Group Grief

Hudson Review, The, Winter 2005 by Tuck, Lily

Teresa says she goes to church to pray but also because it is quiet there. Then, again, she goes off on a tangent, this time about her neighbor who, Teresa says, has lost five family members, beginning with her husband who had a heart attack last year and a daughter who died of colon cancer. (I look over at Sallywhy doesn't Sally stop Teresa's crazy rant?-instead Sally is nodding encouragement at Teresa.) The neighbor drinks, Teresa continues. The neighbor is seventy-six and she began drinking when she was thirteen, she smokes, too, Teresa says. Teresa and her husband tried to help the neighbor, they gave her money, bought her groceries, but the neighbor was not grateful (who can blame her?). Teresa says she tried to get the neighbor to come to church with her but the neighbor refuses to.

Amy says that, for her daughter's sake, she has to be careful and that she no longer drinks; she starts to fiddle with her gold hoop earrings. She also says that all the things that once made her happy, like Christmas and like parties, make her unhappy now.

Sally says: Your life has changed.

Next month, Florence says, a friend asked her to a wedding. The friend insists that Florence go to the wedding but Florence does not want to go. She won't have an escort, she says, and who, she asks, will dance with her?

A week or so before he died, Edward, who loved to dance, took me in his arms, and we did a brief little fox trot down the hall of the apartment.

VII. Creating Your Own Inner Sanctuary

Yes!-Fred starts in on how, this week, he chose some of his wife's best clothes, some of the clothes which he says were custom made, and offered them to his neighbor and, as a result, he feels that he has made progress and is coping better.

Shaking her head, Amy says she still feels lonely. She says, at night, she sleeps in her daughter's bed instead of in her own and Johnny's bed.

Sally says that grief is a very isolating experience; one can be in a room full of people and still feel alone.

Sue says that she has always slept in her and her husband's bed; as a matter of fact, after her husband died-in that bed-she did not change the sheets for a week. She could still smell him, she says, and there were urine stains on the sheets.

I don't say that I too sleep in our bed; and that while Edward was alive, I used to change the sheets on the bed once a week, Tuesday. Now, the sheets don't get dirty, and only one side of the bed is slept on and the other stays fresh and clean. Sometimes two or three weeks go by before I bother to change the sheets on the bed.

Sally then asks if there is something someone wants to talk about.

Remorse and regret, I suggest.

I say I regret that I was not more tender or affectionate with Edward during the last few weeks of his life. Part of the reason for this, I say, was that I wanted to put on a brave face, I wanted to protect Edward from my own fear and grief. Also, I did not want him to have to worry about me. As a result, I acted too much like an efficient nurse: did you take your meds? did you have a bowel movement? did you drink enough water? I never once said: Edward, I love you.