Some dog-eared pages in this book I'm reading. Thought I'd share a few excerpts from The Orphaned Adult by Alexander Levy:
How well anything is put together is disclosed when pressure is applied. Lean on a table. See if it wobbles. That'll tell how well the joints are glued. Sit in a chair, scrunch around, and learn how tightly its pieces fit. Pull a cloth to test its threads and the tightness of the weave. Put pressure on a marriage, and find out what it, and the people in it, are made of. (pg. 90)
I had always been a taker, not a giver. I remember one time in particular, when I was a high-school senior, my mother came into my room one Saturday morning around eleven o'clock or so, sat on my bed, and said, "It would please your father and me very much if you would make the effort to get up one Saturday on your own, without me having to nag you, and mow the lawn." Well, I never did get up on Saturday morning and mow the lawn. I was too selfish. However, when my father was dying, for the first time in my life, I discovered the ability to be generous, gentle, kind, and loving. At one point, I even decided to move in with my father. He was having accidents at night, and I would get up and change his sheets for him. In the past, I would have gone on a tirade: "You have a urinal there. Why didn't you use it? If you didn't think you were going to make it up, why didn't you wake me? Why should I have to get up and change this bed?" But, no, I didn't say those things. It almost wasn't me. For the first time, I was able to give of myself, from my heart. It's like I was finally able to get up and mow the lawn without having to be asked" (pgs.103-104)
Grief comes in waves that last for a while and then abate. We get distracted for a while by something else - a phone call, hitting our thumb with a hammer, having to park the car in a very tight space. Lonely times are interrupted for a while by visiting friends. Pain and fear-filled thoughts temporarily yield to happy or amusing reminiscences. We feel better, and mistakenly, think grief is over, only to be discouraged by its return with the next wave. We do not pass through grief in a straight line. We do not start feeling better and then, bit by bit, get better and better, each day an improvement over the day before, each week easier than the one it follows. The recovery from loss is much more erratic than that. It is characterized by times of feeling pretty good, in which we dare to believe that crying time might be almost over, followed by crushing times of feeling much worse, in which we believe crying time will never end.(pgs. 150-151)
Edited to add two more:
The bereft are exhausted. Emotions activated by grief - sorrow, anger, fear, remorse, and so on - require a lot of energy. Expressing emotions, whether by crying raging, or sulking, uses energy. Suppressing emotions to conceal them from ourselves and others uses even more energy. Becoming increasingly vigilant in response to strange circumstances uses energy. Struggling to understand and solve problems with which we are unaccustomed, especially when resources are already depleted, uses energy. Grief is hard work. (pg. 159)
When people ask for guidance to get through times of great sorrow, I usually include the recommendation that they pray. If they ask me how, I reply, "However you pray will be fine." ....If they say they do not know how to pray, I tell them, "Well, then, that'll be the first thing you can pray for." Just about everybody prays, one way or another ... I know lots more who never enter any religious building ... but they cry out indignantly at the injustices life throws their way ... I wonder to whom they are speaking. I do not encourage people to pray in order to convert them to a particular religion, or for that matter, to religion at all. ...I encourage people to pray, by themselves or in prayer groups, for one reason - I see that it works. Prayer causes something unexpectedly restorative and wonderful to happen in healing people's hearts. Prayer is good for us. Prayer helps us to recover faster and to live our lives more fully. ...Over the years I have observed that people who have come to me for help who also pray - regardless of their religious affiliation, what they hold sacred, or how dogmatically they observe the doctrines of their faith - seem to get their lives going in satisfying ways and start feeling whole again faster than those who do not pray. I encourage people to pray because I have observed a direct connection between prayer and recovery. I cannot say why this happens. But then, come to think of it, I have no idea how a television works either. I just know which buttons bo push. I don't understand how flowers grow. I just weed, fertilize, and water. The flower takes care of the rest. I don't know how or why prayer helps. I have just seen that it does.(pgs. 170-172)
