Unlocking the Mystery of Grief

Jun 21

It’s official — my new book Unlocking the Mystery of Grief: How to Grieve Well and Learn to Live Again After Loss is out!

I’m very excited to share this news but more importantly, I invite you to purchase a copy for yourself or for someone you know who’s grieving.

Below is the opening chapter of the book. It answers the question “Why I Wrote This Book” and tells “My Story of Loss.” This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book.

If you’re ready to buy the book, you can get it in paperback or as a Kindle ebook on Amazon.ca or Amazon.com.

Sample Unlocking the Mystery of Grief

Why I Wrote This Book

When the griever is ready, the grief mentor will appear.

This book is my gift to the grieving person who is ready for a grief mentor like me. I will help guide the reader, not by telling you what to do, but by telling you how I grieved and by giving principles and practices that can be applied by anyone.

This book unlocks the mysteries of grief that were hidden when I began my grief journey. The lessons and insights I share are what I discovered along the way. Before I share those lessons and insights, let me tell you my story of loss.

My Story of Loss

This whole story started out as an insignificant tweak to Vicky’s back at the end of 2019. Unbeknownst to us, what lurked in the shadows and inside her body was something much worse.

When I think of my life with Vicky, I go back to my college days in the year 1981. Vicky was on a top ten list of girls I wanted to date. She was my number one pick. Eventually, I won her over. We started dating that fall and ended up being married on August 20, 1983.

During our thirty-seven plus years together, Vicky demonstrated, on a number of occasions, her resiliency and grit in life. She endured two brain surgeries (one in 2008 and the second one in 2014) and survived a traumatic motorcycle accident in 2011, in which I was very much involved as the driver.

As 2020 began, Vicky found herself facing the most painful test of her life. Nothing we did made things better, and the pain grew with each passing week. We tried registered massage therapy, chiropractic care, physiotherapy, CBD oil — all with no relief from her pain. As we kept pressing for answers and relief from the pain, our family doctor eventually sent Vicky for an emergency CT scan because he heard fluid on her lungs. The first scan was done in March with a second scan to follow. Soon the truth would be revealed.

We got the scan results on March 24, 2020 while visiting Abbotsford Hospital Emergency. It was the beginning of the Covid pandemic and, because of that, patients arriving at the emergency ward had to be dropped off at the door and picked up once they were done. I dropped her off, drove away and waited on the side of the street for a text asking me to come pick her up.

After some time, Vicky sent me a text I will never forget. It was news from the emergency doctor who saw the CT scans. He told her that she had kidney cancer, the first time we heard the “C” word.

I did not believe it. How could it be cancer? Who was this doctor to make such a statement?

It was unwelcome news. I was shocked and rattled by the diagnosis and dismissed the doctor as unqualified to give it to us. Unfortunately, our family doctor called the next day to confirm it.

We had so many questions. How far along was the cancer? What stage was it at? Will she recover? Was it fatal? If it’s terminal, how long does she have to live? We had so many questions and so few answers.

We eventually saw our oncologist on April 9, 2020, and received the full diagnosis. Vicky had advanced renal cell carcinoma. In language we could understand, she had stage four kidney cancer that had spread to her lungs and various other organs in her body.

Our doctor tried to give us some hope, not for a cure, but for treatment that might extend her life and slow down the fast-growing cancer cells. He suggested radiation as one treatment to slow the growth. He also wondered if immunotherapy was an option — a treatment that boosts your immune system so it can fight the cancer cells at work in your body.

As I think back, it was all a blur.

We set things up at home to provide as much comfort as possible. Family and close friends came, memories were created, and we savored every day we had, not knowing which day would be her last.

The trips back and forth to the hospital were brutal. Vicky felt every bump in the road. The five radiation treatments caused intense suffering. She labored just to get on and off the table.

On May 4th, we went to the cancer clinic for the first round of immunotherapy, unsure of how this would go. Once Vicky was settled into a bed and ready for treatment, the nurse, after seeing the blood work, knew she needed to call the oncologist in to speak with us.

The doctor sat down beside Vicky and me and shared the results of her blood work. He said to her, “If you were my sister, I would not recommend this treatment. You could die even sooner with the treatment than if we do nothing. I recommend you go home. You won’t have to make any more painful trips back to the hospital.”

Life stood still in those moments. I didn’t have any words to say and was numb with the shocking truth that the end was near.

Her brother John was waiting outside the hospital with our car for the ride back home. We stood on the sidewalk and shared the news with John. We wept tears of deep sadness as we faced the hard truth of Vicky’s condition. After getting into the car John said, “Well, since this is your last ride home, where do you want to go?” Vicky said, “I want to go to Dairy Queen and have a Peanut Buster Parfait!” We laughed and then headed for one last stop before going home. As we parked by the side of the road with our ice cream treats, we cried and laughed and soaked in a clear view of Mount Baker in front of us.

Once we arrived back home, the pain management increased. With each passing day Vicky’s ability to be fully present decreased.

Ten days later, at 1:30 am May 14, 2020, I woke up to my alarm to give Vicky her pain medication. When I went over to her bed with the syringe filled with pain medicine in hand, I noticed no heavy breathing and no heartbeat. She was gone.

The family and our closest friends gathered in the bedroom in the wee hours of the morning. We held that moment with a sacred reverence and cherished every moment of those hours with Vicky’s body. Around 8:00 am the black van came to take her body away. We were left to gather ourselves and our thoughts as we then stepped forward into the darkness of our grief.

Seeking to Be an Example

My aim is to be an example, not an instructor for how your grief journey should or shouldn’t go. There are specific tools and approaches I talk about, but not as prescriptive. What I share will show you what worked for me and for others. You can then experiment on your own to see what will help you heal and navigate the turbulent waters of your grief.

This is a hopeful book. It suggests there is life after grief. To get there, however, you need stepping stones to walk on so you can move through the fog of grief into the light of day. When it feels like there is a train coming towards you, don’t turn back in despair. Believe that it’s not a train but a light.