“I don’t know how to grieve”, Anil admitted. He had just lost his wife of 55 years to a long illness. I miss her, he says this often, loud enough so he could hear it too. I noticed though that he never looked into my eye when he said the words .

"Do you need permission to grieve your loss".I had asked once.

“Nothing like that”, He explained that his subconscious told him that only children needed permission to do things. My job was to help him see the child in him and I made note of it.

His daughter had been the one to suggest therapy and he had agreed. He saw it as a way to fill up his time. Many months after he started therapy, he’d admitted once that he had become short tempered off late. “My wife…” he started to say when he hurriedly corrected himself.

"My ex-wife, I should say". You could tell there was anger in his words and he was ready to express it. Afterall his wife and he had planned to spend their golden years together, but she had left abruptly.

His daughter had told me in her brief that her mum had sacrificed her whole life for the family and that they all felt a deep sense of gratitude towards her for that. He surprised himself when he told me that the said ‘sacrifice’ had created a rift between the couple and  they spent several years in resentment.

She had been adamant to stay in India when opportunities came knocking at his door to work abroad, limiting his growth. He never felt free to express that while she was around because he was bogged down with gratitude for all that she did for the family. All these feelings needed an outlet. 

When he took a break from therapy and told me that he’s not been able to sleep at night and has started getting headaches, I knew the guilt was keeping him up. The chatter in his head told him that he shouldn’t be speaking ill of his wife, especially now. Fearful, the child in him had retreated into a shell. It was a way to cope by invalidating his feelings and hoping they would them go away.

I heard back from him a few weeks later when the ‘child’ was ready to be heard. In that session he opened up.

“f not angry, what will you feel." I asked

"Vulnerable" . He answered

"And how does vulnerability look?"  I probed

"Weak, and I can’t be weak right now, my children need me to be strong. And anger gives me a sense of being in control, its powerful" .  He admitted

"So your anger is looking after your children right now, but what is it doing to you? Who is looking out for you? "  I asked

Processing grief is different for everyone. You just have to find what you’re holding on to, before you let it go.