Midlife Clarity by Cynthia Black & Laura Carlsmith

Author:Cynthia Black & Laura Carlsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beyond Words

Carole Jarvis

A Healing Truth

Carole Jarvis is a medical transcriptionist living in Indiana. She is the mother of two sons and one daughter. Her sons are now married, and daughter Kelli is the subject of this writing. Carole is also the grandmother of two. Regular visits to Florida and the ocean top her list of enjoyable outings.

The writing of this piece was prompted by attempting to help a good friend in the grieving process. It is Carole’s hope that other readers could find validation in reading her words.

TAKE A WALK WITH ME. A WALK THROUGH WORDS, BUT more importantly through a part of life. Walk with me through grief—painful grief, knock-you-down, rip-you-up-and-leave-you-for-dead grief. But remember, I said “through.” You won’t have to stay there. You won’t want to stay there and you may not look at life the same again. I know that I don’t.

People are different. Different from each other in a multitude of ways, including the ways they handle a life crisis. As a society, we measure strength in many ways, but I believe that many of the calipers used to judge a grieving person do not truly measure one’s strength or weakness. Often society will allow a certain time frame to grieve, or will view certain behaviors, such as returning to work or to a “normal” life, as acceptable. That is why a grieving person, in trying to conform to society’s wishes, may simply learn to mask his or her true feelings to make others less uncomfortable.

Facing death is seldom easy, and to place a measurement on the intensity or validity of one’s emotions, or to make comparisons between two people’s reactions to death is without any constructive purpose. Each one of us who endures the death of a loved one possesses a unique gauge by which to measure the impact of that loss to our being. How the life of one person impacts another is strictly an individual thing. When you find yourself in a reality that no amount of preparation or previous life situation can prepare you for, even the closest of family or friends cannot truly realize the scope of your trauma. We bring with us into our grief work our history—our baggage—whether resolved or not. And as we are different and unique as human beings, our history and our baggage are different. This is truth. And if we recognize this as truth, then we must be willing to recognize that each of us will deal with grief in our own way, and in our own time.

With this realization of our differences, it seems obvious that generalized time frames to grieve are futile. For too many years, society has slated that two years is an acceptable period to mourn. Many of us have listened to claims that remaining busy or having more children or remarrying will “help.” Perhaps this is true for some, but more often these are simplistic solutions for complex situations.

When my ten-year-old daughter Kelli was killed in a snowmobile accident, it forced me to assess all that I valued, believed, and was—including everything that I had come from.

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