No matter the circumstances when someone dies,
Be Not Afraid Grief
Chapter 18
Grief
No matter the circumstances when someone dies, we tend to haul out the same old clichés. Part of it is probably our fear of hurting someone by saying "the wrong thing." Part of it is that we are so overwhelmed by emotions that we don't know what we really think. But a good part of it is also our general discomfort with grief.
For most of us, the raw reality of losing someone (or seeing someone else suffer such a loss) is too much for us to address honestly and fully. It demands vulnerability – the admission of weakness, dependence, and the fear that we've come to the end of our rope – and because of this we try to brush it off, or skirt it by means of pat phrases. And when that doesn't work we treat it like a speed bump: slowing down because we have to, but then hurrying on as quickly as possible.
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Sometimes we do this for ourselves, in the hope that if we can pick ourselves up again and "move on," we can limit our pain. Sometimes, worried what others will think about us if we don't pull ourselves together
soon, we mask our pain by bottling it up silently.
Common as it is to try to deal with grief in this way, it does not work. Hide it, talk around it, postpone it, pretend it isn't there – in the long run, grief will never go away until it is met head on and allowed to run its course. Given the unique circumstances that shape every loss, the time this takes will vary with every person. Tragically, time isn't always granted, as Gina, a young woman I know, found out.
When Tom, Gina's sixteen-year-old brother, died of an overdose several years ago, she was devastated. "In a way, I'm still not through dealing with it," she says. Friends and acquaintances were sympathetic at first, but after a while they grew tired of her inability to "move on" and made her feel guilty that she was still struggling:
I tried to explain, but they never really understood me. It
seemed like they expected my life to be "normal" again.
I often went through times of sadness, bitterness, and
other painful emotions, but people were uncomfortable
with this. I was so alone.
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Six months after Tom's death, a good friend of his
died. I felt so much pain. But when I told one of my
friends how I was feeling, he said he was worried for
me. He thought I should have been over "all of that" by
now – which pressured me to feel the same.
I feel like I mourned my brother and his friend in
isolation and confusion. I tried to gain meaning from
their deaths, but it was very hard. Everyone just kept
talking about how they shouldn't have died.
In a recent book of interviews on death and dying, author Studs Terkel recounts a conversation he had with Myra, a woman who experienced the same lack of empathy after her mother's death. She felt she had a right to grieve, but that other people's expectations kept taking it away from her. Saying she felt "disenfranchised," Myra explained:
It means you're not supposed to feel grief, and not
supposed to show it. I was in my late fifties when my
mother died. She was eighty-one. People came up with
the usual platitudes. "After all, she lived a good life."
"You shouldn't feel so full of grief." But that's bullshit.
That's why we can't handle death very well. We want
a sort of drive-by grieving. Nobody wants you to carry
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on about it. They want you to deposit it like you do in a
bank.
No wonder so many people feel they need to get over their grief quickly – and nobly to boot. Most will find this impossible to do; and in my experience, even those who succeed in hardening themselves so as to emerge intact will find out sooner or later that they cannot truly heal without allowing themselves time to grieve. After all, grief is the innate urge to go on loving someone who is no longer there, and to be loved back. And insofar as we hold ourselves back (or allow someone else to hold us back) from bringing this urge to expression, we will remain frustrated, and we will never heal. In other words, grief is the soul's natural response to loss, and should not be repressed. Writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whose son was kidnapped and killed when he was a baby, advises:
One must grieve, and one must go through periods of
numbness that are harder to bear than grief. One must
refuse the easy escapes offered by habit and human
tradition. The first and most common offerings of
family and friends are always distractions ("Take her
out" – "Get her away" – "Change the scene" – "Bring in
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people to cheer her up" – "Don't let her sit and mourn")
when it is mourning one needs.
Courage is a first step, but simply to bear the blow
bravely is not enough. Stoicism is courageous, but it is
only a halfway house on the long road. It is a shield,
permissible for a short time only. In the end one has
to discard shields and remain open and vulnerable.
Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and no
growth will follow.
It may sound cruel to advise a grieving person, as Lindbergh does, to remain open to further pain. After all, most of us instinctively protect ourselves, once wounded, by retreating from the fray. And it isn't easy to resist that temptation. Yet I have seen that when a person willingly submits to grief, it may act as a crucible that transforms. There is a catch, of course: the need for humility. Accepted only grudgingly, grief ends in resentment, bitterness, loneliness, and rebellion. Borne with humility, however, it empties the soul of its own agendas for healing, cleanses it of self-sufficiency, and allows room for something new.
For the parents of Matt, the young man whose story I told at the beginning of this book, grief became an occasion for self-examination and prayer and brought them close to each other and to God. As Matt's father,
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Randy, said shortly after his son's death, "It's a great temptation to throw myself back into my work, my daily rhythm, or whatever. But I can't do that if I'm going to gain anything from going through all this.
God spoke through Matt's illness and death, and I don't want to 'get over it.' I want to be challenged and changed for the rest of my life."
Traditionally, the first step of grieving is preparing the body for viewing, and then for burial or cremation, and for Matt's brother, Nick, this was an important step in coming to terms with his loss:
Grieving is hard, but it can bring you together with
other people. My dad and I helped dress Matt after he
died, and Matt's doctor made us feel that we could help,
although he said we didn't have to if we'd rather not.
It was good to be incorporated into things instead of
stepping back and watching everything happen. I think
you end up feeling numb when you're just an observer.
It was scary to put on Matt's clothes and to feel his
limp body, but at the same time I wouldn't have missed
it. It was the last service – the last act of love – I could
do for him.
If you just walk away from a death, there's not much
more you can say than, "Wow, what just happened?" But
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if you can say, "I did something, and I know what I just
did," it has meaning.
Nick notes that grief can be a source of community, and I can attest that this is true. Take memorial services and funerals, for instance – they are not only painful, but healing, for the bereaved. There is a simple reason for this: by inviting friends and relatives to participate in viewing the body of someone we love and then laying it to rest in a cemetery or other place of burial, we are allowing them to share our pain.
Unfortunately, such age-old customs are disappearing, and not only because of pragmatic considerations, but because there is a dwindling appreciation for their symbolic power. Speaking of changing practices in his rural Midwestern hometown, author W. Paul Jones writes:
More and more obituary notices indicate cremation,
without any service. Even here in the Ozark Hills, many
of the dead no longer have a special place…The mortician
told me that the disposal of the ashes is usually left to
him, to be scattered whenever and wherever he finds
convenient. He uses them to fertilize his roses.
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I have read of similar trends elsewhere, too: in several European cities, growing numbers are choosing to be buried (or otherwise disposed of) anonymously – and without any ceremonial farewell whatsoever.
Admittedly, funerals can place a great strain on families whose finances are already stretched. But one wonders how often money is really the limiting factor. What about those who leave plenty, but request no service and no marked grave? Do they regard themselves as burdens, or feel that they were only tolerated and not truly loved? What is it that they lack the natural desire to be remembered at least somehow, by somebody, after they are gone – or that they even wish to be forgotten?
Every family must find its own way to take leave of the dead, and I am not suggesting that one way is better than the other. How could it be, when cultural and religious backgrounds vary so widely that what one person finds deeply meaningful, another finds irreverent or distasteful? All the same, I believe that every human being has an innate need to know that he belongs to someone, and that he is cherished, and because of this I feel certain that no matter the circumstances of death, each one deserves the dignity of a loving farewell.
When New York's Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, thousands of grieving families
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were left with nothing but the knowledge that their loved ones were surely dead – for most there was no body to grieve over, nor even any concrete evidence of death. There were only holes: unopened mail, a vacant
place at the table, an empty bed. It was all the more touching, then, that during a memorial service held in Lower Manhattan several weeks later, each family who attended was given a vial of earth from the site. More than a symbolic gesture, this gave the bereaved something to hold in their hands, and to bury or save.
Everyone responds differently to the challenges of loss. Sometimes expectations clash even in the same family. Not long after my mother died, for instance, my sisters and I were sitting at home with my father, having coffee. We were talking about our families, and having a good time. Papa, however, was hurt by our laughter and wanted to know how we could let life return to normal so quickly. Couldn't we see that he was still grieving for Mama? And why weren't we taking her death just as seriously?
Surely the return to "normalcy" is a vital step toward healing. But what I learned that day was the importance of respecting the pain of those who heal more slowly than those around them. Randy, above, spoke of the temptation to get back to work as soon as possible, an
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urge that seems understandable enough. Many people say their grief would drive them insane, if they didn't have a job. They need something, anything, to force them out of the house each day and keep them going.
But there are just as many who do not share this point of view at all. Unable to cope with the obligations of previous schedules and commitments, they cannot conceive of returning to "business as usual" while still deep in grief: to do that would be to admit that their mourning is over, when in fact it has just begun. And when they do finally pick up the pieces and look for a new focus in their lives, they may find that emerging from grief is no easier than grieving itself. In her memoir Go Toward the Light, Chris Oyler, whose eleven-year-old died after contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion, writes:
I'd like to say that I found solace enough in my husband
and other boys. But that wasn't really true…What I
realized soon after Ben's death was that I had to get to
know my own children and my husband all over again.
We had learned to function in crisis, learned to love
each other through tears. But now we had to learn how
to function all over again in normal times, when alarm
clocks went off in the morning and there was homework
to do at night.
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Grieving families often find comfort in making connections with other bereaved people. Part of it may be the knowledge that those they are reaching out to know what they are going through, and will be sensitive
to it; but part of it is also the satisfaction that comes from giving back after one has been on the receiving end of condolences and other forms of sympathy.
Several months after the death of Merrill, whose story I told in an earlier chapter, his wife, Kathy, traveled to another state to support a woman who had just lost her husband. Kathy told me later that instead of reviving her pain, this experience helped her to put it in perspective.
Sidney and Marjorie, another couple, lost their first son when he was only five weeks old; the day after he was buried, they took a severely abused foster child into their home. Others wondered how they would cope, but Marjorie says the boy gave them an outlet for the love they would have gone on lavishing on their baby, had he lived.
After Delf, a former teacher of mine, accidentally ran over his two-year-old son, killing him, he and his wife went through their neighborhood from house to house, sharing their pain and grief. Some time later they brought their child's clothes and toys to a poor couple in their neighborhood who had a child the same age.
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Not everyone is able to turn grief into an occasion for healing. After losing their son, a couple I know drove several hours to meet another couple (I'll call them the Smiths) who had just lost a daughter in similar
circumstances, and took them out for lunch. Sadly, the Smiths were so paralyzed by their pain that they were unable – unwilling, even – to see beyond it. Afraid that the other couple's loss would be too much to carry on top of their own, they did not even acknowledge their hosts' kindness, but gave them a cold shoulder.
Someone who has not suffered the death of a loved one might be tempted to write off a couple like the Smiths as self-centered. But that would be heartless. Deeply wounded people often spurn expressions of sympathy that they would otherwise accept, and sometimes they may even take themselves by surprise. It is not our place to judge.
In the same vein, it is presumptuous to offer quick explanations. Writing of September 11, 2001, Ellyn Spragins notes that because of the public nature of the catastrophes in New York and Washington, millions across the country, including people who live far away, grieved for the dead in the following weeks. "We've all prayed," she writes in the New York Times; "we've wept, learned the names of some of those who died, given blood, and sent money to charities…The suffering of strangers has become a part of our own lives." And
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yet, she notes, we're still at a loss: "How does pain depart? How do people heal? It feels disrespectful, insulting even, to frame an answer."
It is also risky. For one thing, the most compassionate
advice may be misinterpreted as belittling; for another, it may cramp the person it was intended to console. How is a mother supposed to respond when, after having lost a baby, someone helpfully assures her that God "must have needed another angel"? The first thing most grieving people need is an arm around their shoulders, and permission to cry.
An acquaintance recently told me that after her mother died, she went to my parents, sobbing, and poured out her need. They listened, and listened more. Finally my father said quietly, "I understand." That was all. But it meant more to her than all the words of wisdom other people had given her.
When Linda's son, Matt, lay dying of cancer, she came across a book in which Henri Nouwen writes that "a caring silence can enter deeper into our memory than many caring words" – and found that it struck a chord. Just the previous summer, she and her husband had spent several days with Brad and Misty Bernall, whose daughter Cassie was killed in the infamous Columbine High School massacre of April 1999.
Speaking of the time she spent visiting Misty, Linda remembers the frustration of trying to comfort her
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while wondering what she was going through. "There was a lot of silence between us," she recalls. "At times I could see the need for it; at other times I worried that she was upset with me." Now Linda understands
Misty's inability to chatter: "Because there just aren't any words that will make you feel better, silence is often what you want and need most. It heals." She goes on:
A year later, during Matt's last months, I knew Misty
was thinking of me, and I knew she was hurting – for
herself again, and for me. There were no words between
us, but I felt close to her in our silence. A few times I
picked up the phone to call her, but then couldn't. There
wasn't anything to say. If I could have seen her, there
would have been tears, but I don't think there would
have been any words.
Three weeks after Matt died, Brad and Misty sent us a
beautiful flower arrangement, with a card saying "We're
praying for you." I thought of how hard it must have
been for her to call the florist, and on the spur of the
moment, I decided to call and thank her. I thought I'd be
okay on the phone this time.
I called and got her voice mail, so I said, "Hi, Misty,
this is Linda. Thanks for the flowers. I love you." Then
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I broke down. Her pain – my pain – what was there to
say? I choked and quickly hung up.
The day before Matt died, Linda spent a long time in her living room, sitting quietly on the couch with a friend. A few days later, the same friend came back with another woman, and the three of them held hands as the tears trickled down their cheeks. "There is nothing more special than being with someone in total silence and knowing that you feel each other's hurt," says Linda. "It is an expression of deep love."
Generalizations are rarely helpful, but there is one thing about grief that can be safely said for everyone: it can never be passed over quickly. Grieving takes time and space – time to grasp the irreversible change of losing someone you love, and space to sort out your conflicting emotions.
Some people experience a surprising strength in the first days after a death; but even these soon feel the full impact of their loss. How can someone not need time to adjust? A 45-year-old I know whose father took his life decades ago was not able to talk about it openly until this year. And a friend of my wife's who lost her only daughter to multiple sclerosis still weeps over her at times, though it's been twenty years. Often, the ability to recover quickly turns out to be something else, like
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the ability to mask pain. And though it is "common sense" that time heals, it may not be true for everyone. For some, the pain of grief intensifies with time.
As for the popular notion of "closure," Bud, who lost
his 23-year-old daughter Julie in the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building, has this to say: "I can't handle that word – I get tired of hearing it. The first time someone asked me about closure was the day after Julie's burial. The day after! I was still in hell then. In a way, I still am. How can there ever be closure? A part of my heart is gone."
Alexis, a woman whose brother committed suicide, feels the same thirty years after the fact: "The pain is still there, and I wonder how I could have prevented it. Was it something I said or did?" Sometimes no outward gesture, no word of comfort or encouragement, no happy memory can erase the guilt a person feels.
In short, there is no "answer" to the riddle of grief. But there is such a thing as community, and the knowledge of those who have experienced its blessings that even if one person, alone, cannot hold up under the crushing weight of loss, the heaviest burden can be lifted, or at least lightened when it is shared.
And for those who are open to it, there is the comfort of knowing that while God may not shield us from hardship and pain, he has promised that he is close to all those who grieve. As Psalm 34 puts it, "The Lord is
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close to the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit, and those who despair."