Who Gets In Your Bucket?

I feel the need to write tonight, but I'm not sure what.  I should really be working on my maid-of-honor speech for my little sister's wedding, but just can't focus.  Hannah read a wonderful article with me today, "Who Gets In Your Bucket?" by Doug Manning.  If you're grieving or know someone who is read it. (I typed it below because I find typing to be strangely therapeutic)  I don't think she could have picked a better day to give me the article.

I am once again at a point where my bucket is full and overflowing.  There are other times it has been full and overflowing, but it was slowly receding, I would say mostly from evaporation.  This week, some people came along and dumped in a few more cups.  I didn't have room for them, but they're in there now - the "safe" person who announced her pregnancy and the "lost friend" who had a healthy little boy today.

Really, I think I would like to move to an island, away from everyone I know here, restricted access.  No, that would probably be to much of a hassle for me and I hate fish, but it would be nice if only for a short while.



Who Gets In Your Bucket?
by Doug Manning
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The best way I know to picture how we receive help from others in grief, is to imagine you are holding a bucket.  The size and color doesn't matter.  The bucket represents the feelings bottled up inside of you when you are in pain.  If you have suffered a loss, hold the bucket and think through how you feel right now.

What is in your bucket?

Fear.  Will I survive?  What will happen to me now?  Who will care for me?  Who will be with me when I need someone near?  Most likely your bucket is almost full just from the fear.  But there is also:

Pain.  It is amazing how much physical pain there is in grief.  Your chest hurts, and you can't breathe.  Sometimes the pain is so intense your body refuses to even move.  There is enough pain to fill the bucket all by itself.

Sorrow.  There is devastating sadness; overwhelming sorrow.  A gaping hole has been bitten out of your heart and it bleeds inside your very soul.  You cry buckets of tears and then cry some more.

Loneliness.  There is no lonely like that felt when you are in a room full of people and totally alone at the same time.  Loneliness alone can filly any bucket ever made.

I could go on, but that's enough to get the idea across, and hopefully get you started thinking through your own list.  What is in your bucket?

Now pictures someone like me approaching you and your bucket.  I also have a bucket.  My buckets is full of explanations.  I am armed and ready to explain why your loved one had to die, how they are now better off and how you should feel.

I am also well equipped with new ways to look at your loss.  In politics they call that "spin doctoring," but most human beings seem to know this skill by instinct.  I have almost a bucketful of comforting words and encouraging sayings.  I can also quote vast amounts of scriptures.  I seem to favor the ones that tell you not to grieve.

So we face each other armed with full buckets.  The problem is, I don't want to get into your bucket.  Yours is scary.  If I get in there, you might start crying and I may not be able to make you stop.  You might ask me something I could not answer.  There is too much intimacy in your bucket.  I want to stand at a safe distance and pour what is in my bucket into yours,  I want the things in my bucket to wash over your pain like some magic salve to take away your pain and dry your tears.  I have this vision of my words being like cool water to a dry tongue.  Soothing and curing as it flows.

But your bucket is full.  There is no room for anything that is in my bucket.  Your needs are calling so loudly there is no way you could hear anything I say.  Your pain is far too intense to be cooled by any verbal salve, no matter how profound.  The only way I can help you is to get into your bucket, to try to feel your pain, to accept your feelings as they are and make every effort to understand.  I cannot really know how you feel.  I cannot actually understand your pain or how your mind is working under the stress, but I can stand with you through the journey.  I can allow you to feel what you feel and learn to be comfortable doing so.  That is called, "Getting into your bucket." 

Anyone want to join me in my bucket? 

Yeah, I didn't think so.