I'm letting you know





"Just let me know if you need anything" "Just let me know if I can help" I'm going to let you in on a little secret; those phrases are pretty much a joke to grieving people. They can tell almost immediately that you don't mean it.  Maybe you do mean it when you say, what is more likely true is that you want to mean it. You want to be there for the person in so much pain, you want to be able to help them. You want to tell others you helped out the widow. Really though that is all about you.

Perhaps more people can understand this analogy since more people have had kids then have been struck by death, especially at my age. When you first come home with your brand new baby from the hospital you get a lot of "O we would love to come over and help you out. We can hold the baby for you while you clean the house" That might fly with a fourth child but with a first child thats not what you want at all. You want people to come over and clean your house while you hold your own baby.  Dan and I thought we were prepared when we had Baby Girl, we had read a lot of books. Hahahahahahahahaha ha. Uh first time parents do not know what they are in for. We had no energy to clean our house, but we did want to spend every waking moment with our beautiful daughter (while maybe not at 4 am when she'd been crying for an hour.)  What I wouldn't give for somebody to do our dishes when Baby Girl was first born.

Nobody wanted to. Nobody wants to do dishes ever, especially extra ones that aren't even yours.  The same rule applies in grief. I had no energy for dishes, I could barely stand up. I was one of the lucky ones with amazing support and it was a while before I had to do dishes or make food. When I did finally have to start doing things like that again it was still to soon. I still had no energy for it.  It's been three years since Dan died and I suppose you could say I have enough energy to do my own dishes now, although that is entirely contingent on the day. However, I have no desire to do any dishes. I'm pretty sure 95% of the people in the world don't want to do dishes or clean a house. I get that.

Here is the catch 22 though. well two catch 22's. The first one is when you say "let me know if there's anything I can do" I am not going to call you up and say "Hey can you come over and do my dishes for me that would really help me out, today has been rough" It is what would help me out but I am not going to ask you to do that for me because even I know it sounds ridiculous. I know good and well you don't want to do it and I know your thinking in your head 'well thats ridiculous, I'm not going to do her dishes she can do her own dishes, that has nothing to do with grief, I meant help her with grief'

Here is one of my soap boxes: It has EVERYTHING to do with grief. Grief is related to EVERYTHING. Dan hated doing dishes, hated with a passion. but this is the thing, he still did them when he had to. If I was sick, or not home, or something came up, Dan could and would do the dishes. The thing with being dead is he won't do them anymore, ever. In fact he just plain can't do them anymore. Now it is all on me, I have to do them all the time no matter what else is going on. So take the dish example and apply it to absolutely every single daily thing you can think of. Then times that by 1,000. If you can grasp all that you might have a little tiny clue about how doing mundane crappy jobs nobody wants is related to grief. How even three years later having somebody else show up and do your dishes is a huge relief.


Second catch 22. What did you mean then? " when you said "let me know if there's anything I can do to help." Did you think taking me out to coffee was going to take my grief away. Don't get me wrong I love going out to coffee but it doesn't exactly help, I love having someone to talk to but really going out to coffee with everyone who wants to "help" and telling them how I'm doing is crazy exhausting. Doing that with one or two people is enough. Not everyone can get that job.  Did you mean coming over and mowing my lawn because Dan used to always do it? Great! Come do it, my lawn needs to be mowed. It grows back in two weeks. Are you going to come do it then too? Are you going to come do it all spring and summer long like Dan used to do? Or was your offer to help a one time thing and two weeks later I will be on my own again?

Did you mean watching Baby Girl for me? Thank you! Some days I want to get down on my knees and praise you as you take her away.  Often however her anxiety is such that she doesn't want to and can't leave mommy. (It is getting better, it is getting much better) If I force her to go with you she cries and screams and really all that does is stress out you, Baby Girl and me. So nobody wins there. You know what would be awesome on days like that though; If I could say "Hey Baby Girl doesnt feel up to leaving mommy today so you don't have to babysit."  You could respond with something like 'well why don't I bring you guys dinner so you can spend some quality time with her instead of having to worry about cooking' or 'how about I come over there and do your dishes for you so you can have time to snuggle and then if she decides to go play in the back yard with me you can take a short nap or OMG actually watch an adult TV show. That would be a miracle.

I found out today the headlight is burnt out in my car. I spent quite a long time trying to figure out which male family member I haven't bothered in a while to try and decide who to ask to come help me. Then I went through those and tried to decide which one could get it done in the shortest time frame. Dan was not a car person my any means but with a little googling he could and would change a headlight. I didn't have to ask him, I just had to tell him it needed to be done. I definitely needed to remind him several times because he was the biggest procrastinator that ever lived. But I didn't have to ask him, I didn't have to try and decide if I've asked him to do to many things for me lately. I didn't feel like I was putting him out or being a burden. I still haven't asked anybody to change it yet because I'm pretty certain when at the funeral your wife said "let us know if there's anything we can do"  You didn't mean three years later when your headlight goes out please call and let us know and we will be over the next day with the correct headlight in hand and fix it for you because we said let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Three years ago my husband died. Today I need my headlight fixed. Yes it is related to grief and trying to live without him.  I have a 2015 Subaru Forester. I'm letting you know.

P.S. If you wanna do my dishes as well I'm not gonna stop you.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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