What Abi Taught Us

by Lucy Hone

  Given that the worst thing has happened, what are you hoping for now?

  Inspiration

  Inspiration keeps me going. Tales of others who have endured terrible life stories inspires me to get up and keep going. Day in day out. Charney and Southwick have found, across multiple interviews, that having a role model, or even role models, is a key factor promoting resilience. ‘Role models can be found in one’s own life (like your parents) or even people you don’t know who are inspirational and have been through something similar. We heard a lot about this from the prisoners of war, who when they were in prison took the other prisoners as role models—many of whom were offered early release but said none of us will go until we all are released together.’17

  In the course of researching this book, I’ve stumbled upon many inspirational role models who have given me the strength to keep going. One of them is Carolyn Moor, founder of the Modern Widows Club (www.modernwidowsclub.com). Following the sudden death of her husband on Valentine’s Day in 2000, after their vehicle was struck by a car as they returned from dinner, Moor established the MWC, a community of widows aimed at empowering each other to ‘lean into life, build resilience and release their potential to make a positive difference in the world’. From just three widows meeting in Moor’s home in Florida in 2011, MWC grew to include 3000 members and over 12,000 followers on Facebook by 2015. Inspiration motivates us to keep on pushing forward, to keep trying, as we notice how others have endured tremendous loss and still managed to survive.

  Who inspires you?

  What stories have you heard that have helped you?

  Gratitude

  Gratitude helps us deal with our grief by enabling us to focus on what we have, rather than exclusively focusing on what we have lost. Even without Abi here, I am grateful for many things. Firstly, for the family I have left—for Trevor, Ed and Paddy, and all the purpose and reason they bring to my life, but also for the love they give me. I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to live when Sally, my dear friend, wasn’t given that chance. She embodied beauty, spontaneity and generosity, and I’m determined to carry on that legacy. I’m grateful every morning I wake up to see Trevor is still alive, to have him by my side for another day. I am grateful for my amazing family and friends, for everything they did for us in those first few days, weeks and months. I’m grateful for their patience and willingness to embark on this long, long journey with us, and never complain at the pace of our recovery, for never expecting us to ‘get over’ Abi’s loss or stop thinking about her.

  GRATITUDE HELPS BY ENABLING US TO FOCUS ON WHAT WE HAVE, RATHER THAN EXCLUSIVELY FOCUSING ON WHAT WE HAVE LOST.

  It’s easy to see how gratitude helps me take a broader look at my life, to consider the boys as much as I consider Abi. My gratitude at having the chance to live when Sally is dead spurs me on when I’m feeling flat and lacklustre and don’t really want to do anything. How can I not walk out to Boulder Bay, join friends for a drink, or prepare a family meal when she no longer has any of these opportunities? What kind of a friend does that make me? Occasionally I put three stones in my pocket—good old Kiwi river stones—as a physical reminder of the things I am grateful for that day. Gratitude forces me to look beyond what I’ve lost.

  What are you grateful for?

  Who are you grateful for?

  Serenity

  In the days after the girls died, it wasn’t easy to find peace. Living with a maelstrom in my head, a house full of people, colliding thoughts and emotions, and so many decisions to make, serenity was elusive. And yet. By retiring to bed, shutting myself away in our room, picking up a book, putting on headphones, driving someone home, I did find some quiet moments. Even amid all the chaos, my brain’s fundamental desire for serenity expressed itself by repeating words of an old favourite hymn: ‘Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire . . . o still, small voice of calm, o still, small voice of calm’. Those words kept urging me to find some stillness and calm amid the madness.

  Where can you find some calm?

  What do you have to do to secure five minutes alone for yourself?

  Humour

  Trevor uses humour all the time, and I’m glad to say there’s plenty of it. I have never felt bad about laughing, even in those first few hours after we were told of Abi’s death. Sitting in the back of the police car, as we were driven five hours to the hospital to identify our daughter, Trevor, Ed, Paddy and I shared stories of our beautiful girl—how much she’d made us laugh, how ridiculous and infuriating she could be. Whoever said never speak ill of the dead? We have laughed and laughed about how annoying she was, pushing her food around her plate, pathetically attempting to brush the massive knots from her hair, how easily baited by the boys she was, how she’d scrunch up her face in fury. Her mad dances, made up on the spot, but allegedly forged from hours of practice.

  It’s easy to see how laughter bonds us to others in the face of grief; it cements our memories and brings us closer. There’s now even good evidence explaining why we sometimes find ourselves laughing at inappropriate times—laughing in the face of death. Proper, cackling laughter (Duchenne laughter, as psychologists refer to it) has been shown to be significantly associated with reduced anger and increased enjoyment among bereaved spouses, as well as with increased enjoyment, better social relationships and disassociation from distress. People who genuinely laughed and smiled more when talking about their loss coped better over the first two years of their bereavement than those who did not.18

  A few months after the girls died, I was invited to go to a local school’s LipSynch night. Knowing that the onstage entertainment meant I wouldn’t have to spend the evening talking to the entire community, but could just watch the acts, I went along. I also went because I knew that it was always a fun night out, and having a bloody good laugh would help, providing some respite from the frequency and intensity of negative emotion, and topping up my quota of positive emotions.

  Which of your friends can still make you laugh?

  Which films, podcasts or TV shows can you turn to for an easy laugh?

  Love

  There’s always been love during the pain of our bereavement. Bereavement is about love, after all—the love you had for another person. The love you have for them still. The great thing about love, of course—its evolutionary purpose—is that it connects us to others. Feeling love prompts us to reach out, to include others, to look beyond ourselves. Love broadens us and builds our social resources. When the worst happens, it is our social networks and resources that we rely on. In the face of Abi’s death, I have vowed to love more.

  Exercise in finding positive emotions

  Because positive emotions are fleeting and often go unnoticed—unlike negative emotions which tend to hang around—there’s much to be gained by actively seeking them out. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that while you are experiencing a prolonged bout of depression you beat yourself up about not wanting to attend a comedy club. What I am suggesting is that you try to recognise these emotions as they occur in your life, and notice the opportunities to experience more of them.

  I have come to think of experiencing positive emotions as investing (i.e. paying deposits) into my psychological piggy bank—which, let’s face it, I am now raiding regularly, with daily, at times hourly, bouts of sadness and worry. Knowing my resources are being constantly depleted helps me to focus on re-investing in them via sleep and positive emotions. It reminds me to give space and opportunity for positive emotions to arise: to find the time to explore things that make me curious, embrace humour and feel the cathartic nature of laughter, to use moments of serenity to take stock and feel gratitude for the good things; to look up at the sky, the weather, the moon, and down at the caterpillar and daises with awe. All these emotions were given to us for a reason. Value and feel them all.

  Taking a look at the full complement of positive emotions listed below and spend a moment considering where and how you can find these in your o
wn life:

  TWO STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING POSITIVE EMOTIONS

  1 Savour the past, present and future

  Fred Bryant is the leading social scientist investigating savouring—that is, thoughts or behaviours capable of generating, intensifying and prolonging enjoyment. According to Bryant, ‘being able to handle negative events in ways that reduce distress does not guarantee one will experience positive events in ways that promote well-being’.19 In other words, being good at coping is not enough to make us happy; happiness requires that we are able to appreciate life’s good moments.

  Savouring helps us get more bang for our buck from positive experiences, partly because it can be carried out across three different time frames: we can reminisce about an event (a holiday with our loved one, a funny moment we shared); we can work hard to be more mindful and use all five senses to enjoy good experiences as they occur; and we can anticipate the future (fantasise or dream about upcoming events). Bryant’s research shows savouring is an effective way of building positive emotions, promoting optimism, and that people who savour are more confident and gratified, less hopeless and neurotic.

  2 #HTGS

  I follow Karen Reivich on Instagram and often see her posting about moments she’s grateful for. I recall her teaching us about the negativity bias (how humans are hard wired to notice the bad things that happen more readily than the good), and love her #htgs posts designed to override that negativity bias by encouraging us to ‘hunt the good stuff’. HTGS is a technique Reivich and colleagues use to promote positive emotions, gratitude and optimism in the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness programme they’ve been running with the US Army. It evolved from an exercise in which American psychologists Martin Seligman, Tracy Steen, Nansook Park and Christopher Peterson asked participants to focus on three good things that occurred in their day, and the role they played in those good things. The results of this study were astounding, showing that those people assigned to the three good things condition reported greater levels of happiness and decreased symptoms of depression for up to six months afterward. Cultivating a habit of noticing the good things in life helps increase your quota of daily positive emotions.

  Chapter 8

  Distraction

  IN THE FIRST YEAR after Abi’s death, my near-constant thoughts of her almost drove me mad. My immediate thoughts on waking would be of her—nothing concrete, nothing in particular, just a profound knowledge that she’s not here anymore, that she’s gone forever, and a deadness, a longing gnawed deep inside. I used to play games in my head, resolving that, instead of thinking constantly of Abi, I’d redirect my attention to thoughts about my (incredible and living) boys. What are they up to right now? What are their favourite clothes, what are their opinions of this or that? What do they look like? How do they smell? Essentially, I would attempt to transfer the type of questions that would circle round and round in my head about Abi to them—just to give myself a break from the constant obsession with her, which was exhausting, not natural and made me feel quite bonkers. Less than a minute into this exercise I’d call it off, accepting the futility. Frustratingly, I simply could not dwell on them and the minutiae of their lives in the way I kept thinking about her.

  This habit of dwelling on negative thoughts, chewing them over and over in our minds, is referred to by psychologists as ‘rumination’. When rumination is short-lived it can be useful, helping us to organise our thoughts, work out what went wrong and how we can avoid similar situations in future. But, when we ruminate over long stretches of time, covering the same ground over and over again, rumination is not beneficial. Chronic rumination can amplify our negative mood, exacerbating the pain, and rarely leads to effective solutions.

  In the face of such endless rumination, I therefore had to find other things to consume my attention. Work helped. Being with other people and talking about other things helped. When my thoughts of Abi, and the constant longing, became too oppressive, I’d contact a friend or colleague and ask to meet, to walk the dog, catch up for a ten-minute coffee break, make a Skype call to discuss some aspect of work that required my total concentration. Anything to pull me out of the introspection and allow my brain some time off.

  Accordingly, I was pleased to read an academic paper suggesting that ‘coping is embedded in everyday life experience, which involves taking time off from grieving, as when watching an engrossing TV programme, reading, talking with friends about some other topic, or sleeping’.1 The researchers, Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, regard grieving as a dual process as we oscillate backwards and forwards, at times confronting and at others avoiding our grief in order to get some respite. The dual process refers both to this oscillation between confrontation and avoidance, and to the fact that the bereaved have to cope with two types of stressors: loss-oriented stressors and restoration-oriented stressors. In other words, we have to deal with the loss experience itself (thinking about the dead person, remembering life as it was, looking at old photos, going over the circumstances and events surrounding the death, crying about the loss) and the stress of working out how we are going to live without the deceased in the future (dealing with finances and loneliness, perhaps moving home, learning to cook, paying the bills, and so on).

  WE OSCILLATE BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS, AT TIMES CONFRONTING AND AT OTHERS AVOIDING OUR GRIEF IN ORDER TO GET SOME RESPITE.

  In stark contrast to Kübler-Ross’s model, Stroebe and Schut do not believe in phases of bereavement. ‘We do not propose a sequence of stages, but rather a waxing and waning, an ongoing flexibility, over time. Early in bereavement, loss orientation dominates, later on attention turns more and more to other sources of upheaval and distress. At times the bereaved will be confronted by their loss, at other times they will avoid memories, be distracted, or seek relief by concentration on other things.’2 This dual process seems to resonate with the bereaved I’ve interviewed. Claire Rushton, who lost her 16-year-old daughter Courtenay to meningitis in 2014, describes this process as ‘dipping my toe into the water’, the water representing life outside of her grief. ‘By slicing up each experience, a social engagement, or simply a trip to the shops or supermarket which were and still can be completely overwhelming, the hurdles are smaller and my emotions aren’t swamped. It’s like testing the waters to see what I can handle. Some days I can get my whole foot in, other days it’s just too much,’ she explains, describing the process of approach and withdrawal at different times of her grief.3 Stroebe and Schut stress that oscillation is necessary for optimal mental and physical health adjustment. ‘The person may choose to take “time off ”, be distracted, or need to attend to new things, or at times it may be too painful to confront some aspect, leading to voluntary suppression.’4

  Camille Wortman, another academic focused on grief and bereavement, explains that finding engaging activities to distract us from thoughts is an effective strategy used for combatting depression. ‘It is certainly clear from the research evidence, as well as from my personal experience, that distraction can be an important element in the mourning process. Yet almost nobody talks about it,’ she wrote to me.5

  WE CAN USE SMALL ACTIVITIES AS A BRIDGE TO HELP US RETURN TO THE WORLD OF THE LIVING.

  ‘Being involved in an engaging activity can break the grip of negative thoughts, at least temporarily. Examples of engaging activities include going shopping, attending a sporting event with a friend, taking your dog for a walk, or going to the library. Involvement in an engaging activity will increase positive affect (that is positive emotion) more than involvement in an activity that is less engaging. However, experts concur that involvement in just about any activity is better than not being involved. Because bereavement is often accompanied by a profound loss of interest in life, it may be difficult for mourners to become engaged in particular tasks. A strategy for breaking through mourners’ resistance is to encourage them to spend five minutes on a potentially engaging task, and telling them that they can stop after that. In most cases, mourners cont
inue with the task once they are drawn into it.’6

  Claire Rushton has found this is a strategy that works for her. ‘There are days that I just can’t move and I don’t want to, I just want to sit and be sad and for the world to stop.’ But she’s found her own way of drawing herself back. ‘It may sound odd but I tell myself . . . okay, you’ve cried now, now you need to get up and do something. I call it the “cleaning out the teaspoon drawer moment”. I have come to realise that by giving myself permission to be sad and grieve, but also giving myself a reason to take me out of that grief, even if that’s all I’m doing—cleaning the crumbs from the teaspoon drawer—I’ve moved, and the movement switches my emotions from despondency to a purpose again.’ Rushton’s teaspoon drawer is a good metaphor for the small activities we use as a bridge to help us return to the world of the living.

  I sometimes use a similar strategy to approach work. When I’m feeling tired and overwhelmed I find a really easy, mundane task to get started on, knowing that the rest will follow once I’ve overcome the initial inertia. Work in itself has provided me with the perfect distraction. Before I learned about oscillation from Stroebe and Schut, I had worried that perhaps I was using work as a form of denial. But now I recognise its value as respite: I wasn’t hiding from grief, just recovering. Believe me, there was plenty of grieving going on before, after and sometimes even during work hours.