Surviving a Loss

“Grief is a sneaky thing.” This is a line from the best book I have ever read on how to get through the grieving process, no matter how tiny or profound the loss may be. Once upon a time, it was a thin little paperback titled How To Survive the Loss of a Love or 57 Things to Do When There is Nothing to Be Done. In the years since I first bought this book, it has been expanded and reissued until it has become a classic. I have given away so many copies; I don’t even have one of my own.

The book is compassionate, practical, instructive, and humorous. Its authors are Melba Colgrove, a psychologist; Harold Bloom, a physician; and Peter McWilliams, a very funny poet. When I first read it, I didn’t realize it was a somewhat simplified encapsulation of Katherine Kubler Ross’s stages of grief. Sometimes, simple is better—easier to grasp and remember, especially when one is in pain.

In How to Survive the Loss of a Love, there are three principal stages of grief: shock/denial, anger/depression, and acceptance/healing. When I’m trying to get through a loss, I can always identify the exact stage I’m going through. What I’ve learned is that these are not tidy, sequential stages I can tick off one at a time until I arrive at “healing.” Grieving is a messy process. Sometimes, I skip a stage and then have to double back and go through it later. Even more frustrating are the times when I think I’ve completed a stage and then find I’m temporary stuck there or have to return to experience it yet again.

If the grieving process can be simply categorized into three stages, loss itself is not so easily defined. The book is mis-titled in my opinion. It isn’t only a lost love one grieves for; it is any loss, and there are many in life. I attended a discussion on the subject of loss and was once again amazed at how many perspectives there are on this little word. This discussion covered losses ranging from divorce and death to family, friendships, aging, and physical abilities.

We probably could have sat there for hours, adding to our observations and recollections. Some losses were long past and faded with time; others were fresh wounds. It was an emotional conversation colored by compassion, caring, and concern for each other.

I came away with three realizations: There is love and support to help us survive the losses life throws our way. Yet, even with support, grief is a do-it-yourself process. It is a road each of us must travel alone. Finally, it is comforting to know we will make it to the end of the road, changed in some way, but healed nonetheless.

B.F.F. (Best Friends Forever)

I talked to my oldest friend today—I don’t mean in age; I mean in years of friendship. We met in 1949 in seventh grade on the south side of Chicago. We were twelve. Being a mathematical wizard, I just figured out we have been friends for 60 years. No matter how you look at it, that’s pretty amazing.

If someone had told me then that we would be on the phone, in our seventies, living 2000 miles apart, but still sharing confidences and comparing notes, I’d have rolled my eyes in disbelief. Yeah, right. (Of course, in those days we neither rolled our eyes nor said, yeah, right.)

Seventh grade was before either of us had been out on a first date, put on lipstick, or understood the concept of being “popular.” We fought with her big brother, baby sat for my little sister, and lamented that our mothers didn’t understand us. She sang and danced; I drew and painted. We stormed through adolescence, doubled dated in high school, and lived different lives at college.

She got married and had a baby when we ourselves were still babies. She lived on a kibbutz, while I went to fraternity parties on campus. She was unconventional and free spirited; I moved through the stages of my life as if I were following an invisible plan. We both learned about divorce the hard way. She got a master’s degree and remarried. I built a life as a writer. Her life looked exciting to me; I’m not sure how mine seemed to her. Now, she is retired, and I have reinvented myself, yet again.

Years passed, always finding us in different cities but somehow keeping the ties of our friendship firmly knotted. We saw each other infrequently, always swearing we would celebrate our next milestone birthday or anniversary together but never quite pulling it off.

Now, suddenly, six decades have passed, and we realize we can’t always assume we’ll get together sometime soon. What if there is no sometime soon? What if there is only now, and we are blowing it by thinking we have forever? No one has forever. Few people have friendships that remain intact and intimate for so long. Life is unpredictable, uncertain.

That’s why we are making definite plans for Christmas 2009 to celebrate our extraordinary friendship.