Week of August 3, 2014 – Doing Normal

By Joan Whetzel

My brother and I met for lunch the other day. We had an interesting conversation. He asked me if I had had trouble with the “anniversaries” since my husband’s death. He wanted to know how I had handled them.

When he first died, I had a lot of trouble sleeping because I was worried about everything and overwhelmed by all the things I had to take care of. Since I couldn’t sleep, I would get up and clean house, box up stuff I was giving away, collect items to be sold in garage sales… anything use the nervous energy and keep the demons at bay. It’s amazing how the mundane things in life – the “doing normal” seemed to help me deal with the hard times I was going through. 

So when my brother asked me about the anniversaries, I told him that I had indeed had difficulties, especially with the last 2 weeks of May – the time when my husband had his stroke, spent time in the ICU before dying in the hospice care, and the funeral. During the last 2 weeks of May this year, I found I didn’t want to get out of bed. I just wanted to stay there and pull the covers over my head. When he asked how I dealt with it, my answer again was that I needed to “do normal.” I needed the paycheck, so I got up and went to work.

He responded by telling how a friend of his related how immediately after Christ died, the apostles went back to fishing. Yes, they were devastated by their loss, and like me, they probably didn’t want to get out of bed, but they got up anyway and did something normal because it helped them deal with the loss in a constructive way.  

During the hard times, “doing normal” provides some sense of control.in the midst of the emotional turmoil. It becomes an anchor that ground us in real life so that the emotions don’t take over. It also becomes a place of strength (the strength to keep doing the things that need doing, even if they’re only small things) and a place of safety (we have a safe and normal place from which to move out into the world). “Doing normal” provides a way to keep on living, to keep on getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other.