Pathway Through Loss: Finding Hope in the Dark Valleys

By Bertha Brannen

In life, there will be many different losses. This book expands on the importance of acknowledging grief to move toward recovery. Storytelling is highlighted as a means of sharing our sorrows as we learn from one another. It is also the story of one man’s journey into dementia and the lessons he taught through his humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669869542

Bertha Brannen

Bertha Brannen is a retired Registered Nurse. During her forty-seven year career, she worked in acute care, Administrator in long term care and certified as a Grief Recovery Specialist. Her passion for educating people along the grieving process continues to this day. She volunteers her time meeting with people travelling the journey of loss. Growing up in a small rural French village provided her with an education in a simpler way of life. While appreciating the wonderful life that her grandchildren are living, she wanted to share her story of a different time filled with challenges and joy. This is her second book. Pathway Through Loss was published in 2019.

Book preview

PATHWAY

THROUGH LOSS

Finding Hope in the Dark Valleys

REVISED EDITION

Bertha Brannen

Copyright © 2023 by Bertha Brannen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/06/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

850857

If my sister Alice had not been born, lived, and died, this book would never have been written.

As time has passed, I have realized that it was my father who showed me the importance of sharing our stories as they shine a pathway through life.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Alice Ruby

Death of a Spouse

What Is Grief

Community Grief Support Groups

The Grief Journey

Grief Timeline

Grief Is Physical and Emotional

Grief Is Spiritual

The Stages of Grief

Miscarriage and Abortion

Divorce

What to Say and What Not to Say

Suicide

The Death of a Child

When a Child Dies from HIV/AIDS

Estranged Adult Children

Journaling

I Hope You Cry

Children and Grieving

Toward Recovery

An Individual Journey

Covid-19

What if I Forget the Person Who Died?

Guilt

Grief Work

Everyone Grieves Differently

Looking for Answers

Losing a Loved One to Dementia

Things My Dad Taught Me

Dying Is the Difficult Part of Death

MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying)

What I Will Miss When I Die

Attachments

References

FOREWORD

My husband George died on December 19, 1999, nine days before his forty-fifth birthday. I had been studying the journey of loss and grief following the death of my twenty-seven-year-old sister Alice in May of 1977. I had been presenting to health care groups on what I was learning about the topic. I felt I was prepared to process the loss of my patient, kind, and compassionate spouse. I was wrong. After that first week following my husband’s death, I became saddened by the silence from my family, friends (although not all), church family (all), and colleagues. I became aware that many grieving widows must have faced similar circumstances. I decided to do something about it. I started a community support group in February 2000. Little did I know then how much they would influence my personal journey toward recovery. The stories I wish to share with you are from lessons I have learned partly through the research and the courses I committed to over the years but mostly from the insight that came from the grieving and honest people who have shared their hearts. It is my hope that if you are grieving or if you are interested in helping someone understand grief, that you will be pleased that this book has found you. If you can find the energy to keep reading, I am confident you will discover words and small steps that will ease some of your pain.

ALICE RUBY

Alice Ruby, as she liked to introduce herself, was born the sixth child in a family of nine in 1951, in what would be considered an impoverished village by today’s standards. The scarcity of home luxuries was not noticeable amid strong family ties and a good dose of humor. Alice ran with the humor. She was a joy to grow up with. We shared the secrets of childhood as well as a double bed in our-hundred-plus-year-old home. I mention the house being old, recalling how our parents would warm pieces of wood in the oven on winter nights and wrap them in flannel diapers to be carried to the foot of our straw mattresses. We giggled at seeing our breath in the air before sleep and upon awakening.

Alice took multiple occasions to explain to anyone who would listen that she was the only child out of nine who had black hair because Elvis was her real dad. At age sixteen, she interrupted her schooling to care for our handicapped sister while our mom struggled with cancer. Following Mom’s untimely death, Alice returned to school. By age twenty-five, she graduated from a nursing program at the Halifax Infirmary. She returned home and secured full-time employment at the local hospital. She married her handsome high school sweetheart, who had built their new home, and their happily ever after life began. The spark in their relationship was sometimes illuminated by Alice’s determination to flirt. A vivid recollection of mine is her husband leaving her standing on the dance floor as she was pretending to have a toothache to gain the attention of the good-looking dentist dancing nearby. My memory files hold stories upon stories embraced by peals of laughter brought on by her antics. Her husband was not surprised when their first child’s head was crowning, between contractions, Alice said to the young family doctor, At last, we meet face-to-face. She had spunk. She was in love. She was happy. Before her son turned two, Alice was admitted to the local hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia. The medical internist called me away from my nursing duties, asking to speak to me in the hospital stairwell. He explained he was fairly certain that Alice had Goodpasture syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease in which one’s antibodies destroy the membranes in the lungs and kidneys. As a registered nurse having practiced for several years, I had never heard of the disease. Her diagnosis was confirmed two weeks later, after she was transferred to the larger city hospital.

Alice spent many weeks in hospital for dialysis treatment, followed by respiratory and renal (kidney) complications. Following bilateral nephrectomy (surgical removal of kidneys), a procedure intended to slow the attack of her antibodies and hopefully prolong her life, she shared with a visiting aunt that she had her kidneys removed as toilet tissue was getting too expensive. Putting her humor aside, Alice was well aware that the health care profession avoided any discussion regarding unhealthy patient outcomes. She and I had accepted the surgeon’s decision to hide Mom’s prognosis from her and from my father. Mom entered the hospital for a hysterectomy and was found to be full of cancer. She died six months later. During her short illness and deteriorating health, we continued to reassure her that she was getting better. We ignored her questions about her illness by continuously changing the subject. Mom was forty-seven years old with four children still living at home. In 1969, it was OK to hide the truth from dying patients and from their families. If we don’t talk about it, nobody will get upset.

I was not surprised when Alice asked me if she was going to die and that she would not accept the usual nursing care plan answer, which was Never upset the patient. We embarked on an honest, painful journey that opened a space for her to share her emotions, including her fears.

Alice’s journey was a difficult one, and it affected everyone who loved her. Her young husband was by her side whenever he was not at work. In typical fashion, loss was expressed, or not, in as many different ways as there are individual personalities. Some tended to avoid the issue, depending on learned behaviors, societal expectations, or both. Although many family members and friends were open to talking about the challenges Alice faced, not everyone was prepared to share their own emotional roller coaster.

With a full and happy life ahead at age twenty-six, a terminal illness was the last thing Alice expected.

Facing her death was difficult enough. However, she would suffer multiple losses on the journey ahead.

She rarely complained. Loss of self-esteem often accompanies negative changes in body image.

Most of us have fretted over a bad-hair day or tried desperately to conceal a cold sore before presenting ourselves to the public. We have all heard apologies from people we meet, excusing their appearance for reasons not so obvious to us. Alice commented on her appearance as her disease quickly changed, and she became disfigured by puffiness, pale skin, weight gain and an exaggerated forward curvature of her neck and upper spine. She would stretch up out of her chair, lean closer to the mirror over her hospital bathroom sink, stick her tongue out, and ask the stranger looking back at her, Chi s’que t’est toi? Et eyou s’tu d’vonne? Who are you? And where did you come from?

Her courage often broke my heart. Alice lost all her ability to care for her young son. The home she dreamed about was too often being viewed from her bed. The loss of a dream for herself, for her husband, and for her family became her reality. She spent a lot of time in the local hospital for long hours of dialysis and weeks in the larger city hospital, a four-hour drive from home, away from the familiarity, comfort, and love of her family.

Privacy is next to impossible to maintain when under the care of a health care team. Alice required insertion of a needle in her groin. As common practice in the 1970s, hair removal was routine in the prepping of a sterile site. Alice asked the nurse if he could leave her with a heart-shaped design as it would be a nice surprise for her husband. Her humor always made the staff feel at ease.

She trudged on in as positive a manner as I had ever witnessed in my forty-seven years of nursing.

The 1970s brought new religions to our predominately Roman Catholic community and some born again Christians, as they called themselves, decided they should visit Alice in the hospital and save her soul by converting her to their belief. She told them to get out. I assume those well-intended visitors did restore the faith to some, but they only brought distress to my sister and her husband.

Eventually, Alice made her peace with death. She and I became aware that we had robbed Mom of how we could have eased some of her pain by listening to her eight years earlier.

Alice died in the spring of 1977. On the day prior to her death, she was radiant as she shared a vivid dream where she was walking along the most beautiful path and felt the presence of the Virgin Mary. I will walk again! she said to me. It was years later that I came across an old school scribbler of Alice’s that I did not recall was in my possession. I read these words that she had written in 1965:

Notre Seigneur a fait les roses, les oiseaux et la belle nature, mais la plus belle chose q’il a fait, c’est le cœur d’une maman.

Our Savior created the roses, the birds, and the beauty of nature, but the most beautiful thing He created is the heart of a mother.

Her faith was grounded in what she had been taught and believed until her death. Alice helped me see that all dying patients should have the choice to express themselves and to receive honest feedback from their loved ones until their death. Our closeness and our shared profession set the stage for honesty. It was through her palliative journey that Alice became my teacher. She knew she could not be cured. She needed to talk and to plan, and I needed to listen. Were the conversations difficult at times? Absolutely. Lucky for me, she had that determination to engage me in whatever was on her mind, even if we both ended up in tears. She could also break the mood by adding humor to her situation. I was privileged to hear her innermost thoughts on leaving this life and, most important to her, choosing the person who would help her husband in the care of their two-year-old son.

The village was occupied in fishing the abundance of kiack fish, also known as gaspereau, that swim upriver to span in the spring of the year. The brook nearby becomes crowded with fishers eager to net their lucrative catches. Alice’s son would tell family and friends that his mother had gone to the kiack brook. He seemed accepting of her absence after having spent many days and months without her while she was in hospital. Many months following his mother’s death, his dad took