Dawn's Notes
Grief Roller Coaster - August 2026
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
It was August 17, 1962. That is when I said yes when my future husband asked me to marry him. That morning, I took a bus from Springfield, Missouri, to St. Louis to spend the weekend with his family. I suspected he might ask me to marry him because he had told me he had the weekend planned—and he had.
That afternoon, he took me to the Highlands Amusement Park where there was an extremely high roller coaster. I was a country girl from Tennessee, and I had never even seen a roller coaster. But my future husband had ridden that roller coaster since he was a young boy, so he was unafraid, and it was a thrill for him! He told me it would be “lots of fun.” But the closer I got to the ride, I could see how enormously steep it was. I remember thinking it was probably scary, but I trusted my future husband.
As he and I were boarding the ride, he insisted that we sit in the front seat since it was “the best view.” He told me to hang on tightly to the bar in front of us, and he said it would help if I screamed when our car dropped! Sitting and waiting for the ride to begin, I still had trepidations, but I wanted to be a good sport, so I trusted him and went along with it. As the ride began, the cars were slowly pulled up, up, up the extremely steep incline. Clickety, clack! Clickety clack! For a few moments, our car paused at the top, and I had time to look down, way, way down, straight down! There was no going back, no getting off!
Then with a roar, the cars dropped! Straight down in a few seconds! I screamed like crazy! It felt like I had “lost my stomach,” and at lightning speed we were at the bottom of the first hill! Then up, then down, and around, up and down, so fast. More roars and fast clackety sounds on the rails! When I thought my heart and stomach could take no more, the ride ended abruptly, and we disembarked. But I had a big problem! My legs were so wobbly that I could hardly stand up—I had never been that “weak in the knees” before! The ride scared me so badly I must have had a massive adrenaline rush!
I tried to act nonchalant, but I also felt angry at my future husband for telling me that it would be “fun!” It was not fun, it was terrifying! It scared me so badly that I have never ridden a steep roller coaster again. It is a wonder that I accepted his proposal later that evening! But I said yes, and I was never sorry. Our country girl-city boy marriage of forty-three years was a wonderful “ride” even though our lives had ups and downs, but we had each other.
In 2000, when my husband and I were told he had kidney cancer, I was not braced for that news. Almost six years later, he died. And I was afraid—afraid of living my life without him, of starting over. And I felt like my heart was broken. I remembered our younger years and August 17 when we took that crazy ride on the roller coaster, how I had braced myself and had hung on to the iron bar with all my might. And I realized I must “hang on” again through the pain and sadness.
I remember being alone in our old farmhouse for the first time after he was buried. How the quiet and aloneness closed in around me as I wondered about the “unknowns” that were ahead of me. And I remember the ups and downs of grief, those slow climbs up the hills, and the sudden drops filled with anxiety when I least expected them. I did not know what to expect, and I felt like my life was out of control with many unknowns.
After his death, I did not scream like I did on the roller coaster, but I still cry and shed tears when I remember. Even many years later, a song or memory can still take me back to those days. And if you have lost someone you dearly love, you too may be very sad, even afraid. But we do not get the choice to opt out of our “grief rides.” Shortly before my husband died, he tried to prepare me for the grief that he knew I would experience. He reminded me that, at first, the grief experience has its steep mountains and deep valleys.
He also told me that the mountains and the dark valleys would become less steep and less dark, and that the mountains would flatten out into hills, and he was right. That “grief roller coaster" arrives for me less often now, and the ride is gentler with fewer twists and turns. And I am grateful. During the steepest parts of "my ride," I had to search for ways to help me deal with my sadness, and a few things helped. Walking, exercising, writing, staying busy, friends and family, or helping someone else. Music, lots of music, and setting goals that pointed me toward the future.
Since I could not change the past, I had to think about the future. So, if you are grieving, you too will eventually "ride" on gentler terrain. Time is on your side. It may not be an easy ride, but you can make it! Just hang on!
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” C.S. Lewis
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator