Grief Blindsides

I'm a big fan of the TV show Survivor. I love a good blindside that comes out of nowhere and mixes the game up. However, in the world of grief, I am not a fan of those blindsides that just hit you unexpectedly. They bring on all the yucky feelings or hit you like a baseball bat of pain and sadness.

I think all of us on our grief journey can see ahead to certain days, or activities, that we know well in advance are going to be really rough, and we don’t know how we are going to get through them. The first’s of everything, the birthdays, the family weddings, going to a certain place that was special to our person, doing something we enjoyed with our person. All these things we anticipate are going to be hard and bring up a lot of emotions.

Today I want to talk about some of the things that I wasn’t even aware of before I was a widow that for me were devastating blindsides. I am sure every grieving person has their own grief blindsides, and some of the things I struggled with won’t be the same as another person.

Remember no grief is the same, just as everyone’s loved one was unique, so are the things that blindside us.

So let’s get to some of my blindsides I had, that I didn't see coming. There were and continue to be many so I am just going to highlight a few.

One blindside was writing holiday cards for the first time and not writing his name next to mine. It felt so wrong and such a huge empty space where his should be. I avoided sending cards and stopped sending birthday cards like I used so I could avoid having to do it. Over time I have got more able to sign cards from our family without his name but I still have to take a big breath and tackle it.

I have heard many creative ways that people have come up with for this – including their name but putting a halo above it, or "in memory of [blank]" and some people just don’t send cards anymore – I would love to hear if this was a blindside for you and if you came up with a way that was less horrible for you.

My hubby passed away in August so I had a few months before the holiday season and New Year hit. I was anticipating New Years Eve itself to be rough, but I didn’t expect that the actual date change would be so devastating. Starting a new year that he had not lived in was way more than my grief brain could cope with.

It was not right that time kept moving along without him.

I didn’t want to put a new calendar up that he hadn’t seen. It didn’t make sense and it did not seem fair at all.

The blindside of forms is my next pile of suckyness. Filling out any kind of paperwork that wants to know your relationship status is just so painful. Honestly I was blindsided by how hard it would be to answer, but also how many forms and times you have to declare this. I can understand in some situations, but a lot of the time it is not relevant for the organization to know.

I think instead they should just pick some random question like what is your favourite colour? Or what flavour ice cream do you like? (for anyone interested purple and vanilla) it at least would break the monotony of paperwork.

Then the categories you get to choose from can be a minefield as well, sometimes the only option is single or married but then other times it will have the option widowed and it took me a long time to be able to tick that without a grief wave crashing like a Tsunami.

My last blindside I want to highlight is the emergency contact question. The first time this hit was when I had to take my kids to a medical appointment and I was focused on holding it together, getting everyone there etc. I was on total survival auto pilot mode and then the receptionist cheerfully says

"...and Richard..." (my hubby) "...is the emergency contact."

Bam.

I was not prepared I had no quick answer, I fumbled through the "he is dead" explanation, and then she helpfully said "who do you want me to put down?". I had no idea, as I'd always said Rich. I am way better prepared now and have some options, but it is still hard when it comes up because it is not straightforward, I can’t just put his name down anymore.

There are so many more I could share but I would love to hear from you. Can you relate to any of these blindsides? Do you have some of your own? Get in touch let me know your thoughts, ideas on grief blindsides or if you just want to chat about Survivor!

Either comment below or send me an email at mygrieftribe@gmail.com