The load of grief we carry.

I attended a funeral this week. I went to honour the life of someone from my congregation. I didn't know her very well, but she had made my life at church richer every time we met. Even though I was not grieving a deep loss at this particular funeral, I found myself close to tears several times during the service. I was reminded, once again, that every funeral we attend adds to the grief we carry. We bring to each funeral all of the other funerals we have attended, particularly when more than one person dies in any given year. When we lose someone we loved deeply, the grief of that loss will overlie all subsequent losses. Our load of grief gets heavier.
Attending a funeral may feel impossible when we are in deep grief, or when we are deeply in anticipatory grief. We feel as if we are attending the funeral of our loved one, and his or her death, past or imminent, consumes our attention and emotions. We may feel guilty about this. We may feel we should be putting those feelings aside for now, and grieving instead for the one whose funeral we are at. But, we are not robots. We cannot so easily compartmentalize our feelings. We cannot simply switch off our pain, our memories, and stay present to the moment we are in. We will naturally react with sadness, emptiness, despair over the loss of our beloved whenever we grieve the next death or deaths.

Just die, already!

There is a unique time of grieving that happens before someone we love dies, especially when the dying process is protracted. Our grief is focused on all of the parts of our loved one we have lost: the wit, the imagination, the sense of humour, the caring and love - in essence, all of the traits that made that person an individual. All of those things have slipped or been stripped away by disease or drugs, or both.
If the person dying is someone with whom we share our lives intimately, or daily, there will be grief a thousand times a day. There will be an empty place at the table, no one to drive us to the store, no extra hands for the many chores of living, no one with whom to share the little events that make up our days.
This grieving is all-pervasive, and yet is the grief that is acknowledged the least by those around us. After all, our loved one is still alive. How can we be so terribly sad? But, we ARE grieving, and this grief takes a huge emotional toll on us every waking minute.
If the person who is dying is not in hospital or hospice care, we may have the added burden of caring for him or her physically, as well. Again, this is extremely costly in terms of physical and emotional energy; and the cost is not limited to us. The time we are forced to spend with our dying loved one may cause tensions for us in our jobs, our families, our other support networks of friends, spiritual communities, neighbours. It may impact us financially, as we take time off, or pay for supplies like Depends, or food supplements. People just don't understand what we are going through. They can't possibly know how difficult it is to be us. They have no idea how to help.
We have lost our lives, in some ways, and we are not the one who is dying. At some point, we want our lives back. We want to be restored to some facsimile of the life we had, even if it can only be through the death of this one whom we have loved, but who has now become a stranger.
Wishing, hoping,waiting for someone we have loved deeply to die, may feel to us like the ultimate betrayal. Actually, it is an opportunity; an opportunity to begin learning not to judge ourselves so harshly. One of the complicating factors in all grief work is that we judge ourselves to be "doing it wrong." Emotions are morally neutral. They are not good or bad in and of themselves. Wanting our loved one to die is not "incredibly selfish," or an indicator that we are somehow unloving. It is simply that we have, to a huge degree, already lost the person. We are tired. We are deeply wounded. We are stressed. We have nothing left to give.
We need to let ourselves off the hook of judgement, and take care of ourselves. We need to find respite care, through organizations dealing with specific illnesses. We need to go for ice-cream, see a movie, stay home and go to bed early. We need to reach out to others, or let them reach in to us. We need to make lists of things others can do for us: laundry, shopping, even vacuuming, making meals. And then we need to let them do it.
Wanting an end to the dying process is simply human. Be gentle with yourself.

The Black Arm-Band

In an earlier post I was talking about the need for a grief symbol. We each need something that will remind us, hourly, daily, that we are grieving. This will give us permission to label our feelings more accurately: we'll know we are sad, not depressed; we'll know we are grieving, not rage-aholics. It allows us to be gentle with ourselves, when the world around us is too often critical.
But someone wrote to say that this blog helped alleviate some of the sense of loneliness that is a part of grief. Which got me thinking, again, about the role of the black arm-band. The arm-band not only shows the world that we are grieving, it enables us to recognize our fellow grievers. How amazing it would be in the darkness of grief to be able to see others who are on the same pathway. How encouraging it would be to see other grievers who are able to laugh, make plans, have hope.
So, let's be more intentional about sharing our experience, strength and hope with each other through this blog. Please send in your comments. I may ask if I can use some of them in my book later on. In the meantime, your comments would be welcomed by many. Thank you for reading and writing with me.

Is it grief or depression?

The fact that our culture does not teach us anything about grief means that we have a lot of myths about it in our minds. These myths cause us to doubt our sanity and to judge ourselves harshly, precisely when we need most to be gentle with ourselves. One of those myths is that any sadness is depression. This myth disenfranchises us as grievers.
It would seem redundant to say that when we are grieving we will be sad. Yet, this is precisely the aspect of grief which is judged the most harshly. Being sad very quickly becomes labelled as being depressed. We deny ourselves the time we need to be sad by fearing this label, whether it comes from inside or from someone else. In our society, being depressed is associated with mental illness. No one wants to be thought of as mentally ill, so we do our best to hide our sadness, even from ourselves.
So, what's the difference? How do I know if it is sadness or depression? This is tricky, because the feeling of being utterly bereft that follows the death of our beloved comes with many of the same feelings as are found in depression: loss of interest in life, inability to make decisions, lethargy regarding self-care. When we are experiencing the sadness of grief it is natural to go through periods of these feelings, accompanied by some degree of withdrawal from our social connections. During our grieving period we will move into and out of sadness.
Depression, on the other hand, is the prolonged and constant presence of an inability to engage in living. Depression is characterized by the prolonged and continuous presence of:
-major deterioration in hygiene habits
-difficulty in simple decision making
-expressions of fear, anger, or guilt
-hyperactivity or compulsive talking
-memory problems and confusion
-concern over hallucinations (seeing or hearing things not actually present)
-major disturbance of self-esteem, preoccupation with worthlessness, and self-condemnation
-withdrawal
-significant impairment of social functioning
-initiating or increasing drug and/or alcohol abuse
-physical complaints or symptoms including failure to eat, continued weight loss, extreme problems sleeping.[1]
The major difference, then, between sadness and depression is that depression is unrelenting. Even in our times of most profound sadness we will feel moments of happiness and love. If the symptoms above are temporary, they are part of grieving. If they are constant and persist for more than 6 weeks, we are probably depressed, and need to consult a professional.
We need to embrace our sadness, no matter how desolating it may seem, whenever it comes. We need to sit with it and pay attention to it, or our grieving will simply be pushed into our unconscious. If we are having times of sadness, even lasting days, we are grieving, not depressed.


[1] Leonard M. Zunin, and Hilary Stanton Zunin, The Art of Condolence: What to Write, What to Say, What to Do at a Time of Loss, (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.), 213-214

It's Been 18 Years!

Yesterday afternoon I re-watched It's My Party. Wow, what an emotional workout that was. It never ceases to amaze me how deep the grief I carry is, how "in this moment" it feels. It is not true that the hole inside heals, in the sense that it disappears. Rather, my experience of grief long after the death, is that the most excruciating pain of the hole is held by gentle, loving hands. These hands offer up my grief for my attention every now and then. I like to think of my deepest griefs in this way, because I don't experience grief as a diminishment. On the contrary, I am richer, fuller, more human because of the grief I suffer. The hands inside that hold my griefs are parts of me that have woven themselves into the very fabric of who I am.
Sometimes when the grief is offered up for my attention it feels as though my deceased loved one is holding the hole, asking me to spend time remembering and grieving. Other times it feels like a divine offering, as if God or the universe was inviting me to go more deeply into my pain. I recognize spiritual truth in the stories of the disciples "seeing" Jesus after his death: in eacth encounter, Jesus is both transformed and transformative. He is recognized by his wounds, and those who followed him are wounded for new life.

Having a Grief Symbol

In my last post, I was thinking about our need to cry when we are grieving. I also mentioned that we tend to carry our grief in silence, day in and day out. Which brings me to an important point: we, and we alone, must give ourselves permission to grieve. Our society will try its best to deny us our right to grieve by telling us we should be "over that by now." This telling comes in many different guises. Often we get that message as much by silence as by actual spoken words. We find our friends and relatives no longer ask how we're doing. We find they won't talk about our deceased loved one. We find they can't bear to hear us rehearse the story one more time.
This is why I find it important to find a grief symbol that I can wear or carry with me. It reminds me of the fact that I am grieving, much like the wearing of a black armband used to do. In some cultures widows still wear black to the day they die. In the west, we need to find our own ways of wearing black. For me, it's a necklace, with 3 pendants. I bought all three pendants, one for myself and one for each of two parnters. The other two women have died, so I find myself in possession of all three pendants once again. Whenever someone close to me dies, I wear the necklace for at least six months.
The symbol my be something else, something you do, like a bubble bath, or attending a play. I believe that when Jesus was telling his disciples, "When you do this, remember me," he was giving them a grief symbol. Find out what "this" is, that will allow you to remember your beloved, and spend time with your grief.

When I need a good cry.

Last night, just as I was heading to bed, I happened to notice that the film, Steel Magnolias was on TV. This is one of my all-time favourite movies. It always makes me laugh and cry, in almost equal measures. I have never seen grief so boldly and accurately portrayed on screen.

There have been times in my life, when grief has piled upon grief, that I have felt an emotional numbness that is beyond tears. I have found myself raging over trivial frustrations, or lashing out at those I care about most, with little provocation. Sometimes, I have noticed that I hurt myself by bumping into walls, shutting cupboard doors on my fingers, tripping over things, all of which, I finally clue in, are designed to help me free up my tears so I can stop over-reacting to everyday situations. When I reach that state, I reach for Steel Magnolias, or Philadelphia Story, or Truly, Madly, Deeply. Sometimes we need a safe outlet for our tears, something that will allow us to access the deep grief we carry in silence day in and day out. A movie is the key for me. I recommend it.