>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

A truck backing into the dog kennel. The IRS sending vaguely threatening letters. A hearing aid company calling at the dinner hour, wanting to sell something to a person who has been dead for six months.

I lately have been obsessed with stress numbers — and breaking points.

What little incident, I wonder, might push a person over the edge?

Not long ago I discovered the Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Scale. The highest scoring events include death of a spouse, 100; divorce, 73; marital separation, 65; detention in jail or some other institution, 63; and death of a close family member, also 63. (You might want to check out your score by Googling Holmes-Rahe on the Net.)

My stress score mounts fast. I rack up 100 points for my wife’s death last September. Add to that 63 for her mother’s dying just two weeks later. Add 53 for leg surgery following a blood clot that developed in late November.

But that’s not all.

A major business readjustment, worth 39 points, occurred with the reorganization of The Observer and a new editor/publisher and business manager. Major change in financial status, which comes with the death of a spouse, adds 38. Trouble with in-laws (a complicated business deal) adds 29. A major change in living conditions (the missing spouse again) adds 25.

A revision in personal habits (new ways of associating with the world without a spouse) adds 24. A major change in eating habits (spaghetti every night) adds 15.

The scale includes about 40 life events, from tidal-wave size to ripple.

If the numbers add up to less than 150 life change units, you have a 30 percent chance of developing a stress-related illness; 150-299, 50 percent chance; more than 300, 80 percent chance.

My numbers at most recent count add up to 386. And that’s not including my mother’s recent remarriage after 10 years as a widow, or a subsequent tragic death in the family of my new in-laws.

It’s no wonder grief experts recommend making no major changes in the year after a spouse’s death. If possible, a person should keep the same home and job. And forget about remarrying. A lot of widowers, in particular, will try to fill the void too soon, marrying on the rebound, and then also add 73 stress points for a quickie divorce.

Being a writer, one way I’ve tried to alleviate stress and bring down my numbers is through journaling. This way, I can capture memories from our 23 years together.

It’s frustrating, though. I have to grab memories as they go drifting — or sometimes zinging — by.

I think in phrases. My late wife (the Better Half) thought in essays.

Unlike the stereotypical newly confirmed bachelor, I try to keep the house neat. My brain, though, is a dump. A lot is there, mind you, but it sits in unrelated piles that need to be brought together and tidied up.

My late wife wasn’t all that neat as a housekeeper. But her brain was full of related piles, everything together, organized, waiting to be tapped.

In that respect, we were the odd couple. If I needed help bringing stuff together, I would ask Tina for assistance. Now I must do this brain tidying alone. It’s a challenge and an opportunity to make my brain work in a more efficient manner.

I am working hard, now, to bring my stress numbers down.

Time alone, though, will not do the job. Grief requires work. Attending a support group, seeing a therapist, reading many books, reaching out to people, consulting others who have taken this journey before — all help. But it’s a long slog before a person comes out the other end of the grief tunnel and begins to see more light.

Only by working at mourning, however, and not denying it or hiding from it, does one begin to lower the stress number and get to the point of good grief.

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