Bouncing Back or Not

Not the woman I'm writing about

In the June 1^st issue of Time Magazine, there was an interesting article by Mandy Oaklander on resilience and those people who rebound from setbacks and those who can learn to be more like them. I was interested in this because last summer, I’d finally met the woman who I’d delivered meals to for many months. I’d met her husband a few times, and he told me to not knock on the door, but instead to leave the meals in a basket by the door. That first time I met her she was washing her car, and a more miserable person I had yet to meet. One of her two son’s had suffered severe PTSD and committed suicide three years before. She was angry with her younger son because he wasn’t the one who died, and didn’t want him to come home from another state, angry with the doctors she felt let her older son down, angry with her husband for some reason I didn’t understand, and everyone in the community who dared to mention the word suicide, and that people no longer came around. I’d heard she suffered from alcoholism.  On that summer day, I took time from my route to listen to her. I didn’t give her any advice, because grieving people don’t need advice, but I did give her a hug before I left and my telephone number when she asked for it. She never called.

A few days before the storm

I met her again during a horrible snowstorm last January when I got stuck in their driveway. I called for a tow truck, but because of so many cars in trouble, it was a long wait. The husband came out and asked me to come in to wait. Both husband and wife were welcoming, and although she still had the saddest face I ever saw, we talked of many things and even laughed a little over the antics of their little dog and I told them stories about my dog. We were able to discuss the deaths of her son and my son and the fact that we both believed they were in Heaven. We discussed this when her husband wasn’t there. His mother had died the night before, so he left the room often to check on the plane bringing their other son in during the storm. On that day, although she smiled rarely, she looked more normal and she even wanted to fix me lunch. I thanked her, but turned her down expecting the tow truck to show up at any time.

Then a few weeks ago, I saw her for the first time since January. She was outside by a little flower garden and looked totally lost. Her hair was wild with a few rollers in it. I greeted her and said it was good to see her outside doing some gardening. She replied she didn’t know what she was doing and kept staring at the stake or stick she held. Then she looked at me and said, “I know you. You’re the lady who lost her son, but I don’t remember how.” So I spent some time talking with her, but mostly listening. Again, I told her I believed our sons are in Heaven, and she smiled and agreed, and then wanted to know my name again and the days I delivered. Will she remember? Who knows, but it may be many months before I see her again. The one positive note was she told me she was visiting a troubled friend to help her. That is positive.

Dr. Dennis Charny, a psychiatrist and Dean, ICAHN School of Medicine, who with Dr. Steven Southwick, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, has studied the science of resilience for two decades, and through studying brain images have found that stress has an impact on the brain, including the daily stresses of driving in traffic, problems at work, fights with the spouse or others, and all the daily stresses we go through. Even though we almost all have major traumatic stresses during our lifetime, it’s often the countless, smaller stresses that take a toll which can lead to heart disease and possibly even brain disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers have wondered for years why some people are more resilient than others, especially children, and in the 1950’s Emmy E. Werner, a developmental psychologist and pioneer in resilience research, were gradually progressing toward an answer. In 1955, she and a team from the University of California, Berkeley, began an important study in the field involving a 40-year project following nearly 200 children in Kauai, Hawaii, during the aftermath of WWII. Many of these children had alcoholic parents.  She found a third of the most vulnerable children adapted exceedingly well over time.  She discovered having a tight knit community, a stable role model and a strong belief in their ability to solve problems helped children to succeed.

The article is too long to go through everything, but it advised on how to develop resilience.

1.     Develop a core set of beliefs that nothing can shake.

2.     Try to find meaning in whatever stressful or traumatic thing has happened.

3.     Try to maintain a positive outlook

4.     Take cues from someone who is especially resilient

5.     Don’t run from things that scare you; Face them

6.     Be quick to reach out for support when things go haywire.

7.     Learn new things as often as you can.

8.     Find an exercise regimen you’ll stick to

9.     Don’t beat yourself up or dwell on the past.

10. Recognize what makes you uniquely strong – and own it.

One of John's graduation pictures taken months before.

One of the questions my Mobile Meals client asked before I left was “How do you remain so cheerful? How did you go on after your son died?” I remember all too well the many people who said to me after John died, “I could never go on if my child died.” And I always thought, what’s the alternative? Crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head?  I had a core set of beliefs that were only briefly shaken in the beginning, but after a while I found meaning – sort of – in John’s death. I had three children and a husband who were also grieving, and I didn’t want my younger three teenagers to think their brother was more important to me than they were so I tried to walk that line while still showing how much I missed him, too. At the time one survives each day and goes on. A lot of those steps to develop resilience I did without thinking about it.

Prior to discovering my son had cancer, a neighbor and I thought of starting a craft business. A month after he died, we did our first house party at a neighbor’s home. We took the crafts we made – my paintings and many other things – to home parties like the Tupperware parties.  My neighbor dropped out after a month, because I made and sold more things. While sitting with him in the Cleveland Clinic as he went through chemo, I worked on needlework. After his death, working on my paintings and other crafts was therapeutic, although nothing totally takes away the pain. Strangers at the party would ask me how I made so many things, and I was able to tell them about the death of my son, sharing it with people who didn’t feel obligated to do anything more for me after I left. Over five years even during college and my first year of teaching I did 85 of those home parties.

My little scientists dissecting a paper wasp nest. 

I started college a year after John’s death as a non-traditional student to become a teacher. It was the best thing I could have done. I loved the academic world and was that enthusiastic student sitting in the front row. After the first semester, I took an overload each semester because I found so many courses that interested me. Teaching is a healing process, too. One is too busy to focus on losses. I also think nothing can beat teaching third grade. What’s not to love about this age group?

My first day of backpacking with a too heavy pack

Over the years, I tried other new things; clogging, banjo lessons, lap dulcimer lessons, back packing, and eventually writing.

When my marriage of 31 years collapsed, I bought a small farm with a pathetic derelict old farm house with a leaking roof and two basement walls collapsing.  With most of the work done by my second son, Joe, it turned into a comfortable home. Never underestimate the value of ridding oneself of anger by knocking out walls with a hammer and ax.

My son gutting my house preparing to replace the old wiring. 

I’m fortunate that I’ve had a strong family; parents, siblings, in-laws, grown kids, their spouses and grandchildren as well as numerous cousins and at the time many aunts and uncles. They were there when my marriage collapsed, my parents died as well as a six year old granddaughter and three years ago the death of my best friend of fifty years and the brother I was closest in age to and loved. I was also lucky I had months to care for my son before he died, and that he died at home in my arms. The woman I deliver Mobile Meals to didn’t have that to comfort her. So I owe much of my resilience to most of those ten steps without being aware of it at the time. That certainly doesn’t mean I’m hard hearted. I tear up easily whenever I hear of something sad, and probably more so than when I was younger and hadn’t experienced life’s traumas. I recently heard on a TED talk on NPR, that’s common as we age.

How is your resilience?

How could you improve yours?