I Wish I Had a Time Machine

I remember shortly after the accident hearing a radio ad that said something about a time machine.  I remember thinking that if I had one I knew exactly what I would do with it.  I am sure you can guess that I would go back to that day and prevent the events that forever changed my life.  I'm pretty sure I wished for one even before hearing the ad...  For the first while all I wanted was to change the events of that day, anything to avoid that fateful accident.  Anything to get my Princess back.

I prayed, pretty much non-stop for days that it wouldn't be true.  I didn't want to believe what everyone
was telling me, and what at least part of me knew to be true.  I didn't see Ethne until almost two weeks had passed and we went to dress her.  Until then I thought that maybe if I prayed hard enough it wouldn't be true and I would get her back.

I tried bargaining with God.  "Take me instead," "I will do [this] differently," I will start doing [this]," "I will be a better mom," "I will break [this] bad habit..."  But none of it changed things.  In fact some of it made me angrier.

Why do we do this?  I know at other times in my life I have found myself trying to bargain for a certain outcome to different events.  Promising one thing or another if things will only go the way I want them to.  Why, when most of us know this bargaining won't do us any good do we still try?  Is it just something we need to cope with events in our lives?  Is it hard-wired into us?  Or is it something, or someone, else convincing us that these things can make a difference, even when we ultimately have no control over them?  Maybe a combination?

Some believe bargaining is an expression of hope that the bad news (whatever it may be) is reversible.  Even when the logical side of our brain knows that we can't fix or change things our heart tries to give us hope that there is some chance, no matter how remote, that it can be changed.

When someone is in this stage of the grieving process the worst thing you can do is offer them false hopes.  When they are begging for the situation to change and you know it cannot don't offer them the things that can't or will never change.  Instead offer support or other change for things that can be controlled.  Sometimes you have to point to the inevitable, even when it seems like the worst thing you can do, but facing the truth is far better than being given promises that will never be fulfilled.

I remember being so angry every time someone would point out that I couldn't change anything.  I remember wanting to lash out and physically hurt the people who love me most because they were pointing out the inevitable.  So I stopped talking about my time machine, I stopped telling them the things I wanted to change to reverse these events.  And eventually I stopped these things all together.  I don't think I had really reached acceptance of the events, but I had come to some acceptance of the fact that I couldn't change things.  And then I started to focus more on the things I could change.  I put more effort into my physical therapy, I worked more at helping others, I tried to be a better mom and wife...  So maybe in some ways my bargaining worked.

(Bargaining is the third stage of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle.)