(Names of people quoted in this article have been changed to protect confidentiality.)
“What is it like, this grief, after you’ve healed?”
The question came from Marcia, whose son, Mark, died 7 months ago, suddenly and with no prior symptoms, at age 42, after a massive heart attack. Marcia has been coming to our monthly meetings of The Compassionate Friends, Potomac Chapter, for 6 months. The Compassionate Friends (TCF: www.compassionatefriends.org) is an international organization whose mission is to provide support for bereaved parents and siblings.
I am facilitating the meeting. My goal is to make sure that everyone has a chance to share, if they wish, and, further, that the group is a safe place for members to share even their most painful, their most intense feelings.
My son, Andrew, died after being struck by a car on May 19, 1988, so I am also a bereaved parent. He was 4 months shy of his 9th birthday. I was a witness, watching helplessly from a distance too great to be able to intervene.
Having been informed by over 35 years of my own experience, along with extensive contact with therapists and other bereaved parents, I have my own thoughts about healing after loss. But, at this time, I defer to the other group members in attendance before sharing my own point of view, so I look for volunteers.
Anne raises her hand, and after a nod from me, she speaks. Anne’s daughter, Joy, aged 23, died of a drug overdose 17 months ago.
“I just wonder when I’ll begin to feel better. My friends have expressed concern to me about why I’m not over the pain.”
I understand. The second year after the loss is often challenging in a new way, when some of the numbness and shock of the first year begins to wear off and the pain seems to go too deep for words. This new intensity is compounded as our culture’s intolerance and impatience with the grief process becomes manifest.
Jeffrey speaks next. Jeffrey’s son, Albert, died in a single car accident a little over 12 years ago. Bert had just had his 18th birthday and he fell asleep behind the wheel of his car. I remember when Jeffrey was a new member of TCF and he used to say that his son made one mistake and it wasn’t fair that he had to pay the ultimate price. Jeffrey has not repeated that for a number of years.
He says, “I don’t know what ‘healing’ would mean. I’m not the same person I was before Bert died. I’m more empathetic, more understanding of others, but I’m also a sadder person overall. I have times of joy, times of satisfaction, but I think of Bert every day – how he lived and how he died. What would the 30-year-old Bert be like today? That never goes away.”
I think Jeffrey speaks for the vast majority of bereaved parents. We tend to think of healing as a restoration. For example, if you get an ear infection and take antibiotics, the odds are that you will be healed. Your system will be restored to its previous health.
Grief is different. We are changed forever by those we love, and equally by their passing, and especially if the loss is a child, no matter the age. So, describing the grief process in terms of “healing”, or “resolution”, for example, ignores that the process is lifelong. The process itself is the destination. By contrast, the concept of healing is pervasive in our culture. An Amazon search of books about healing or using the word “healing” in the title, gives rise to over 60,000 hits! We are all about healing and moving on.
How, then, are we to conceptualize the stages of change that the bereaved undergo in their journey, and why is this important? We like to think of ourselves as moving from disequilibrium states to states of equilibrium, to measure our “progress” in some sense. Marathon runners can regard the strategically placed signs informing them of the distance traveled and the distance yet to come with satisfaction and hope. Perhaps that eases the punishing race in some way. Life and grief are not so clear cut. There are no clearly marked signposts, nor, it seems, is there a clear ending.
Perhaps, instead of healing, we can think in terms of well-being. Much has been written about a state of well-being, consisting of various dimensions, or aspects. For our purposes, wellbeing
encompasses 5 dimensions – intellectual, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. We will frame the grief process in terms of these 5 dimensions.
Many losses are traumatic. Child loss is always traumatic, no matter the cause, so child loss gives rise to what is often called complicated grief – trauma combined with loss. The moment of death, or learning of the death, becomes an anchor in time, an end to hope, the dissolution of dreams, a starburst that cleaves a parent’s life into two parts – all that preceded the moment, and all subsequent time. Early reactions vary, but can include disbelief, a sense of unreality, shock and numbness, and obsessive reliving of events. As time passes, numbness gives way to intense feelings which may include pain, despair, anger and guilt, to name a few. The parent grieves for his or her own loss plus the inconceivable loss suffered by their deceased child. The intensity causes many bereaved parents to seek ways to ease the pain, to distract themselves from what is happening inside, a strategy that may contribute to alienation from self.
It’s rare for a bereaved parent to belong to an understanding community – a group that comprehends grief and the grief process – but even in those rare cases, the bereaved parent may withdraw within him or herself, feeling that no one else can possibly understand. I have heard from many bereaved parents who have sought help from a therapist, only to be advised, after a few months, that they must be stuck because they are not “progressing”! Many bereaved parents, even when open to seeking help from a therapist, insist that any such therapist must have lost a child, the better to be understanding of their client. Most parents are part of a community of friends or family that encourages them to “move on”, and often after only a few weeks. Such parents first lose a child and then lose their friends.
It’s common for bereaved parents to stop taking care of their physical bodies. They can be unable to sleep, or tortured by dreams if they can sleep, or unwilling to get out of bed. They stop eating well because it requires attention and effort they are unable to provide due either to lack of caring or inability to concentrate. They may be plagued by obsessive thoughts, trying to resolve a tangled web of “if only’s”. They may be prescribed sedatives by well-meaning doctors who mistake the symptoms of grief as an illness. Worse, they may self-medicate with food or alcohol, for example, to attempt to escape their new reality.
Finally, bereaved parents, who once considered themselves part of something larger, at a minimum, the overarching purpose of bringing up their child and preparing him or her for a full life, now may feel alienated from their formerly familiar universe – a universe that has now utterly betrayed them. Surrounded by friends whose children are engaging in life – growing up, going to college, getting married, having children themselves – bereaved parents may experience a variety of unfamiliar reactions, such as envy or resentment, that complicate their sense of community.
Former religious beliefs are sometimes helpful, but often fall by the wayside as they fail to provide answers for the incomprehensible or comfort for the indescribable. The once infinite universe of possibility has suddenly collapsed into a black hole of emptiness.
All of these reactions are at odds with a state of well-being in each of the 5 dimensions. In the grief process, it is possible to work toward and to achieve a state of well-being in all of the dimensions. As a facilitator, that has been my goal for the members of my chapter of TCF. Through participation in the TCF group, combined, for some, with individual therapy, these early reactions to the death of a child are often alleviated, but not completely eliminated. As is the case with early childhood trauma, the loss can be reframed and growth is possible, even though the hole in the heart is never entirely closed.
At a recent meeting, Jeffrey shared that he has realized that he has experienced a change in the memory of his son. A few weeks ago, his first thought of Albert was a pleasant memory of the sharing of a concert they attended together, rather than obsessive visions of his son’s death. He said that it felt as though he rediscovered his relationship with Bert. Although tinged with sadness, his was a newfound joy.
Elaine, who discovered her deceased 32-year-old daughter in her apartment 18 months ago, dead of as yet unknown causes, used to ask me every month if I thought she was making progress. Rather than answer, I always asked what that would mean for her. Last month, she confided that she was no longer thinking in terms of progress. I asked her how that felt, without giving in to the temptation to say, “Now that’s real progress!” She answered that, while it didn’t change her sense of pain and loss, she felt an easing in her ability to deal with it. Perhaps, Elaine achieved the beginnings of a sense of emotional well-being. What she felt became less important than that she felt.
Kay, whose daughter, Evelyn, died of breast cancer 12 years ago, spoke. She said that our chapter had become an essential part of her life. She knows that, while each parent has a unique experience, we have more in common than we have differences. It is the only place where she feels comfortable talking about her daughter and that talking about Evelyn keeps her alive in some way. In the nearly 12 years she has been coming to meetings, she is aware of her gradual change, from a newly bereaved parent whose dominant need was to share her story, to someone capable of listening compassionately to the stories of others, to the present day, when she is capable of giving back. TCF has become a new community for Kay and her contributions to those who are newly bereaved, based on her own experiences, gives her a renewed sense of purpose. Kay, like other “seasoned grievers” in TCF, has learned to continue her relationship as Evelyn’s mother. She will never stop feeling sad for her daughter’s loss and for her own, but she feels the peace of accepting whatever she does feel.
The concept of well-being suits the evolving but never-ending grief process because the attendant disturbances in most, if not all, of the intellectual, emotional, physical, social and spiritual realms can be addressed over time. In my own case, and those of many others, some of whom are quoted above, the sadness never ends, but peace and well-being can be attained, and fundamental personal change seems inevitable. On the other hand, the concepts of “healing” or “resolution” convey a finality that doesn’t seem to correspond to common experience. The expectation of such eventual finality creates a distance between those in mourning and those in the community who are not, a distance that deepens an already painful sense of isolation, precisely at a time when connection is so desperately needed.
It’s my hope that this perspective helps friends, family and therapists accept the new person that is emerging from the depths of loss. Perhaps, beyond grief, the aspects of well-being describe other kinds of psychological change and growth as well, in a way that “healing” does not.
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Thank you, Robb. I am a seasoned griever of almost 9 years and have always found that the word “healed” is not relevant for me. Through God’s good grace, I have experienced the well-being and growth in areas you mention. Much of that came about through a TCF local chapter, attending TCF national conferences, and finally reaching out to others who are newly bereaved. I also recognized early on that I had a choice of how to respond to this single worst day of my life. The human heart has a capacity to hold true sadness ( the title of an Avett Brothers song worth mentioning) along with joy. In this post, you have affirmed what I continue to experience and I am very grateful for that.
Peace,
Pat