Grieving and growing amidst nonfinite loss, Part II
Thank you to Sophie Fox for this blog entry. Part I was posted last week.
Losing my job was one of the most difficult points of grief for me. Throughout my career spanning over 20 years, I’d prided myself in my job. Suddenly being forced to stop working brought me to face the extent my identity and sense of purpose were tied to the success of my career. The emotional impact of not working plagued me with questions: Do I have a purpose or worth if I’m not productive? Am I allowed to have good things in life if I’m not working? Did I somehow choose to be sick?
Financial concerns also began to manifest as my husband and were quickly forced to rely on his income alone. As he became the sole provider for my family, I had doubts about how he would perceive me. This was not the life either of us envisioned when we married months prior. Why should so much burden fall to him? Would he stop seeing me the same way he had - the vibrant, fun-loving woman he married? With me as a primarily bed bound person now, what did our joy look like? Where would it come from?
Through the help of a great therapist and the support of my loved ones, I shifted my mindset on where real value comes from. Realizing that my sense of purpose needed to be uncoupled from the expectations for my career, I found that purpose can be found outside of employment. Learning that my value comes from my existence and not because it needed to be earned was revolutionary for me. I could cultivate self-esteem and self-love through honoring the beauty in my continual existence, despite pain and illness. Ultimately, I came to believe that I am inherently worthy of good things and happiness. My illness journey provided an opportunity to examine who I really was outside the confines of a career and what society deemed valuable. My husband actively chooses to stay by my side in my illness every day, grieving the loss of my old life along with me, and serving as a continual reminder that I am worth caring for and loving.
Learning how to cope with the uncertainties of life due to my illness has been a challenge. This includes readjusting where my husband and I will be able to afford to live and the kind of home we will have on reduced income. The feelings of loss we experienced realizing we would not be able to continue living in the area we love, nor purchase a home, have taken time to accept. However, recognizing this grief and allowing ourselves to come to terms with it have enabled us to move forward.
I’ve accepted my nonfinite loss and the reality that feelings of sadness may never go away. I will likely move through the different stages of grief repeatedly (such as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), as different facets of this loss arise in my life. Recognizing the grief that accompanies loss provides a strength in both understanding myself and normalizing my emotions.
The grief we feel is just that; normal. By allowing ourselves to feel our complete emotions, we are fully witnessing the human experience. Nonfinite loss is at times particularly difficult because it seeps throughout every aspect of one’s life. There is no prescribed grief timeline to navigate, no blueprint for how it will unravel. It will continue to show up as life evolves, and we honor the experience of our grief by taking care of ourselves. While at times experiencing our loss may seem isolating or lonely, relying on a community of friends and family can ease the burden we carry and help illustrate that this new life, the one that is different and unplanned, can still be as beautiful and vibrant as the one we leave behind.
