Joan’sirrationalformsofthinkingledhertodenytherealityofJohn’sdeath
Sometime in late February or early March of 2004, about two months after her husband’s death, Joan finally gave in to the advice that many of her friends had been pushing on her. She started clearing the clothes out of John’s closet – an act she saw as one of the rituals that people go through to deal with their grief.She began with a shelf of John’s outdoor clothing, which didn’t have much emotional resonance for her. He wore it when he went out for a walk, and he usually went out alone. Once she finished with the T-shirts and sweatshirts, she stopped.
A few weeks later, she tried again, this time starting with John’s shoes. But she couldn’t go through with the task. She was stopped in her tracks by a single thought: she couldn’t get rid of the shoes; John would need them to return home.
Even at the time, she immediately recognized the thought for what it was: a delusion. But that didn’t stop it from holding power over her. She still couldn’t get rid of the shoes.
This brings us to the other form of magical thinking in which Joan found herself engaging the year after John’s death. Not only did she think that she could have done something in the past that would have in some way prevented his death, but she also believed that she still could do something in the present to reverse it, or make as if it never happened.
Here’s another example. In the months after John’s cardiac arrest, Joan couldn’t bring herself to read his obituaries. In her mind, reading them gave his death reality. By this line of reasoning, his death would remain unreal if the obituaries remained unread.
With all of her irrational thoughts about what she could have done and still could do to prevent or reverse John’s death, Joan was unable to accept and process her loss. As a result, her grief continued unabated in the year that followed – as did the magical thinking that accompanied it.
At the time that she wrote her memoir, neither her grief nor her magical thinking had completely gone away. She still couldn’t bring herself to get rid of John’s shoes, but the feelings and thoughts had at least lost some of their potency. She’d found a limited form of closure.
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