Group Grief

Hudson Review, The, Winter 2005 by Tuck, Lily

My turn but I cannot speak.

II. The Journey of Grief

What shall I do about my wife's clothes? Fred asks right away. He says he does not know whether to keep the clothes or give them away. (Earlier, as we were coming in, Fred seemed cheerful enough: he commented on the cold weather, asked each one of us how our week had been, joked with Sally.) Now his face crumples and he starts to cry. Sally makes soothing noises and tells him that it is probably too soon. She also says it is best to give clothes away to someone one knows. Fred says his wife was very petite, very slender, he does not know anyone who would fit into her clothes. She had a lot of beautiful clothes, he adds. Sue, the Korean-American woman, says that she got rid of all her husband's clothes right away, she could not bear the sight of them; she asked her children to dispose of them and they did. Now she regrets that she did not keep something, a sweater. Sally tells how someone once told her about finding a candy in one of her husband's pockets and she ate it. The candy was a comfort. (What, I think, if she had found a condom? A woman's phone number? but I don't say anything. Am I the only one who has these dark thoughts?)

One of my problems, I realize, is that I tend to feel superior to other people-smarter and, years ago, probably, prettier tooand that has always been my problem. Why can't I act like everyone else? Why can't I just fit into the group? Why must I be so judgmental? I remember how once a writing teacher told me I had an "attitude," and I could never write until I got rid of it. He was probably right. Another time, in another group, we were asked to write down the quality we liked best about ourselves, and everyone wrote down things like loyalty, honesty, a sense of humor and I, to show off (and to disrupt), wrote: my slender ankles.

Tonight there are only six of us-no Robert.

In the printout that we have been given, grief is defined as "the realization that life will no longer be lived in the way we expected. We grieve not only the past history we've shared with our loved one, but also our hopes and dreams for the future." This realization will affect us on a number of different levels: physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual. Under the cognitive level it says: "Inability to concentrate, preoccupation with thoughts of your loved one or the days and events leading up to the death."

My husband, Edward, who was seventy-five, died within ten days of when he was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, which is cancer of the gall bladder. When I telephoned the doctor to tell him that Edward had died, even he could not hide his surprise, "Oh, my," he said. A friend, who is also a doctor, said, "Edward might as well have been run over by a truck, it happened so fast." All I can think about now is those last days of his life.

In August, while we were vacationing in our house on an island in Maine, Edward said he had a pain in his chest, on the right side; it hurt him to take a deep breath, cough or sneeze. Earlier he had slipped on the rocks on the beach while swimming, and we assumed he had broken or cracked a rib, and we also both knew that nothing could be done about that. However, the pain did not go away; it got worse. Mid-August we went by boat to the neighboring larger island where there was a physician's assistant. The P.A., a woman, examined Edward and found nothing amiss; she did however suggest he go have blood work done at Pen-Bay, the nearest hospital on the mainland; but with two more weeks of vacation left and houseguests arriving, Edward decided to wait until we returned to the city. By this time, we had discarded the broken rib theory and had adopted the gallstones theory.