Fighting Grief When it Grabs You by the Throat Again

I wasn’t prepared. Nope. I wasn’t prepared for grief to grab me by the throat at my granddaughter’s wedding. Before the service my surviving daughter, a family therapist, handed me some tissues. “Brace yourself, Mom,” she advised. “They are going to show photos of Helen.” Minutes later the photo montage began, photos of my deceased daughter holding her newborn twins, photos of the twins as toddlers, when they were older, and similar photos of the groom.

As the photos changed, I reviewed seven years in my mind. In 2007 my grandchildren’s parents died from the injuries they received in separate car crashes. My daughter, the twin’s mother, died on a Friday night in February. Two days later my father-in-law succumbed to pneumonia. Eight weeks after that my brother, and only sibling, died of a heart attack. The twin’s father died in the fall. His death made the twins orphans and my husband and me GRGs, grandparents raising grandchildren.

When the twins moved in with they were 15 years old. Now my granddaughter was getting married, her brother was an usher, and my paralyzed husband was going to escort the bride down the aisle.  Tears trickled down my cheeks. The bridal party processed down the aisle, with my husband and the bride last. My smiling granddaughter held onto her grandfather’s arm, a picture to remember for life, and I cried harder. People who knew our story were crying too.

Just when I least expected it, grief had caught me off-guard, yet I was determined to get my feelings under control. Grief feelings come from love, and that was something to celebrate. I knew I had the mental power to fight grief and I had to jump-start that power and act quickly. My enemy, grief, was not going to claim this day.

I thought about joy. In photo after photo, joy radiated from my daughter’s face. She adored her children and, though she was a composite engineer with a full-time job, her children always came first. Equally important, she was a good role model, taught the twins right from wrong, and gave them guidelines to follow in life.

I thought about the twins. They had worked hard, set goals, and achieved them. Both of my grandchildren graduated from college with high honors and Phi Beta Kappa. These days, many college graduates can’t find jobs. Thankfully, both of the twins found satisfying, promising jobs.

I thought about my husband’s courage. My husband’s aorta dissected a year ago. Surgeons operated on him three times in a desperate attempt to save his life. His life was saved, but he suffered a spinal stroke during the third operation, and his legs are now paralyzed.  Yet, he escorted the bride down the aisle with poise and confidence.

I thought about what I learned from grief. Because I am a non-fiction writer, I am always doing research. Grief changed the focus of my writing from health/wellness to grief healing. In the process, I learned about traumatic loss, multiple losses, secondary losses, anniversary reactions, and more. Knowledge is power and I knew I had the power to combat grief.

Describing this process took longer than living it. All of this thinking happened in seconds. I brought my thoughts back to the moment – my smiling granddaughter in her strapless wedding dress, my grandson standing with the groomsmen, my distinguished husband, who was glad to be alive, and all the family members and friends who were at the wedding.

Grief can be quiet for months or even years, then rise up and grab us by the throat when we least expect it. You may be caught off-guard like me. Still, we have the power to fight grief. We may counter negative thoughts with positive ones. We may draw upon happy memories. We can tap the love we have for our deceased ones. We learn and re-learn a powerful truth: Love is stronger than death.