Rituals of daily life can help ease grieving process

I couldn't help but be moved last week by sister journalist Sarah Overstreet's column in that other news publication.

She was upset because New York Major Rudolph Giuliani urged citizens of his city to "go on and live their lives." Overstreet felt as if it were too soon that grief takes its own sweet time.

But I would urge her to consider an Oriental saying that goes something like this: "When things are bad, chop wood. When things are good, chop wood."

What that means is carry on anyway. Take your hemorrhaging heart and, as the English always do, make a nice cup of tea. No one says you have to have a stiff upper lip it can tremble. Tears are cleansing.

It's rituals such as making tea that make us feel safe. When you do something familiar, even if the world seems to be careening out of control, your rituals are an anchor.

Rituals can be something as holy as partaking of communion in church, or as mundane as walking your dog or as pure as reading "Good Night Moon" to your child at bedtime.

Performing rituals doesn't diminish the fact that you are grieving. A friend of mine with two teenagers lost his wife suddenly a year ago. "How did you handle it?" I asked. "I played a lot of golf," he said.

Underlying that statement was the fact that he also had two children to care for all alone, and perhaps those daily rituals of cooking, cleaning, shopping and helping with homework helped him grieve, too. What he did by playing "a lot of golf" was to take care of himself so he could take care of his children.

He, like others today, if they are smart, will let themselves fully experience the many stages of grief shock, anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance and, eventually, reaching out to others to help them grieve.

People wiser than I have encouraged me during hardships to feel my feelings and not stuff them inside of me. That will only make one physically and mentally ill, they said.

I have been told and now believe that there's no right or wrong to feelings they just are. Don't let others diminish your feelings, but don't let yourself diminish your feelings either.

Once you've experienced the stages of grief, don't be upset if the feelings come back and overwhelm you all over again, because they will. I know for myself that grief does come back, but after a while, like a toothache, it is manageable.

And that's when I remember to chop wood.