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Remembering the beginning of grief

Here we are coming up on July Fourth. For many, it's a big holiday of gatherings, picnics, parades and barbecues — a recipe for bringing up memories of our loved ones.

A friend and reader recently reminded me that the first months and first year after the death of a loved one are so hard that it's difficult to understand long-term grief. In those first stages one is so busy dealing with the immediate sadness.

She thought of telling me this because she has a cousin who just lost her husband and didn't “get” the problem of long-term grief. Her grief is too immediate and new.

I've been writing a lot about the long term, but I do remember the beginning like it was yesterday. It was July 4, 2012. I was living in the hospital with my dear husband who had a stroke two weeks earlier. Even now — seven years later — for me, it often feels like yesterday.

On July 3 I went home to pick up some fresh clothes and check on the house. I met the new neighbors to the east who were lovely and who had cooked Middle Eastern food for their picnic. It was very similar to the Nazareth-style cooking Baheej grew up with at home — rolled grape leaves, kebab, malfoof (cabbage rolls of lamb with cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg), rice browned in butter with pine nuts. He would have loved it. Then I returned to the hospital but Baheej couldn't have any — he wasn't eating regular meals.

My real grief started at 4 a.m. five weeks later, when I got a phone call. I was still living in the hospital with my husband. By then he was in a rehab hospital and getting daily physical therapy after a second stroke. I had gone home just one night because our youngest son was coming in from California to see his father and I wanted to be home to receive him. Our daughter and grandson were already here.

The phone call was a nurse saying, “He stopped breathing.” We all piled in the car at 4:15 a.m. and took off for the hospital. It was 35 minutes away. And when we got there, my dear Baheej was gone.

Even though he had two strokes and his doctor doubted he'd really recover, I was hoping for a miracle.

A miracle of modern medicine had saved him once before — eight years previously, from a different dangerous illness. This time, no deal. He was gone.

I called my pastor and we waited for the funeral director to come. Then we went home. This how grief began for me.

The next day we went into high speed. Our youngest son and I went to the funeral home with one of Baheej's beautiful suits and chose the casket — in polished mahogany wood, carved with the Last Supper all around. Our son said Baheej would want wood.

We planned an elaborate funeral at our lovely church, St. George Orthodox in Cicero, went to a Middle Eastern restaurant and ordered a big funeral meal for the church dinner after the service.

It's almost a blur, trying to pick out the food, how much, etc.

Both our pastor and the funeral director were very helpful. And it was especially complex since the next day we had to fly to New Hampshire for another service, burial in the Khleif family plot, and another funeral dinner prepared by loving family and friends there.

This is how it starts.

Some version of this may sound familiar.

Then after some days of comfort from the surrounding family, I went on to the reality of “after.”

Luckily I was with my dear sister-in-law and brother-in-law in New Hampshire for some extra days including our wedding anniversary. Then I went home to Sleepy Hollow. After all the intense togetherness, now I was alone.

Everyone has their own experience of this, whether a parent, child, spouse, or friend who died. But next comes the weeks, months, and years ahead.

There is nothing to compare to those first days and weeks of heart-wrenching grief. It's not just emotional, but is physical pain.

And, as it turns out for many, the grief does not go away. I realized this about a year later when I still woke up crying and was buried in all the paperwork and practical to-dos that come with death.

If you had a very close relationship with the lost one, you have a lot to draw on to help sustain you, but it's still extremely hard.

In my case, we were together for 44 years, four wonderful children and six grandchildren, and lovely close nieces and nephews, and our own dear brothers and sisters. So I have lots of memories of happy family trips, holidays, and festive gatherings — everyone stays in touch.

My dear Baheej and I had a wonderful life together, and we traveled extensively in the United States, and to Northern and Western Europe, to many points in Asia, Mexico, North Africa, South America, and Canada. So many, many happy times which help a lot.

Good memories are really your first line of defense for grief, along with the support of family and friends.

The point is: Now we must face the challenge of building a future without our beloved. This takes effort on our part, lots of help and support, and a positive attitude to live in a way that would make your lost one happy.

This is a long and hard journey, but can be done.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a Ph.D. in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College, and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Ander

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