This is the final chapter in my series on the Grief Cycle.
I thought I’d shed a bit of light on my source as well as remind you that you can check out the full series here:
WEEKS 5/6 - On Depression and Deep Loss
The original concept of the stages of Grief comes from a book called “On Death and Dying” written by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. Her stages of grief are popularly referred to as DABDA (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). Photo source: https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html
Today I’m going to close this series with Bargaining.
BARGAINING
I admit I have bargained with daylight
praying, just give one more hour
The sun did submit and paused ‘fore they quit
to grant me its beams like a shower
The sky then remained in a standstill
Telling me I could just go
And so I moved onward and used up the light
while clapping for its encore show.
In hindsight I step back and wonder
How on earth in that moment in time
That the sun stayed up a bit longer that day
As a gift to me from the Divine.
Now others might say I am foolish.
There’s no way the light would shine through
That what I saw, was a true miracle
That before it I never knew.
How God grants the prayers of the bolder
Who surrender and fall on their knees
Asking for what is a miracle
When miracles are what they need.
I’ve prayed for this, I prayed for sunshine
when dusk was looming toward its start
I wrapped my arms round my silly belief
And I asked from a wide open heart.
I found this story in a letter
That I wrote to my family years back
Its simple truth bringing a smile to my face
When I thought of how little I lacked.
I had nothing, but nothing could stop me.
I believed it all and it all came.
And because of those great adventures
I knew I’d never be the same.
—-
It’s only through some self analyzing that I’ve come to realize that bargaining is one of my favorite stops in the grief cycle. Heck, bargaining was a way of life for me, it was a kind of survival. I see how I’m constantly bargaining. I bargain with God. I bargain with my husband, my friends, my family. I have to stop myself before I start bargaining with my toddler. I didn’t realize that within that bargaining was an underlying tactic I used. Bargaining to me created a false sense of control.
I would bargain with God. I’ll fast, I’ll pray I’ll seek I’ll ask. My thinking was, If I do this, you will do that. Right? Nope. The reality is, The Divine and all its created people can freely do as they choose, and live as they like. Bargaining, at its source is a kind of manipulation. When you’re poor, bargaining teaches you that you might be able to get something even though you’re not supposed to. But a good bargainer can start to believe that they should have it… actually darn it all, they DESERVE it! In a dangerous way this leaves very little room for respecting boundaries.
However, this kind of swindling is celebrated in society. In fact if you’re a bargain shopper its a great thing! You’re prudent! Informed even! You give yourself a pat on the back when you read a shirt tag that says, RETAIL $50 but is slashed through and then re-stickered as $25. Then you spot a banner that reads “Extra 15% off" with a tiny asterisk and small print that says you have to sign up for their email list. You check yourself out in the mirror as you go to try on that delicious find. Feeling good about yourself you get out your smartphone to scour the internet for a discount coupon code that takes off an additional 10-20%. You slap your credit card down with a kind of victorious thwap and then proceed to impulse buy five extra things en route to the register. You end of getting six things for $75 instead of one thing for $50. Yes with that little bit of searching you got so much more bang for your buck and you even signed up for their credit card to save more on your next purchase. You’re a winner. But wait… whose the real winner here? They just got access to my email account and now I’m vulnerable to overspending with having a line of credit with their company, which is always sending me sales emails. That fifty dollar shirt pays for itself multiple times since it only cost them $5 to make anyway. I may have bargained for a deal, but they bargained for my ongoing patronage.
Then there’s the next level of patronage. Its beyond the email list and secret sales. Its something that isn’t even spoken of, unless you’re already in the know. I was on a date with my husband and after glancing the menu at the counter he says to the restaurant manager, “Hey listen, I know the menu reads like this, but do you have a secret menu?” “WHAT?!” I think, “A secret menu? What dream world are you living in?” And just as I laugh at such a silly request the manager says, “Of course!” Without batting an eye, “We have a couple sandwiches on our secret menu that you’d love, I highly recommend the Peruvian steak sandwich”.
What does that tell me? First, that it’s better to be in the know and second, you don’t know until you ask. So, if the menu is the boundary or the rule, is ordering off menu actually bending the rules? Sure sounds like it. It tells me that their boundaries aren’t the same for everyone. If someone knows how to bend the rules, they willingly bend them. But society celebrates people who have inside information. Think about it though, it serves the store to grant its patrons a sort of members only mindset where there’s more than the eye can see. It’s a club and who doesn’t love being a part of a club, especially when there’s perks.
Oh goodness, this could get political. Let’s take for example the whole Wall Street thing that I wrote about it Week 4 regarding Robin Hood and Game Stop. The guy who was responsible for the REDDIT group that was having such a huge impact on stocks is now being chased down by authorities and threatened with legal action. Can we all agree that according to the letter of the law, he didn’t actually break any laws? Maybe he bent some, but what’s the difference between secret menus and public posts on REDDIT? He was just a little guy who believed in the power of the masses supporting each other so they could get a break. Robinhood investors don’t have millions of dollars for the most part, they are just your average people who wanted to see some of their savings grow so they could retire one day, or take a vacation with their family, or start saving towards their first home. Years back Wall Street moguls did a whole lot of illegal activity, which led to the 2008 recession and the housing crisis and all sorts of garbage that rolled down hill to affect us. Did the government and authorities come after these large corporations and financial institutions? Nope! On the contrary they bailed them out with a golden parachute. Why? Basically, they knew the mother flippin manager would allow them to eat from the secret menu. Cause when you know what you can get away with, you find a way to get what you want.
After all, doesn’t the saying on reciprocity go something like this?
“I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine, …until you don’t scratch mine enough for as long as I’ve scratched yours, or dig in as deep, then I’ll hold it against you forever and never scratch your back again.”
Sure right?
When grief comes along, its no stranger to bargaining. They’re like BFF’s. I’ll listen to you, if you listen to me… but you should listen to me longer cause I’m going through a harder time than you. Sounds bratty doesn’t it? I’m not a fan, but I certainly acknowledge that I am guilty of it. So very guilty.
I bargain with my time. I have a calendar… I also have goals, and dreams and deadlines. Yet, a core belief came along sometime in my life that said, I must get everything done today, if its tomorrow then that’s no good… But… if someone needs something from me who is a family member or friend or stranger that I should put aside my to do list and focus on them because that’s the loving thing to do. WOW. Thats a huge lack of boundaries and a massive lie that I learned from a young age.
Where else does bargaining show up? Well.. lets at the thought patterns behind New Years Resolutions. We should get everything done that we hope for within the year, but we don’t. So, we decide to grieve the closing of that lost year by bargaining with the incoming year. Last year, I didn’t diet, this year, I’ll super diet, I’ll diet so hard. Lets look at another example, divorce. Our families are split up, so we bargain who will keep what - you get the house, I’ll take the car and the investments and we’ll jointly share the custody of the children.
Bargaining your children has its pitfalls. I know this from being a child that was bargained for. Every other day and every other weekend I was at a different house with a different parent. MWF or T/Th and the weekend. That was the arrangement that my parents made along with lawyers, judges and social workers. Did I have a say in this? No. I was four years old. It was decided that was how my childhood would be allotted. Holidays would be split one year to the next and vacations would be allowed with stipulations and time constraints. So what did I learn from that? That I would have to bargain for my time. I took extra time hitting my snooze button in the morning before jumping into my clothes while brushing my teeth. I would bargain with my bus driver as I ran after the bus arms flailing, because I waited til the last minute before going outside to catch it.
Without boundaries being reinforced, bargaining was the only tool I had. Until it wasn’t an option. Being a contestant in the game of familial mental illness, I would stand in front of a broken mirror and have mock conversations with the person I would inevitably have to face. I would find ways to build them up and steer clear of inflammatory deeds or remarks so they by chance are having a bi-polar episode that day, they at least wouldn’t go manic on me. I did this so that my words and facial expressions were satisfactory to them. My goal was to make them feel good, cause anything but good became trouble for me. I learned at a young age that being good and making others happy was the safest thing I could possibly be.
I thought, no one lays a hand on you when you’re good. Right? Man, I wish that was true, but it’s not. Sometimes, you’re in the line of fire simply because that’s where you live. Sometimes you’re born in a place with hurting people, without boundaries, without love. Sometimes you happen to come across it. You did nothing wrong, you were just standing there, you just came into the room, or the situation, completely unaware. Bargaining doesn’t help you in those moments. The storm already started and you were just a bird who landed on the wrong wire.
Is this striking a cord? This is why social injustice, domestic violence and economic inequality is so wrong yet incredibly systemic. The rich are getting richer because they know the secret menu of tax shelters and investments to put their inherited wealth into. The whites are protected because white people have historically held places of power by virtue of their white privilege.
This pandemic has caused a global grief cycle for us all. It has exhausted us all physically, socially, spiritually, emotionally. But let’s be really honest and acknowledge that some have been hit by inhumane levels of grief and loss and tragedy. This pandemic has aggravated and revealed an already unfair and unjust set of systems.
Alright, I’ll pivot… I know you’re exhausted by this. I get it. I am too. Waiting for things to get better is hard. 2020 was a year from some sort of sci fi horror film, it’s the whole reason I started writing on this. When I think of my neighbor and the loss of her husband so soon after COVID shelter in place happened and the poem I wrote for her in Week 1. It’s overwhelming to think some people have been without physical touch for nearly a year. Some people haven’t even had a hug… A hug, one single hug in a year. That in itself is jarring. Especially when we consider that affection and physical touch is so important that infants will die if they are not held. Bargaining is one of those things that pops up when something so dear has been taken away. I swear to you God, that if you give me… then I’ll do…
I’m no stranger to that kind of bargaining. I made a commitment when I was 16 years old to abstain from sex until marriage. I did this for a myriad of reasons, but one of them being the state of relationships in my family. There was so much angst, and fear and mistrust there. Having come from a broken home, I wanted to think clearly when I was making the choice of who I would be attached to for the rest of my life. Sex clouds judgment, it’s a chemical force I didn’t want to reckon with. I understood its uniting power, and so I didn’t want to mess around (pun intended). What I didn’t realize however, was that after I signed that commitment to wait at 16 years old age, that I would end up waiting 20 years.
Its only after those twenty years past that I remembered my prayers along the way. I was 19 years old when I prayed, “Lord I don’t want to meet my husband until I’m ready to have children”. I also prayed to travel the world, I prayed as I pursued my craft as a songwriter. I prayed for adventure and took risks as I changed and grew and learned in those twenty years. Throughout that time I still bargained with God regarding marriage. I wanted to have my husband in my life when I was young. The reality was, I wasn’t ready. Its only in hindsight that I realize my bargaining was ill-fated. In order to have the kind of relationship that I truly desired, I needed twenty years of growth, maturing, and healing.
Was it hard to wait twenty years? Lets look at the facts shall we? I was single for a decade after all of my siblings were married off or coupled. I was single as I witnessed them have children. I even wondered at times whether their children would have children before I did.
So, yeah I was lonely. You could hear it in my music. I would sing these lyrics night after night to audiences, my heart was aching.
“I want to say I found freedom, I want to say I found me, I want to say that I love it, I love being free. But something inside is saying to have something more than my goals, something inside me is saying, I don’t want to be alone” - From “FREEDOM” - available to stream and buy here
Bargaining is something that we are naturally inclined to do in times of struggle. It’s as natural as any of the other stops on the grief cycle train of anger, sadness, denial and sadness. None of these emotions are fully embodied like characters that we see in the media. This should come to a relief to us. No person is the all swindling constantly bargaining used car salesman. I’m only now seeing how my bargaining habit was formed from a place of fear and hopelessness. It was a tactic of survival in an unsafe world. But at what point do I give up bargaining and trying to spin things towards my way? At what point do I realize that not everyone is out to hurt me, or take from me, or that there is enough out there for us all?
Let me know what you think. Are you someone who bargains? Is it a natural inclination? Do you feel that it serves you or not?
Grief
It comes out in micro-aggressions
Insecurity colliding with fear
And for these reasons we’re unlovable
Those things we’re believing right here.
Then we begin isolating
While still craving connection that’s deep
Telling ourselves its the other person
Who needs to take the big leap
Why should we try for connection?
When doing it leaves us at loss.
Being a bridge is a sacrifice
And we’d rather think we’re the boss.
The BOSS, CEO of emotion,
We’ve got it down. We’re all set
Too often moving in haste to notice
There’s some things we choose to forget.
Like grace, its a tool that can show us
Where we have indeed fallen short
It gives us the space to own our part
Instead of space to hold up court.
Cause it’s easy to hold litigation
To list every reason we’re pure
Painting the other side as the devil
We think its true, and we’re so sure
Cause we have a list that we’ve filled out
We have the source and the date
With our good reasons to hold offense
With our good reasons to hate.
But, do we play the devil at times too?
Living in selfishness, greed?
Aren’t we the ones who think that we’re right
unaware of our own misdeeds?
Grief can be a catalyst for this
It looks for a scapegoat to kill
When there’s something else to point to and say
This is what should pay the bill.
How do we then gain perspective
That both sides are losing at best
Unless I gain a newer lease on my life
By putting offenses to rest.
Looking at the realization.
We stand on this pebble called Earth
Suspended in the smallest of galaxies
While the whole universe constantly births
New things and greater inventions
From every sphere, space and time
Considering this, I stop bickering
or claiming what’s yours and what’s mine.
I step back in awe and with wonder
In stepping back start to give space
And with that space gain perspective
We step back in order to face
Face one another with kindness
Face one another with love
Face one another with the bigger picture
That we’re all doing enough.
And we’re enough without trying
Although we try to do our best
Grief works as a tunnel that once we get through
We start to look up and reflect.
Was I in my pain and my hurting
Choosing to bring others pain?
Or was I aware, just enough to know that
We’re all human beings the same.
And everyone’s fighting a battle
Everyone’s lucky and lost
Everyone’s living with baggage from life
And all of it comes with a cost.
So if I stop ringing up tallies
And if I start forgiving debts
Begin to erase all my grievances
That I once promised not to forget.
I stop pointing out to the man cause
I see the girl in the mirror.
She’s showing me a new perspective on me
Who I am right now, right here.
—-
Thank you for reading til the end. This series on grief has been one that started foggy and ended clear. I now understand why I had to write on it, and do hope that amidst my processing, that you were able to get something of real value and find your own sense of hope amidst these strange times.
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NOW I FOUND MY VOICE is a devotional and lifestyle poetry newsletter that I write and share on a weekly basis. I am a songwriter and mother of a tiny human being that teaches me every second of the day. My hope is that in sharing my journey through poetry, prose and music and the journey of others in poetry and rhyme that you too will find a place that encourages you to “Find YOUR voice” and know “There’s nothing wrong with you”
-Adjoa
“Now I found my voice, and they can’t silence me
Now I found my voice, I don’t need the world to see
that I found my voice, oh now I finally am free
cause I found my voice, and there’s nothing wrong with me.” - Adjoa
Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts and feelings. Reading this particular entry was healing for me, but I have appreciated the whole series. I liked seeing how you created a specific theme for a specific amount of time and then explored what might happen within that framework. It's a good model for the artistic process. I connected with so much of what you have written here. It feels good to share a journey. Even though our specific circumstances have been different, there was a lot of emotional and spiritual resonance for me in here. Thank you. xo
So thought provoking. I’ve lost my bargaining skills mostly to a world that is all compromise but refuses to bargain. It’s a great lesson in value. Mine has increased vastly. While there are things I can choose to bargain on and with mostly my beliefs are off the table yet presented to others in steadfast love.
The whole idea of bargaining makes watching others all the more interesting and my compassion increase. My Sarah was the greatest of bargainers. She lost yet the Father never abandoned her in the game. So precious, difficult and beautiful.
Thank you for bringing that word to the table to wrestle with, pray on and let go. ❤️