Stroke Survivor Blog

Spontaneous grief can come at unexpected times when something triggers a memory.

A fellow caregiver told me that in putting away the Christmas ornaments today, she decided to rearrange the large storage closet that holds their clothes as well as seasonal stuff.  Shoved in the back of the closet, she came across a stack of jeans and khaki pants that her husband can no longer wear. He is unable to manage the zipper/buttons and has gained about 25 pounds since his stroke.  The last day he had on a pair of these jeans was the day he had his stroke.

Coming across this pile of clothes stopped her dead in her tracks and reduced her to tears.  Once again something has hit her like a ton of bricks, right out of the blue. She feels like the widow that is faced with getting rid of her husband’s clothes, except the husband is in the next room, no doubt wondering what’s for dinner.  She asks, “I know I’m only 18 months into this stroke recovery journey, but does it ever get any easier?”

The thing with spontaneous grief is that it can sneak up on us just when we think we’ve dealt with it. I remember a time, a year and a half after my mother died from a brain injury, that I had parked my car in the eye doctor’s parking lot and walked to the entrance of the building just as a Medi-Van was unloading an old woman in a light blue recliner. It was the same type of recliner that my mother sat in while she was in the hospital. The sight of that image triggered such emotions and memories that I burst into tears and had to run to the restroom to compose myself. The loss was just too fresh.

Just this past summer, my daughter and I went to get something in my husband’s workshop where he stored all his tools and home building equipment…a business he was in for 45 years. It caused my daughter to spontaneously burst into tears as the sight brought back memories of a vibrant and strong man now disabled by stroke almost 3 yrs. ago.

We will never know what may trigger another memory and how long it will keep happening, but it is very normal. My husband was watching a program about Walt Disney today, and it brought back many happy memories of the fun times we had when vacationing in Florida over the last 35 yrs. He was brought to tears because he knew he could never experience those fun vacations again. He, too, has moments when something will remind him of a life that once was.

Spontaneous grief is like that, it can come out of the blue just when we think it’s behind us. But it’s not a mental state that we stay in for very long. It comes quickly and then it goes as we get back to the living of today. I think as time goes on and the freshness of the loss is over, those grieving times will grow less and less.

As far as those clothes are concerned, I would just hang onto them for awhile and pack them away until you’re ready to deal with them. Time really is a healer.