Getting help

My community is pulling together and we’re all struggling to make some sense of the madness that has rocked this town, this state, this nation. My employer is doing its part to help by offering crisis counseling both for the community and for my fellow employees.

An interesting and enlightening thing happened today. I was sent to the other end of the hospital campus to check on the counselor that was brought in for today’s session and make sure he had what he needed. I called one of my colleagues in the building that these sessions were to be held to ask if I could “borrow” a bottle of water to take to this man. I trekked cross campus and greeted my colleague as she gave me the water. We talked for a minute about the shooting and she told me of a visit her department had from the father of the congressional aide that was killed. The father was a well known and loved former TMC employee and he came to see his friends during this dark time. My colleague then told me that when he arrived, he said to her that they now have something in common. She went on to tell me her son had been violently killed almost 15 years ago. She said the recent shooting stirred up some feelings she didn’t expect but that she was fine. She deals with it and moves on. I asked if she planned to talk to the counselor and she scoffed at the idea. We walked in to where the counselor was and checked on him together. Suddenly I could see tears in my colleague’s eyes as she introduced herself and offered the water. I immediately told her that I was going to sit at her desk and take care of things so she didn’t have to worry, then left the room and closed the door.

She emerged 30 minutes later and thanked me. We spoke for a minute and I went back to the counselor to do a final check on him before heading back to my office. He then asked how I was doing. He said my colleague had mentioned that I lost my husband. Emotions flooded through my body and I sat down with him.. We talked for a bit and I acknowledged that I haven’t really dealt with my grief. We had a good conversation and he told me I was building a “perfect storm”. The combination of dismissing and pushing down my own grief after losing my husband, recent tragic events that are very personal to every Tucsonan and the upcoming anniversary dates that led to my own devastating loss were sure to bring about feelings I may not be equipped to deal with. He said what I may think is stress, irritability, insomnia or fatigue is possibly my body’s way of trying to tell me I need help. I admitted that I’ve felt increasingly uneasy over the last few days but dismissed it as the emotions that follow such a tragedy as we experienced on Saturday. I have not sought help up to this point, thinking I was just fine and could deal with things on my own. After talking a little longer I made the decision to get some help with my grief. I plan to go to a hospice grief support group next week, just to “check it out.” Who knows, maybe it’ll help, right?

So I can say that while many of us are looking for something positive to come out of this horrible tragedy, I found one little bright shining nugget. I’ll continue to search for the positive and I know my fellow Tucsonans will do the same.