Another Wave of Grief in Dementiaville

Another wave of grief hit me about two weeks ago. Grief over losing Romeo to dementia. Grief again. It came out of nowhere, out of nothing. I was going about my days, with purpose and content, satisfied with life. Happy much of the time. Then, without warning, it hit. Another damn wave of grief.

The wave stayed for nearly the entire two weeks. It pounded me much of that time. I was at least tearful if not actually crying the whole time. Damn wave.

When a wave hits me, it begins with tears. Sometimes I have no idea why a wave hits, unannounced. Here's the typical scenario: I'm doing a chore around the house, or I'm driving, or I'm out and about doing errands or any number of unexciting, pleasant things. A wave can hit immediately after I've visited Romeo, but usually not. It prefers to get me when I'm not looking. Damn waves.

I usually don't know why I begin to cry. I don't automatically assume that I'm grieving for Romeo, just in case there's something else deserving of my tears. But there isn't. Things are going well in the other areas of my life. For as much sadness and grief I experience over Romeo, there is even more happiness and joy in my ordinary days. So I'm grieving for Romeo, for our lost life together. Damn waves of grief.

My grief then turns me toward thoughts of Romeo. I think of him every day, of course. When I'm not in grief, these thoughts have pleasant emotions attached to them. I'll recall something funny he said, or remember holding his hand on one of our walks, or think about one of the many times we went out for tea. In contrast, when I'm in grief, my thoughts of Romeo take a sad turn. The emotions with them wail their presence, and that, in turn, causes the floodgate to open, and there seems to be no end to my tears. And that is exactly how it is with this current wave.

Okay. So crying is one of my typical behaviors in grieving. Duh. My other dominant characteristic in grief behavior is that I become stuck energetically. There are toilets to be cleaned, floors to be vacuumed, a blog to write, a drum to be played, laundry to be done. Do I do any of it while I'm grieving? Hardly. Instead, I sit and stare at the wall. I sit and stare at the computer screen. I sit and stare at my latest art projects, at the dishes in the sink ready for the dishwasher, at the piles of paper on my desk, at the books on my nightstand waiting to be read. I do nothing else. I sit. I sit and stare. And oh yes, I drum. I can always bring myself to drum. But more about that in some other post (or not).

I'd like to think that during this time of blocked energy the grief processing is happening below the surface, where I can't quite sense it. And so I surrender to the grief and let myself sink as deeply as I need to sink.

A Caregiver's Joy and Lament

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

-- Charles Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities

It's over. It's been over. Romeo's dementia continues to take him away. Whatever he and I came together to do is ending. We've finished it. I continue to care for him, to look after him, to be there for him, to love him. But it's over.

My sorrow lives on, and it will for a time, but my life with Romeo is over. It's over before it had a chance to begin, to really begin.

My joy -- ah, this joy. So unlike my sorrow, this joy lives on. This joy continues to live. But the joy is not over. My joy is alive and will continue to live for as long as I do, and could very well live beyond my time. The joy of having had Romeo in my life, present in my life, the joy of loving him, the joy of having been loved by him, of being loved by him, in a way no one else has ever loved me -- that joy will always be with me. It will last a lifetime, and it will always be at the root, the base, of who I am, of what I'm about. It will continue to encourage me and remind me that once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was sorrow, yes...but it is joy that survives.

The Purpose of a Caregiver's Grief Process

I recently had breakfast with a friend who just returned from a long stay in India to participate in a deepening spiritual process. Over eggs and toast, pancakes and pure maple syrup, we sat for three and a half hours (!) talking about what had been going on in each other's lives while he was away. And over this simple and common breakfast, he reminded me of something not so simple and not so common. Something so obvious that I never noticed it, never thought of it, never acknowledged it until he said the words.

I told him about my grief at losing Romeo to dementia, how I hadn't been able to keep the stress level low no matter what I did, how an overwhelming sadness hung over me. I told him how the activities I did previously to keep stress on a leash no loner helped. Meditation didn't seem to help, drumming didn't seem to help, exercise didn't seem to help, qi gong didn't seem to help. Reading, listening to music, having fun, none of the usual stuff was working. I am stressed out, sad, anxious, tearful.

He wants to know more about my stress level. I explain that if my stress level, for example, were 8 on a scale of 1-10, then previously I was able to take it down to perhaps 3 or 4 or 5 by doing any one of my usual activities, my "usual stuff." Now, however, no matter what I do, that stress level stays at 8. And it's weighing on me emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically.

His reply, so elegant, so insightful, so freeing, was simply, "What? You expect to feel good during a grief process?"

Aha. Of course. What was I thinking? The purpose of the grieving process, for goodness sake, is to grieve. Sheesh. I'm a little slow sometimes, especially when I'm in the thick of something, when my mind is occupied with something major like grieving for Romeo. Expecting to feel good during a grief process? Well, yes, I guess I had that expectation. Silly me.

The only question that remains now is how to make friends with that grief, how to greet it, let it come out, and express itself, and how to be joyful when it shows up. Grief is part of life, after all, and life is exquisite, grief and all. How, then, to welcome it? The answer, I think, is to honor it simply by letting it be. By recognizing it and inviting it to stay for as long as it wants. By giving it the space it needs to express itself. By letting it take over an entire day if that's what it wants. By crying for hours and being fine with that. By laughing when it's over, at least for the moment. And by knowing, really knowing, that this circumstance that Romeo and I find ourselves in -- is really okay just as it is. There is truly nothing we can do about it but ride it through, in both sadness and joy.

Acupuncture for a Caregiver's Grief

Wowsers. As I mentioned previously (A Caregiver's Grief Process Stepping Up), I've started having acupuncture treatments to help me release the grief of losing Romeo to dementia. Wowsers. So far, so very good.

This is not the traditional Chinese acupuncture. It's Classical Five-Element Acupuncture. In my experience, one of the basic differences between the two is that in traditional Chinese acupuncture, the needles are left in for approximately 30 minutes or so, while in Classical Five-Element Acupuncture, the practitioner inserts the needles only very briefly, then removes them almost immediately. It seems as if the acupuncturist is inserting a needle into whatever energy blockages are in the body, puncturing them, and dispersing them, breaking them up. This is a good thing.

After my first treatment, I began crying before I left the acupuncture office. I cried on the 30-minute drive home, and I cried the rest of that day. These weren't wimpy tears rolling down my cheeks. These were huge drops of salty tears, coming from an unknown place deep within me. My cries were long, loud, and emotionally draining. My crying was not associated with anything specific about losing Romeo. These tears simply surrounded the situation itself. The tears were...well, who knows what they were? They simply were. And on this day, I let them come until they were gone. For now.

Yep, I've been crying frequently throughout this experience of Romeo's dementia. There are still more to come. Lots more. But at least now, with the help of acupuncture, they're no longer blocked. They're releasing.

A Caregiver's Grief Process Stepping Up

It's been building quietly for some time now. I release it periodically, when I feel it. But lately there has been a hugeness knocking at the door from the inside, a presence of stress, grief, sadness wanting to be let out. It's making a lot of noise. It's clawing at the inner door of my spirit like a female cat in heat, howling and screaming. And it's winning. It's coming out. My grief process is stepping up.

With losing Romeo to dementia, with losing his physical presence in our home, comes grief. I've been grieving since he was first diagnosed with dementia four years ago, and this grief process of mine comes in waves.

However, for the past month or so there's been more stress, grief, and sadness than I seem to be able to release. Or at least it appears that my frequent releases aren't able to keep up with the grief that keeps coming and coming. I certainly don't want to hold onto it, but it seems stuck, blocked.

So I followed the suggestion of a friend and am having acupuncture to help me through this process. After my first treatment, I started crying before I left the clinic. And I cried on the drive home (yep, I probably should not have driven, but I felt like I could cry all day). And I cried when the nice, handsome policeman pulled me over for speeding (I never speed -- it's been 27 years since I've received any sort of traffic violation!). And I cried when I realized that I must be getting really OLD since I couldn't talk my way out of the ticket. And when I got home, I cried all afternoon without stopping and went to bed crying. Gosh, it felt good.

Acupuncture is my new hero. I'll be going every week for a while. I've never cried so much in my life, and there's still more to come. There are still more energy blockages to burst, and there is still more stress and sadness to release. Gosh, it feels good.