Pride and Joy: Facing Off With My Grief Triggers
I expected to miss you in those silent solitary moments and knew it would haunt me through the dark hours of the night. What I didn’t expect was the pain would have the ability to knock me off my feet while I was at a party, when I was laughing with friends, when I was enjoying a meal with family. . . Nothing prepares you for the power of grief. – Zoe Clark-Coates
As if it wasn’t bad enough that losing your loved one would turn your world upside down, blow up your heart into smithereens and cast you into an abyss of utter despair and sadness, grief also sets a landmine of triggers along your journey. Nothing is easy when it comes to grief work. Nobody gives you a free pass to exempt you from a grief test just because you have been hurting so much since your loved one died. Knowing that the journey is fraught with grief triggers is enough to cause more dread and anguish. Unfortunately, there is no getting around grief. The only way is through it.
It’s going on 10 years since Tim died. Just when I thought I had found a way to peacefully co-exist with my grief and loss, triggers rear their ugly heads to remind me that I am far from the finish line, if there is even such a thing. Just when I thought the painful waves of grief had subsided back to sea, I find myself faced with the threat of this peace, that I have carved out for myself, crashing against the rocks once more.
For 10 years, I avoided driving down McDowell Road where I was bound to pass Banner Good Samaritan Hospital. To those who have not suffered a loss or some form of trauma, it is hard to understand why passing by a building could actually elicit the usual physical pain that grief inflicts – that squeeze to the heart and that big lump in the throat kind of pain, at the very least if one is lucky, or a total emotional meltdown, if not. But it does for me because it is where I last saw Tim alive and painfully said goodbye to him those many years ago. I thank God that I had not had any reason that compelled me to go back there all these years, until recently.
My daughter, Bailey, had a medical issue that prompted me to take her to the ER. Running on adrenalin, I did not have time to anticipate that the moment I had been avoiding all these years was finally going to happen. When we got there, we found that the ER had been moved to a brand new tower. The place did not look familiar at all. It even had a new name – Banner University Medical Center. I thought I was going to be fine after all. It wasn’t until she was in one of the rooms and orders were being sent out for tests and the dreaded word “surgery” was mentioned that I got transported back in time to Tim’s ER visits and confinements. The long hours where I only had my thoughts to keep me company, waiting and not knowing; the worst scenario and the best outcome playing out simultaneously in my head; the familiar waiting room where hope and uncertainty warred inside of me; hours curled up uncomfortably in a chair in freezing temperatures - were triggers that all seemed to say, “Welcome back, Carol!”
Grief Trigger: What Is It?
A grief trigger is anything that brings up memories associated with your loss. Some triggers are a given, such as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. You can anticipate their arrival year in and year out. Whether you like it or not, they will come. Seeing these occasions looming on the horizon heading your way, could plummet you to the depths of your sadness and pain. Even if you knew what was coming, you could never prepare for how it would feel. It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get.
Then, there is the other kind of trigger that might seem innocuous but lies in wait to ambush you. All of a sudden, you are gripped by sorrow and yearning and dragged down to despair. It can come at you anywhere, anytime, when you least expect it. You could be going about your normal routine like driving home, washing dishes, shopping at the grocery store, on your computer at work, or making dinner - when a certain object, place, sight, smell, sound, or memory suddenly and unexpectedly floods you with emotion. You find yourself back in your personal Ground Zero where nothing else matters but your pain and loss.
Fight or Flight?
In the early days of loss, I had my fair share of both kinds of triggers. They were intense and unrelenting. They never felt the same. Some brought me to my knees as if I had literally gotten sucker punched, sometimes even paralyzed. I could do nothing but just crumple and helplessly give in to their power. On better days, I could claim minor victories where I managed to pull myself from the bootstraps, dust myself off and put an imaginary tally mark in my favor - Carol – 1, Grief – 0.
I remember driving to meet a friend for lunch when Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Pride and Joy, came on the radio. Tim made it his song for me when he told me I was his pride and joy. He even signed his texts and emails to me with “Lover Boy,” as it goes in the song. Suddenly, I felt as if a knife was thrust right into my heart and twisted for good measure. The pain was so intense that I had to catch my breath. Then the floodgates opened and I had to pull over because I was a sobbing, shaking mess.
Three months after he died, I braved going to a friend’s wedding, determined that I would try my best to feel joy, if not for myself, at least for her. I smiled, socialized, and even laughed at a joke or two. I even managed to dance. I was distracted and starting to enjoy myself when the DJ called, “all the married couples to the dance floor, please.” Our table quickly emptied out. In a split second, I was faced with my reality. I was reminded of my loss, my grief, and most of all, the fact that my couple status had been recently revoked. It threw down the gauntlet for me to stay or to bolt, so I could go and weep and wail in private. I sat for as long as I could. My jaws were clamped down so tight I thought I would break my teeth just so I wouldn’t give in to the tears that were starting to gather in the corners of my eyes. I knew that if I relaxed a little bit, they would turn torrential and ugly. Thankfully, I had my best friend, Rita, who sensed the battle that was waging in me. She squeezed my hand and whispered, “It’s going to be okay.” Slowly, with several deep breaths and hanging on to her hand like my life depended on it, I found the strength to assert myself and say to grief, “Not today, bitch!”
Church was a big trigger because Tim was one of the head ushers. I always expected to see him walking down the aisle during the offertory part of the mass. My heart would start racing when the collection basket would come my way. I would give the envelop to the kids and look down so I would not see the usher’s face, for fear that I would see Tim’s smiling face instead and suffer a meltdown.
Funerals are still difficult for me. Just recently, I flew to Chicago with my sister in-law because Tim’s oldest sister passed away. Just seeing his name on the obituary as preceding her in death, opened up the old wound and brought the rawness of my own loss to the surface once again.
When I lost him, everything became a trigger – restaurants, grocery stores, the men’s department at Macy’s, the smell of his cologne, photos, songs, his favorite shirt, etc. All became agonizing reminders of his absence.
Because of the pain and the host of emotions these triggers bring, our first instinct is to run away from them. In my own grief journey, I’m learning not to avoid these triggers. But it took me a while before I could go back to the places where we once shared happy times together and much longer to those that reminded me of the events leading up to the bitter end.
The Double-Edged Sword
When we lose someone we love, we are not just losing a person. We are also losing all the pieces that connected us to them. After all, they were many things to us – in my case, Tim was my best friend, husband, lover, co-parent, provider, confidante, protector, and biggest fan and supporter.
In death, memories are all we have left of them. We yearn to connect with our loved ones in order to fill the void they left within us. Grief triggers provide that connection. Good or bad, they bring back memories that are so real, we feel as though they are with us once again. In their painful way, they are actually helping us to acknowledge and wrap our minds around the reality of our loss.
It Won’t Always Be Like This
In order to heal, grief has to be experienced over and over.
Grief triggers will always be a part of our journey. As we acknowledge the loss of our loved ones and move forward with our lives, a time will come when these triggers will no longer send us reeling in pain, but serve as a connection that fills us with love and remembrance. Though they may still cause us to feel a bit melancholy at times, they will no longer have the power to torment us. We will no longer have to avoid them. We will find that the very same grief trigger that dealt us so much pain in the past, is now the one that warms our hearts and makes our loved ones feel closer to us. The same trigger now brings us peace and moments that we will always cherish in our hearts.
As an old song, Pride and Joy, doesn’t usually get played on the airwaves. Nowadays, when I hear it playing on the radio, I know that Tim is tuned in to me and is giving me the reassurance that he is still so much with and around me. I no longer feel that stabbing pain in the heart. Instead, with it come happy memories when he would play it in the car on the way to work and we’d sing along as our morning anthem. I know, without a doubt, that he is reminding me that I am still his “Sweet L’il Thang” and his pride and joy, and he will always be my “L’il Lover Boy.”
(No copyright infringement is intended as this video is posted solely in appreciation of the artist and his work.)
