Almost 100%

Written by RJ on July 9, 2014. Posted in Healing

I have been attending bereavement counseling sessions as a service from Hospice for many months. These sessions have been individual meetings with the same counselor who I will call Lynn. About once a month, Lynn and I have met to discuss my grief and how I am dealing with it. We talk about my current state of affairs and feelings that I have about my loss. Earlier this year I participated in a widows and widowers bereavement support group that met once a week for eight weeks and I benefitted greatly from that. My experience with Lynn has been different from that because it has been a much longer period of time and because it is just her and I sitting together in a room for 60 minutes. It is a very private and reflective experience.

Lynn is trained to counsel and advise people who have lost a loved one. That’s what she does all day long and she is good at it. She knows how people typically progress with the grief process and provides guidance and comfort to those of us brave enough to sit with her. Brave enough? Yes, I did say that. It takes a certain kind of bravery to tell a stranger your darkest fears and secrets and I’m sure many people are uncomfortable with that. I wasn’t. For me, each Hospice counseling with Lynn was an opportunity to open my heart and let my feelings be heard. It is often difficult to find people who are willing to listen to how a grieving person actually feels. Some might ask “Oh, how are you doing, Rob? I think about you often.” But too many of those people are not really interested in hearing about how I actually feel or the range of emotion that I go through. It makes them uncomfortable. That is okay though and I understand their reluctance to engage in that type of conversation. On the other hand, Lynn has no choice. She has to listen to me, it’s her job. And with that knowledge, I was able to tell her everything I was feeling. Unconditionally.

I had never been in any form of counseling sessions before but I quickly learned how beneficial they could be. It was the sense I had that regardless of what I said, I couldn’t be wrong. I was discussing my feelings, my troubles and how I felt about the death of my wife. And I had a professional listener and adviser in the room with me who wanted to help me with my process of coping with that loss. In many ways I felt that she wasn’t just helping me cope but also helping me learn from it and make me stronger as a result of it. Lynn offered me a lot of encouragement to grow myself into a better person. There were no secrets kept when I was in that room. I told her everything that related to my loss. How I felt, what I was planning, what I had done. We talked about the people in my life and their feelings and my role in helping them cope. I talked, I listened, I laughed and I did a lot crying and everything was good because everything was about me and how I felt and how I could get better.

I like to think that Lynn enjoyed our sessions. I have taken on some activities that are somewhat unique to the grieving process and she was always interested in hearing about those things. Of course I was always anxious to tell her about them as well. I wondered if she wrote some of them down and if she would someday share them with other clients or talk to her associates about them. I truly hope she might. There are few things more healing than success stories shared.

So am I a success story? I think that in certain ways I am very much that. Lynn thought so. I used some tools that were offered to me, tools that were left for me to find, to build a network of support and comfort. I threw in some of my own creativity and with my network and some divine help along the way, I feel I have succeeded.

Yesterday when Lynn asked me how I was doing, I said, “You know Lynn, I feel pretty close to 100%.” I’m not sure there has ever been a point in my entire life when I could have said that yet it was the most honest answer I could give to her question. It wasn’t just my bereavement rehab that I felt almost 100% about, it was the whole state of my life. I am in a good place with my grief, I have met someone who I enjoy being with and is very supportive to me, I am active in worthy volunteer causes, I have wonderful relationships with my children and I have so much to be thankful for. If that doesn’t all add up to 100% it comes pretty close.

Towards the end of yesterday’s session, Lynn asked me if I thought I still needed to come back. I turned her question back on her and asked for her professional opinion. Lynn said that she thought I had made great progress and was in a good place with my life and my grief. I agreed with her and we parted with a hug. She has been a significant piece of my healing by listening and understanding and has helped me get better, almost all the way to 100%. And as I walked to my car it almost felt like I had graduated.

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