Mistakes, Grief and the End of the Day

For the past week our family's routine was upset by the death of my brother on Monday, October 4. My sister flew in from Georgia to stay with us through the weekend. There were arrangements to be made for the funeral and preparations to be made for out of town visitors. All of these things were a welcome distraction and took our minds off of our grief. The last of our visiting relatives left on Sunday. On Monday morning I was alone in our home for the first time in a week. That is when the reality of the situation set in. How would I handle the mourning process? How would I avoid letting grief take over my life, setting me up to developing unhealthy patterns of behavior?

When my father passed away in 1997 I made my share of mistakes during the months, even years, that followed. I stopped exercising regularly. I developed unhealthy patterns of eating, skipping meals some days and choosing unhealthy foods on other occasions. I spent a lot of time alone watching mindless television while my son was at school and my daughter played alone in the basement. Essentially, I let grief take control of my life. I refuse to let that happen again, I have learned from the mistakes I made in the past.

As I sat sipping my morning coffee on Monday I felt exhausted. I didn't want to take care of the piles of laundry that had accumulated over the past few days. The idea of cleaning the house or running errands was less than appealing. If I had my choice, I'd rather sit in my sweats all morning and well into the afternoon sipping coffee and watching the news. Then I asked myself a couple of questions that put things into perspective:

How do you want to feel at the end of the day? How will you feel if you get nothing accomplished today?

I pictured myself, clad in my sweatpants and t-shirt, a used coffee mug perched on the table beside me. I imagined how pathetic I'd feel if I used my grief as an excuse to let life pass me by. I imagined beating myself up and making lame promises to myself that tomorrow would be different. I didn't like the visions floating around in my head. I got off that chair, put down my cup and went to the basement to work out. Later I ran some errands that I'd been putting off and went out to lunch with my husband (who I know has been sorely neglected in the past months since my attention was focused on my brother.) I ordered an enormous grilled chicken salad and saved half to eat as my dinner.

Lying in bed Monday evening I thought back to those questions I'd asked myself in the morning. While I didn't move mountains that day, I did find ways to spend my day productively. More importantly, I didn't allow grief to cause me to wast precious hours. I know that I'll have to take things one day at a time. I'm confident that some days will be more difficult than others. I have no doubt that I will be asking myself those questions again.