surprise her by coming out of the bedroom in the morning.  Aunt Martha and Uncle Vernon always left the doors unlocked so I would come in through the back door and sneak quietly into my cousins’ bedroom. I’d sleep on a cot there and in the morning, I’d come out of the bedroom into the hall. Aunt Martha would give me a great big hug and say, “What a nice surprise! I am so glad to see you.”

I drove nine or ten hours from Cullowhee, North Carolina to get there. I parked my gray 1950 Plymouth in the driveway and carried my overnight case around back to enter through the back door.

When I got around back, there was a new garage attached to the house. The back door I used to sneak through was hidden inside the breezeway structure that joined the house and the garage. The garage had a door so I twisted the doorknob to the right and pushed it, but it was locked and did not budge a millimeter.

Feeling a little frustrated, I walked to the side door, turned the knob, and pushed on it. Much to my dismay, it was locked, too.

But wait, there’s hope for me. There was still the possibility that the front door was not locked. When I turned the knob and pushed on it, it was locked tighter than a fat lady in a thin girdle.

I didn’t savor the idea of sleeping in my car because wire springs had sprung through the cushions and were not very comfortable. Surprising Aunt Martha wouldn’t be as much fun if I banged on the door and woke her up. She might be a bit grumpy. I didn’t want to scare my three girl cousins, so I stood in front of the four boys’ window on the side of the house. All four of them were sound asleep.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the window.

My oldest cousin woke and said, “My gosh, what’s going on out there?”

He shined a flashlight and saw me standing outside the house lonely and sad.

I spoke softly so I wouldn’t wake up Aunt Martha or the girls. “Please unlock the front door so I can come in.”

When the lock on the front door clicked, he opened it and said, “Joan, what a big surprise!”

“Not as big a surprise as I was to find all the doors locked.”

My cousins fixed up a cot for me so I’d have a place to sleep.

The next morning, Aunt Martha was thrilled to see me. She gave me a big hug and said, “What a nice surprise! It’s so good to see you.”

I was the most surprised person during this visit. The locked doors put a brake on future unannounced visits to relatives. But, I went many times after I told them I was coming.

What was the irony in this story?

Who did I surprise?

How do you think my grandmother and my aunt felt when I didn’t surprise them with visits again?

The Most Nervous Person at the Airport

One time, my friend, Henry, flew into Charlotte to help his boss determine the value of his latest acquisitions for a coin show. Henry asked me to meet him at the airport the next day. He told me his American flight to St. Louis took off at 2:10 p.m. and asked me to meet him about 1:00 p.m. so we could visit before his flight.

I left home an hour early to take notes on the body language of the most nervous person at the airport while I waited for Larry to arrive at his gate of departure.

Men, women, and children of varying ages amused me with their talk and their movements, but they was no sign of nervousness. Instead, moods of calm and excitement filled the air.

One o’clock came, but Henry didn’t.

One-fifteen, no Henry. I listened carefully to the messages over the intercom. None of them said, “Would Joan York please come to any agent at American Airlines?”

One-thirty, no Henry. I paced back and forth near the gate. I anxiously checked the long hallway for a man running to catch his flight. Everyone walked leisurely like they had more than enough time to get to their gate for take-off.

One-forty-five, no Henry. My heart beat a little faster.

As each moment passed, my thoughts went haywire. “What if something’s happened to him? What if he’s been in a car wreck?”

Two o’clock, no Henry. I patted my foot.

The gate clerk called passengers to board the airplane, no Larry. My saliva was so thick, it almost choked me.

The plane took off.  It watched it taxi away from the building without Henry.

They changed the flight numbers on the bulletin board. I twisted my pen like it was a baton. I wrote below “Who was the most nervous person I observed at the airport?”

The answer was “Me.”

Henry called the next day.

I said, “Where are you? Are you okay?”

He said, “Early yesterday morning, my boss asked him to stay an extra day.”

My response was choppy and sharp, “Why didn’t you call me and let me know? Why didn’t you have the airlines page me?”

Henry said, “I called American Airlines and asked them to tell you.

“Humph! I listened with keen ears to all notices from American Airlines pages. None of them had my name in them.” I didn’t believe him.

“I’m going to take the same flight tomorrow. Will you meet me there at one o’clock?”

“No. The only place I’ll meet you is if you come to my house.”

He said, “That’s a fine way to treat a friend,” and hung up.

I never saw him again. He called wondering if he could spend a week with me while he went to a coin show.

I’m sure you guessed my answer. “Indeed not.”

All was not in vain because I learned many signs of nervousness and I had the wisdom to follow my gut feelings to end that relationship and any others in the future that made me nervous.

What emotions do you think usually precede, follow or go side-by side with nervousness?

What body language means nervousness to you?

What solves nervousness or makes it go away?

I hope my three stories helped you see how an element of surprise can hook the reader’s attention in a story. I hope it sparks an idea to use with your own stories. I think writers may crave surprise, as much as the readers. Let your imagination run around the possibilities. Readers crave surprise. Give it to them. Put multiple surprise factors in your manuscript. “If you put surprise in your story, readers will come.”

Believe in you and your writing.
Celebrate all that you’ve accomplished: both the big steps and the little ones. References are below signature.

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Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright © 2014-2019 Joan Y. Edwards
Flip Flap Floodle Will this little duck’s song save him from Mr. Fox?
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References

  1. “Add a Twist to a Story,” http://www.wikihow.com/Add-a-Twist-to-a-Story.
  2. Annie Gracie. Writing Romantic Comedy,” 2001, http://www.annegracie.com/writing/comedy.htm.
  3. Bronwyn Hemus, “Hook Your Readers, Six Tried and Tested Tips,” March 7, 2013, https://www.standoutbooks.com/hook-your-readers-six-tips/.
  4. Elizabeth Spann Craig, “The Element of Surprise,” Mystery Writing Is Murder (blog), August 18, 2011, http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2011/08/element-of-surprise.html.
  5. K. M. Weiland, “5 Ways to Write Killer Plot Twist,” July 28, 2013, http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2013/07/5-ways-to-write-killer-plot-twist.html.
  6. L. K. Hill. “How to Use the Element of Surprise to Better Your Writing,” http://lkhill.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-use-element-of-surprise-to.html.
  7. Susan. “How to Use Humor Effectively,” http://www.write-out-loud.com/how-to-use-humor-effectively.html.
  8. Tracy Richardson. (First Sentences) “Where It All Starts,” Article Archive, Just about Write.com, 2010, http://www.justaboutwrite.com/A_Archive_WhereItAllStarts-Richardson.html.
  9. Victoria Mixon. “5 Ways to Make Your Novel Unforgettable,” http://victoriamixon.com/2010/09/13/5-ways-to-make-your-novel-unforgettable/.