What Do You Do When You Are Hit with a “One-Two Punch”?

I have often said, “I sure wish that our families could have a break from other losses, so that they could deal with only one loss at a time.” However, sadly, often the moratorium on further loss does not take affect and our families are hit with a “one-two punch” of loss. Too many times I have attended the visitation for a mother and then for a father in just a few weeks time. Or maybe one of the deaths is “anticipated,” such as one due to a long illness, but then the other death comes as a result of an auto accident, a house fire, or even suicide.
I have always had a special compassion for those who are dealing with multiple losses, but when this happened in my own family, I received a much greater appreciation of the difficulty in attempting to process multiple losses at one time. Twice in about 30 days time, I sat in the same funeral home, facing the same family members with just the choice of seats rearranged, and spoke to those who were as shell-shocked as I was. After returning to my “normal” life, I found myself especially anxious, expecting to receive a follow-up to the “one-two punch” with maybe another uppercut the next month. I have to tell you that this experience was more than unnerving.
After one overcomes the anxiety that there will be another punch coming her way, then she has to deal with the question of “how does one work through the grief of multiple losses at one time?” Good question. As with most questions regarding grief, there is never a one size fits all answer. I can only speak from my own personal experiences and also my experiences with those who have encountered multiple losses. My advise is to deal with your grief just as you would with a single loss—whatever person or issue that is pressing most strongly against your mind and heart, focus on that person or issue. With multiple losses, you may find that you will deal with issues regarding to all in the same day or you may be singularly focused on a particular person or issue to the exclusion of the others for a season of time. Our head and heart has an innate way of revealing the pain we need to deal with next—trust yourself and your instincts.
Maybe this analogy could be helpful. Grief is often referred to as a journey. Imagine you are hiking a mountainous trail. On that trail, you will face many challenges, both physical and mental/emotional (i.e., trees in the path, “I can’t do this,” extremely steep slope, “this cannot possibly be worth all this effort,” places which are hard to find traction, “what happens if I run into a wild animal?”, “I could really hurt myself if I keep going,” exhaustion). It would be crazy to think that no matter how determined you are to group obstacles into categories, such as physical and emotional, that you could deal with them by placing them all in a neat package and handling them all at one time. No, you take the challenges one by one, as you come upon them, and do the best you can to resolve them before you take on another one.
So, if you have encountered multiple losses, my heart goes out to you. Be patient with yourself and your loved ones especially during this time. If you would like to receive the CareNote “Feeling Overwhelmed When One Loss Follows Another,” please just contact me (Kim) at 504-734-0140 or via e-mail at stjosephnober@yahoo.com.

Copyright © 2014 by Kim Smith