Grief – A Simple Theory

Nonsense Verse

By HWB

To accept acceptance takes an accepting ’tude.
You have to strike an accepting mood.
Sometimes to reject acceptance is just rude
But you have to go through a long prelude,
Which takes time because you don’t want to be booed,
Nor to be seen as an unaccepting crude dude.

So, you try to accept acceptance, you try, except…
You still have receptance to exceptance and your expectance
Is to fight it all on your own, and you take up that stance
Of resistance, ’cause you’re so afraid to take that chance
On life. You’ve shut the door and refused the dance.
Little do you know that acceptance of life will enhance.

So accept acceptance, you fool, it’s cool,
Acceptance to exception proves the rule.

—

I write these lines for my dear friend in England who seems to be stuck somewhere in the stages of grief. She is trying to recover from the loss of her wonderful husband.

The Five Stages of Grief
(DABDA)
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

At any of these stages, a person with Alzheimer’s, too, might get stuck, as in groundhog day, doing and saying the same thing or things over and over and can’t get beyond it.

This stage also should pass. But it’s a tough stage to handle for the prime care giver and the family.

For me, having gone through all of these stages, plus twelve more as care giver to my Ann, I have found acceptance a hard stage to complete. But I have a Simple Theory:…

Acceptance is not betrayal

**Acceptance is not betrayal**
This is worth repeating.
Some people seem to feel that it is. But…
It is a fact of life, natural and necessary,
And it can’t be rushed.
There is no end time on grief,
Neither is there on love.
Once you accept grief,
And no longer actively grieve,
Your grief eases and you can start to move on–
Which is also natural, inevitable,
And necessary.

I have found that by getting out whenever possible, and by talking about it, has brought a sense of relief, and of community – as opposed to the feeling of being alone and struggling all of the time, like my English friend.

It is helping now in my recovery from that extended challenge of care giving and loss.

In doing so, I have found acceptance in the poetry community.

ALSO: Acceptance is the final stage in My 12 Stages – my proposed next book – about moving from reluctant care give to activist and advocate, how poetry saved me from clinical depression.

It is also a double memoir.

My twelfth stage – acceptance – was to learn baking. So far, no good. Too busy with poetry and the book Chasing a Butterfly: A journey in poems of love and loss to acceptance.
But that is a good thing.
Besides, all baking products, it seems, are loaded with sugar.
And that is another battle I’m fighting.
Sugarless dessert recipes, anyone?
Send ’em along.

CREDIT: https://pixabay.com/en/baker-cooking-coffee-cupcake-frog-1194428/

NOTE: The illustration above is strictly for the blog and its baking references. It’s use here  is not intended as an advertising gimmick.

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