I was really struck by this post by Sunrise Sister at Mind Sieve a few days ago. It’s a moving exploration of how families can be reluctant to share grief, and the way in which that can prevent proper grieving.
There were echoes for me in Sunrise Sister’s observation that her family was “very logical in its handling of death”. My family and I have certainly leaned toward the stiff upper lip in dealing with our bereavements.
And you know, I think that approach has been absolutely right for me.
Death is certainly in a strange place right now in our society. It’s hidden and yet it’s everywhere. It’s simultaneously sentimentalised (strangers drive miles to place flowers and soft toys on the spot a child died in a car accident they heard about on the news), taken for granted (do we even flinch any more when we hear about the latest car bomb in Pakistan?), and regarded as an affront against the omnipotence of humanity (there’s huge pressure to “fight” death, even when it’s time to let go; we don’t die, we “pass away” after a “brave battle”).
So how do we deal with bereavement and grief when they hit our own lives?
I certainly don’t think we should attempt to hide our losses. Sunrise Sister and some of those commenting have suffered after being prevented from visiting dying loved ones. The planning and attending of funerals can be healing as well as intensely difficult. Many people overprotect children and young teenagers, shielding them from death and grief, which only has the effect of making death something frightening and mysterious, not a natural part of life.
And I also think we have to grieve in a way that’s right for us. A close relative of mine asked the family not to attend the funeral of his son, who had been killed in an accident. We’ve never discussed it, but my suspicion is he simply couldn’t cope with the burden of our grief in addition to his own. I really understand that.
It seems to me the emotional pendulum is swinging too far. There’s a growing pressure to be too open with our emotions. Almost a feeling, probably fuelled by the Oprah generation, that if we’re not sobbing in public we are not properly grieving. (I do understand that’s not what’s under discussion at Mind Sieve.)
At the deaths of my father, my mother, my aunt, my brother, I haven’t hidden my tears from my family, but I haven’t made any effort to share them. We’ve known we’re grieving, there’s been no need to speak of it. My mother’s dry face at my father’s funeral embodied a universe of tenderness and sorrow. Personally, I’ve used writing (occasionally publicly in this blog) and art to express something of the hole blown in our hearts when someone we love dies.
So here I am wondering what the point of this post is? What am I trying to say? Perhaps that grieving is a lonely and lengthy process which eventually leads to healing, and I’m not convinced there is any authentic way of sharing this solitary journey on a deeply personal level.
What do you think?
Image by Sir Mervs
Elsewhere:
Perhaps, though, my preference for lonely grieving is simply laziness – Rebecca has a really good post here about the temptations of solitude and the lessons of community. And The Feminist Shepherd quotes Emily Dickinson talking of our “etiquettes and embarrasments”.
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Elaine 11.06.09 at 6:17 pm
Thank you for this. I grieved very quietly and privately when my dad died. That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate all the kindnesses from friends and neighbours but I needed time alone and to shed my tears in private. It was best for me.
lucy 11.06.09 at 9:18 pm
tess – i really like what you have written here especially the last line:
“grieving is a lonely and lengthy process which eventually leads to healing, and I’m not convinced there is any authentic way of sharing this solitary journey on a deeply personal level.”
BUT/AND sometimes we need to try and share it to even give voice or weight to our own feelings. it wasn’t until i started to articulate and write some of my own experiences that i even knew i needed to grieve them. i had been carrying around a mysterious heavy object that i didn’t know existed until i tried to describe it. does any of that make sense?
blessed be, my friend. xoxo
kigen 11.06.09 at 10:18 pm
Tess, thank you for these thoughts. Talking about grief no longer helps. Depth of that kind has become silent. The name must always be pronounced as PIETA, not piety, because it means something very different than that. But the Pieta by Michelangelo has helped me beyond anything else. When you look at Mary sitting there in silence, it is mind boggling to realize that it is her son in her lap who had been crucified. And yet there is no doubt of the truth and depth of it. I can’t imagine how the artist had come to that deepest of understandings to express Mary’s grief in that perfect calm. She sits composed, without tears, without words, her eyes closed, the love in her heart as simple and whole, and magnificent as the day her son was born. And she is shown the same age as the day he was born and so you know that something eternal is expressed. I had seen the PIETA many times in books and at school, and it seemed like a fine statue, but I had not yet grieved in any deeply personal way, and could not understand why people were so moved by it. Only years later did I see how powerfully profound and healing it is. Some of the pictures don’t show the expressions of both Mary and Jesus, and might not reveal what I am unable to explain, but this one is the best:
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/belgium/bruges/michelangelo/pieta.jpg
Sue 11.07.09 at 12:07 am
Oh, ye olde stiff upper lip. Yes, I understand that whole dynamic although in my family it gets extended out into some sort of land called emotionally dysfunctional.
And yet I think I would prefer that to the Oprah sobbing. Oh, yeah. But those differences are cultural too and our two cultures at their heart are still more in tandem than with American culture, I think.
However, I do wish I could cry more openly in public rather than feel like it is something that will crack the entire world open. I guess I feel frustrated that I have inherited my family’s dysfunction. Hell, we can’t even admit we HAVE feelings like alone EXPRESS them!
Sue 11.07.09 at 12:10 am
PS: Love what you say about death being everywhere and hidden at the same time. So very true. When I hear people say someone has “passed away” it makes me grate my teeth on occasions. They DIED! Say it, FFS! It’s not a dirty word.
Kel 11.07.09 at 1:36 am
how we each handle the process of grieving is as individual as our thumbprint or iris – perhaps the important thing is that each person is allowed to grieve in their own way, but not necessarily left on their own, all the time through the process
a funeral or wake is a public ritual which helps acknowledge loss, and while none of us relish attending these gatherings, they offer an important step for many in processing the loss
when we lived in PNG, death was accompanied by loud wailing and carrying on by everyone, even those not particularly close to the dead person
as it was not our cultural norm, we found it very uncomfortable, but, it was their way of dealing with death and totally normal for them
to each his own
towanda 11.07.09 at 2:13 am
i spent an hour and a half weeping in my spiritual director’s office this morning. 2-year old grief.
i would say her presence with me in that (long) moment was authentic. and that my pain and honesty and questioning were also authentic.
but then, we’ve been working at this for over a year…
Tess 11.07.09 at 10:43 am
Thank you all for your comments, clearly we are individuals in our responses and the time it takes us to deal with grief, even while there are common patterns. As kel says, to each his own.
@lucy, so glad you’ve had this sense of release.
@kigen, thank you so much for what you say about the Pieta, especially your observation about Mary’s age and the expression of the eternal. I think that in looking at photographs of the sculpture before, I’ve been so astonished by the technical mastery, which is absolutely extraordinary, that I hadn’t really SEEN what Michelangelo is expressing.
@sue, I have stood sobbing in front of a group, and it was very liberating, but even while I was doing it I was observing myself with some irony. And yes, terminology is always interesting – for example having your pet “put to sleep” doesn’t sound too bad, does it??
@towanda, you know, I think I would find that release in front of a sd or other “professional” easier. More food for thought.
The Pollinatrix 11.07.09 at 4:40 pm
I was just yesterday having a conversation with someone about grief, but in the context of breaking up. She was telling me that a week before she was to be married, they called it off, and she was so full of grief, she ended up leaving the country for a while. And that ended up being an incredibly positive, transformative experience for her.
We talked about how, not only do we, in western cultures, deny death, but any loss at all. I’ve been horrified at times when people will say to someone who’s recently broken up with someone – Well, he wasn’t any good for you, anyway. Would they say that if he had died? Loss of someone you love is loss.
I don’t judge anyone’s method for dealing with grief. It’s sort of like being in labor, to me. You get through it how you can. If you can avoid fighting it, it’ll go better. I’ve known people who have dealt with it in ways that generally wouldn’t be considered “healthy,” but they made it through eventually, and found their way to some kind of peace and integration.
I’m glad I stumbled upon your blog. Thanks for this thoughtful post.
Sunrise Sister 11.07.09 at 5:31 pm
Tess, Beautiful words you’ve written here about the balance between one’s own needs and of all the others around them grieving the same loss yet perhaps in much different ways. I, a little like Lucy (imagine that) am convinced that my grief has been released many times in multiple ways but the best for me has been open sharing with family, friends, therapist as well. It seems until I’ve expressed in spoken words or in written form the importance of the person in my life I haven’t really released them – and not released them for the wrong reason. Losing a loved one for me is a wound that heals but always leaves a scar – the work of grieving for me tends to result in leaving less of a scar and more of a memory imbedded in my heart of what the deceased person meant to me while living. Thank you for expanding this subject with your special articulation!
xoxo
Tess 11.07.09 at 6:31 pm
@Pollinatrix: (I love that name!!) welcome to my blog and thanks for commenting. That’s a really good point about the grief caused by breaking up and all kinds of other things. Last weekend a friend observed that we have trouble just staying with each other in grief, we want to make it better. I think that’s the source of those comments like “he wasn’t good enough”. (And God help you then if they end up getting back together…)
@SS: Thank you for being so thought-provoking. In a perverse sort of way I’ve actually enjoyed beginning to think all this through in a way I probably hadn’t before. And like Lucy? Imagine that indeed! You might pay a visit to Towanda’s Window today (the link is above with her comment). She has very interesting reflections on physical and emotional scarring.
Sunrise Sister 11.07.09 at 7:28 pm
Tess – thank you again for expanding this converation. I had to drop back in when I read the post from Pollinatrix – so true about lost or severed relationships. I believe those losses must be grieved also or they may haunt us forever!
Sue 11.07.09 at 11:24 pm
That is such a good point, Pollinatrix. We say those things to each other to try to comfort etc but they do not really have the ring of authenticity about them. Or, at the very least, they really just seem to try to bring the ego in on the act as a way of demonizing and distancing (yet again, our Western tendency) the thing that has caused us grief.
Great comments here!!!
Tess 11.08.09 at 11:27 am
I came home last night after a tiring day and watched a DVD of the film In Her Shoes, starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz. Spoiler alert ahead. I enjoyed it far more than I expected – not just a chick flick. Diaz and Collette play sisters. Given these discussions perhaps I was looking out for it, but there’s an interesting bit of dialogue after Diaz’s character has slept with the Collette character’s boyfriend.
Collette’s character is sobbing and her female friend is trying to comfort her and get her to cheer up by saying that both her sister and her boyfriend are horrible and neither of them deserve her tears. Collette’s character responds something along the lines of “You’re probably right, but for once can’t you just say ‘yes, this really sucks, this is really terrible, I’m so sorry for you’.” I thought this was really pertinent to the discussions.
kigen 11.08.09 at 12:43 pm
Tess, good, good question. If we want to take it down to the bare truth, wouldn’t we simply say, the sister slept with the boyfriend, period — in modern lingo, “what happened, what happened.” I love the thought of taking the chick flick and comparing the idea you express, with the Pieta, so the sculpture can be transformed from its high plane in theology into everyday life. In the Pieta, Mary offers her grief to the viewer, simply by opening her left hand gracefully to one side, an act of balance to the Christ cradled in her right arm. In that gesture she says, this is the burden I carry, I accept the role I am asked to play. It is again her youthful fiat still present. And that’s partly why meditating on the sculpture heals my grief. It simply places it there where it is. Michaelangelo again is astounding. And I say that to keep these remarks on sculpture, on art, and its major role in healing, just as pop culture has the power to do also.
The Pollinatrix 11.08.09 at 11:29 pm
I’m glad that my comment could further this conversation.
I think the bottom line is just how disassociative western culture tends to be. We don’t like minor inconveniences let alone earth-shattering emotions.
When I finally learned how to just sit with my emotions, without trying to fight or change or judge them (and I won’t say I’ve mastered it!), it had a profound effect on my life. And it also affects my ability to sit with other people’s emotions.
Another aspect of this is the desire to “fix” things, and to control. I hope this isn’t opening a big nasty can of worms, but the prevalence of that desire seems to me to reflect it being a “man’s world.” We need to relearn the feminine or yin art of simply receiving, whatever it is coming to us. But in order to do that, we have to see the value in it, and also the true power in that ability.
I have to say, I just love kigen’s comment about the sculpture.
rebecca 11.08.09 at 11:31 pm
Tess, I have been thinking so much about the questions posed here. I remember the last two times that major grief came my direction. About 8 years ago a friend of mine was killed by an avalanche, so extremely suddenly. He was just gone. I had this very clear image of my acute grief being like the waves of an ocean. And I knew that I had to stand there and let them hit me over and over again. I allowed myself to cry as much as I wanted. I had plenty of people in my life who would listen to me talk about Scott. And there was a very loving and joyful memorial held for him which helped all of us so much.
Four years ago my 89 year old Granny died. I was with her continually for the 4 days of her dying. I felt that I had been her “midwife” into death. Being witness to her process was both one of the hardest things that I have ever done AND one of the most beautiful. I felt as thought I was midwife to her passing. So, the grief that came after that was much more gentle.
I think that what I do know about grief, is that I want to TALK about it. Not necessarily weep or cry with others, but I want to tell the story of my grief over and over.
You have such a great gift of getting a fabulous discussion going! Thank you!
Love….
Tess 11.09.09 at 1:18 pm
You know, one of the main things I’m taking from this discussion is how very lucky I am to have such a wonderful, articulate and emotionally brave group of readers and commenters. Thank you all so very much!
Kathryn 11.16.09 at 10:14 pm
I can’t stop thinking about this.
Something, I’m not sure if anyone has touched on yet in the comments (and I would read them all but they make me cry) is the grief for someone you still have.
Let me explain, someone VERY close to me is a drug addict. For years I have watched her lose herself, come back, lose herself, almost die, catch Hep C. come back – it’s a terrible cycle.
I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s the hardest grief yet. I lost my brother, my Dad within 4 months of each other. I have experiences death. I’ve had relationships crumble. But this, this is something I really do not know how to deal with.
And because it’s private and invokes such judgement – oh my. I’m rambling…..
Not expressing feelings is unhealthy. It’s not about your choice of expression but just that you do.
Tess 11.17.09 at 10:00 pm
Kathryn: thank you so much for this comment. Your final sentence summed up the debate for me I think – “It’s not about your choice of expression…”
I am so very sorry to hear of your bereavements through death and of the bereavement you are living through each day. I imagine your emotions must swing through so many cycles and leave you both raw and numb. Death is at least final, this other situation you describe must be terrible. You, and the addict, will be much in my thoughts and prayers.
Sue 11.17.09 at 10:04 pm
Oh, my, Kathryn. Yes.