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My grief journey thus far

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 23 2026

My grief journey thus far

My beloved Dave passed through the doorway to the next life on April 9 of this year. I was so curious what my grief would look like. After all, I’ve written and taught about grief.

What happened in the first six weeks was quite unexpected.

I was so relieved when Dave’s life on earth ended. He was in so much pain from cancer that had spread to his spine and hip bones. He could have taken higher doses of the painkiller prescribed for him, but he hated the way he felt on those high doses. And he couldn’t paint when drugged to a level that relieved pain.

Watching and hearing him suffer— “ow,” “ow” whenever he shifted his body even a tiny bit—was incredibly hard. I felt so impotent. My relief when Dave passed was huge. For three weeks, I felt guilty about how relieved I felt. This relief and guilt were truly not what I expected. The scientist/observer in me, who wanted to see my grief journey as some kind of interesting learning experience, was confounded.

At the three-week mark, I had an appointment with the grief expert at hospice. She listened to what I was feeling. She affirmed that everyone’s grief is different. My job, she said, is to watch what’s happening and accept that this is my journey.

That conversation enabled me to let go of that guilt, but immediately another guilt jumped in to take its place. Beginning two years before Dave’s passing, my role as his caregiver began to increase. I loved Dave, but I did not love being a caregiver. I wanted him to feel loved and supported, but the intensity of the caregiving need felt overwhelming. I am not gifted at this, I thought many times. I am not good at this. As an Enneagram One, I need to do a good job. I felt such dissonance between my desire to go a good job and the stress of caregiving.

After Dave’s passing, in weeks four to six, I felt a huge load of guilt about being such a reluctant caregiver for a person I loved so much. Again, this was not what I expected grief to look like. At week six, I had another one-on-one appointment with the hospice grief counselor. She listened and again affirmed that grief can look so different in different people. All forms of grief are okay, she said. Two days later, I had an appointment with my spiritual director, and she led me in a guided visualization, where I let the guilt go into the wind. The wind carried my guilt high into the sky where the sun burned it away.

The next day, I started missing Dave, feeling aimless without him, wondering why I should go on living without him. At last! A form of grief that made sense to me! My scientist/observer self could relax a little. In the next few weeks, I got sadder and sadder. I wasn’t worried about this because finally, I was experiencing what I expected. I wondered how long it would last, and one day, the deep sadness simply stopped.

I began feeling grateful for the good years of our marriage. I felt grateful I’d had a partner who saw me, loved me, and encouraged me. We had so much fun together. We traveled, parented, grand-parented, supported each other, helped each other grow. I found myself adapting Ecclesiastes 3. “To everything there is a time and a season under heaven. A time to be married to Dave. A time to be a caregiver for Dave. A time to be a widow.”

A source of joy in the past few weeks has been creating a book of Dave’s watercolors. Choosing the images, arranging them on pages in Publisher, writing commentary, and working with a graphic designer friend to create the cover . . . so fun. And I have been feeling such awe at Dave’s talent and skill as an artist. The book should be ready soon, and I’ll let you know when it’s published.

I’ve been attending two grief groups each month through hospice. Next week, I’ll tell you about some of the fascinating conversations in those groups. I am also aware that I engaged in a lot of anticipatory grief over the 11 years of Dave’s chronic lung disease. I’ll write about anticipatory grief in a future post.

God of compassion and comfort, you are near. You understand our sorrows, and you never leave us. You forgive us for the things we have done wrong in trying to care for those we love, and you are with us no matter how we feel. Thank you.

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If you’d like to read about Dave's cancer journey, visit his Caring Bridge site and go back to the first post. 

Next week: More about my grief journey.  Illustration by Dave Baab: Sailboats in windy Auckland Harbour, New Zealand.

Previous posts about grief:

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