Category Archives: Grief

Standing up…

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Conversation may be the beginning of connection.  Continuing the conversation is a way to deepen connection.  I suppose not every conversation needs to be continued. Maybe some are pretty complete in and of themselves.   But those that bring understanding and growth?  I think we are in desperate need of continuing those.

I wondered which GrowthLines conversations were waiting to be continued.  I wanted to see which posts struck the deepest chord with readers.  I was a little surprised to discover that Dominoes falling, had been viewedDSC_0090 more times than any other. I reread the words looking for clues to their impact.

When the dominoes of life start falling, words have the power to help and to heal.  Words offer understanding.  They give us permission to stumble in our grief.  Words bear witness to what we already know by experience.  That loss will come, over and over again, and will lay us low.  We need those words of understanding, both silent and spoken when we’re swept under waves of loss and grief.

Maybe we also need words that bear witness to what we’re not so certain of.  That we can stand again. That we can pull ourselves upright.  Put one foot in front of the other.  And begin to walk, again.  Choose to sit and speak words of comDSC_1428fort to someone today.  And when they are ready to rise and walk, stand with them and speak words of hope and encouragement.  I know we will fall under the weight of loss.  I believe we can stand again.

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

Pass this way…

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I expect to pass through life but once.  If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.  ~ William Penn

For the Children

Let us have a heart

For children everywhere.

A mind to think

On their behalf,

With love and sacrifice.

Hands,

To touch,

To do,

To create the evidence

Of our love

And their worth.

Paulann C. Canty, December 19, 2012

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI6SlqIUG4s&w=560&h=315]

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.  ~ Charles Dickens

Leaning in…

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I was listening to a Hazelden webinar on adolescent suicide.  The presenter talked about the importance of engaging the suicidal teen, encouraging them to talk.  She identified the three most important words to say when you’re the one being told, “Sometimes I feel like killing myself.”  What were the words she thought had such power to connect? “Tell me more.”  Three small words with the potential to change the course of a person’s life.

“Tell me more.”  Three words that invite someone to share their pain and confusion.  Why are those words so often left unspoken?  Perhaps because encouraging someone to hand us their pain may be the right thing to do, but it is rarely the easy thing to do.   In fact the willingness to stand and hold another’s pain often leaves us facing our own discomfort.

“Tell me more.”  I replayed those three words as I went about my day.  I thought about how they fit other situations.  How powerful those words could be with those who grieve.  How in the midst of grief we long for someone to ask us to tell them more about who and what we have lost.  How holding the pain of someone else’s loss feels uncertain and uncomfortable, and so we hold back.

I was still chewing on the benefit and difficulty of “Tell me more”, when my weekly dose of Modern Family came on.  It is Phil Dunphy’s favorite day, leap day.  He has big plans to do something out of the ordinary to celebrate.  But as the day continues, things begin to fall apart.  Phil pulls the two boys, Luke and Manny aside in an attempt to salvage their celebration.  He leans toward them and says in a low, somber voice, “I have a plan.”  The boys just stand there.  Phil adds, “It’s kind of traditional to lean in when someone says they have a plan.”  Both boys immediately lean into the circle.  No hesitation. Focused.

That’s when it came to me.  What Phil Dunphy had to say was important.  And when someone has something important to say, we need to lean in.  To lean in and embrace what is being said, giving the words, the feelings, and the person our presence. Perhaps no territory feels more uncertain and overwhelming than the landscape of grief and loss.  When we find ourselves in the presence of wounded travelers and their story, needing to lean in, our first impulse may be to just stand there.  Sometimes we even step away.

Forty five years ago, John Drakeford wrote a book titled, The Awesome Power of the Listening Ear.  It was a book about the “power of simply listening to others”.  I think Drakeford’s intent was to help us push past discomfort to a place of leaning in.  A place of inviting others to tell us their stories.  What if in the presence of grief and loss, we begin to lean in, and quietly say “Tell me more.”

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” ~ George Eliot

I went to their resting place,…

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Carol at Carol Wiebe Wonders Out Loud, asked me not long ago if I ever wrote poetry.  I told her I did occasionally.  So Carol, here is one from a long time back.  I chose to post it now to add to the ongoing conversation about loss and grief.  Thanks for asking, Carol.  I look forward to seeing where your thoughts on shared mourning “artfully” take you.

 

Shared Mourning

Not planning to go, but
Drawn there just the same
I went to their
Resting place, and
You stayed by me.

I walked among grey stones
Under grey skies leaving my
Burden in shallow graves of
Sunken footsteps in the
Rain soaked ground, and
You walked with me.

Their stories came not in the
Rushing torrent of new grief but
Slowly, gently, quietly as a
Stream, small but sure, flows
Always toward its rest; I
Spoke with quiet grief, and
You heard me.

Silence settled softly on me,
Around me, with gentle tears
Raining down from grieving sky.
My sorrow cradled in your eyes, I
Remembered those who sleep.
You held my silence.

Shoulders touching, we sat each
Alone, yet bound by strong,
Unspoken words of grief and
Joy for those we love.
Comfort came in our shared mourning.

Parting the water…

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“I fish better with a lit cigar; some people fish better with talent.” ~ Nick Lyons, Bright Rivers, 1977

My dad loved to fish.  I can close my eyes and see him sitting in his boat with a big “stogie” in his mouth and his fishing line in the water, waiting for a bite.  I can smell the pungent cigar smoke and the fishy lake water.  I can hear the water lapping against the side of the boat.  I can feel the hard seat of the boat, and see my dad’s hands letting line out, reeling in, rhythmic whether the action was fast or slow.

At least one of those memories includes a trot line.  We were sitting in the boat, waiting.  I became aware of another fishing boat moving slowly toward us.  They were checking their trot line.  One of the men would reach into the water, pulling the line up out of the water, into the air, to check that hook for fish. Even though he was only checking that hook, I could see other hooks rising out of the water.  At descending heights, all connected by the wire that spanned a section of the lake.

It was a simple and beautiful sight, that line of hooks.  Each rising in its turn out of the water as the fisherman held the one hook he was checking high in the air.  There was the light reflecting off each hook.  The water parting like a small miracle as each hook emerged.  Droplets stretching from each hook until they let go, falling back into the lake.

At some point in the loss experiences of adulthood, I remembered that trot line, and realized how much it was like the presence of grief in our lives.  All those losses put to rest below the surface, pulled up through the waters of our heart by today’s grief.  Grief upon grief, as though this day’s sorrow alone is not enough. And so it goes with grief and loss.  A line connecting past and present.  Pulling other hooks into the air to be held again, felt again, lost again.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between this side of death and the other, is that death is an event. Living is a process.  A process that changes us through an unpredictable mixture of joy and sorrow.  The process of becoming in this life can be complicated and messy.  Sometimes losses happen too close together and joys seem few and far between.  Isn’t it ironic that part of how we learn to live through loss is that we lost, and did not die.  That our ability to feel the depth of our joy is its contrast to the loss that preceded it.

“If you ain’t got no pain in your life, how would you even know when you was happy.” ~ Black in Cormac McCarthy’s  Sunset Unlimited

Gifts re-gifted, or paying it forward…

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I would like to thank Jen of step on a crack…or break your mother’s back…  for nominating GrowthLines for the 7 X 7 Link Award.  Thank you, Jen for setting a worthy standard that proves writing can contain both clarity and beauty.  That in a single sentence, writing can guide our steps and document our journey.  You remind us that we can write with both honesty and integrity.

I created the GrowthLines blog for many of the same reasons I became a therapist. I wanted to observe and understand the world.  To think about what it means to be a self, an individual.  And at the same time to acknowledge and celebrate our drive to connect to each other.  I wanted to explore the possibilities of being human when we push past all that threatens to hold us back.  I wanted to be curious and kind.  I wanted to show that we could talk about hard things, without doing it in a hard way.

I still want to do and be all those things, and more.  Thinking out loud can be risky business.  Managing words can be a little like herding cats.  They have a mind, and intent of their own.  They’re not above taking you in a direction you hadn’t planned on going.  Although it can be unsettling in the moment you’re losing control, this independent streak of words is actually one of the things I like about the process of giving our thoughts a voice, written or spoken.  If I take the risk of following the process, I usually appreciate where the words take me.  The GrowthLines blog has become a doorway to amazing people, greater self awareness, and the opportunity to be a part of something good.  Thank you for stopping by, joining the conversation, and paying it forward.

As a 7 X 7 participant, I am to:

  1. Share something about me that no one (in the blogging community) knows…
  2. Link up to 7 posts of mine that I feel worthy: 
  3. Nominate 7 bloggers for this award and inform them (with pleasure):

Something no one in the blogging community knows…

As a child, I was a dreamer.  In fact as late as college I still had a wide range of things I wanted to be “when I grew up”.  The varied options included being a professional barrel racer, an opera star, a youth worker.  In my defense, I grew up in the era of Dale Evans, singing cowgirl and advocate for children

My real reason for the uncharacteristic self disclosure?  To say thank you to the host of grown ups in my life  who encouraged me to dream big and listened to my oversized musings without throwing cold water on them.  I think they knew that the process of living would shrink my list over time, so they just listened and encouraged.  I took it for granted at the time, adults encouraging me to dream and dream big.

I sit with kids everyday.  Sometimes they tell me their dreams.  Some of them seem pretty outlandish. I try to remember to be listen carefully, without judgement, without cold water.  I hope I’m not the only adult hearing their stories.

Sometimes I sit with kids who have lost their dreams.  Too much life, too soon.  Too few listeners.  Too much cold water.  I try to listen in ways to revive the dreams.  It can be hard to breathe life into dreams when innocence is gone.  Hard, but maybe not impossible.  Be a dream listener pure and simple, to the kids in your life.  If we listen well, they may trust us to help edit the dream when the time comes.

Seven posts that I feel are worthy of revisiting…

Altered Again

Faces of Grief

I wish it was not yours to do

Just a piece of paper…

a motherless child

The language of loss

What’s in a name

One of the time intensive aspects of accepting the gracious gift of an award from a fellow blogger is discovering and deciding who to give a gift to.  These exploratory trips into to Blog Land have also become the gift that keeps on giving to me, as I find written treasures and new voices.  They speak honestly, with hope and humor, with encouragement and information.  Most of those recognized in this post are new to me.  I’m excited about having found them.  Their thoughts and experiences have touched me and made me glad I stepped into the blogging community.  I have linked to a specific post on each blog.  I hope you will explore their entire territory.

Seven bloggers I would like to nominate for the 7 X 7 award…

still counting stars

Teen Support in NYC

A Considered Life

Don’t call me Brenda

An Emigrant’s Way

Azphoenix’s Blog

Everyone Needs Therapy

a motherless child

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“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.  Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.  Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home,”.

Reading this post may be like sifting through a pile of scattered thoughts.  A reflection in itself of the fact that losing a parent is an experience that covers the lifespan.  My hope is that you will see it as a continuing conversation, not a final answer.  And that you may find some encouragement and strength for your journey.

The loss of a parent may be one of the broadest experiences of loss.  No stage of life guarantees us that our parent’s death will go unfelt or unmourned.  No stage offers us immunity from feeling that loss, or facing the change it brings.

The younger we are the more our loss may encompass grieving the parent we never knew.  For a child, the death of their parent can mean living with the nagging feeling of having been left.  Not unlike being left on a hiking trail without our guide, before we’re confident of our ability to find our own way.  When one parent dies, a child often loses the other parent to their own grief.  We may feel isolated as we try to protect the other parent from feeling our shared pain.  Sometimes we arrive in adulthood carrying the wounds of childhood losses experienced before we had an older, wiser, more forgiving language.  A language to help us both describe and soothe our pain.

The feeling of being left can come at any age.  As though the color of abandonment is present for each of us, just in different shades based on the time and circumstances.  When my dad’s mother died I recall him saying reflectively, “Now I’m the oldest living member of my family”. There was sadness, resolve, and a touch of uncertainty in his voice.  I was surprised.  There were ways he had lost her long before that moment, to the dementia that swallowed her up one bite at a time.  And even before that when her 13 year son died suddenly from spinal meningitis.  She was forever changed, and at age 11 my dad lost his brother and became the oldest son, bearing the weight of hopes and dreams not yet lived.  It struck me that all of those losses, sudden and progressive, did not protect him from the finality of that moment.  Of knowing that he would never have more of her in this life than had been gathered from his birth up to the time of her death.  And that in the starkest of realities, the buck now stopped with him.

Our experience of loss may also be colored by the gap between who we needed our parent to be and who they actually were.  We can believe that an abusive parent’s death will bring relief and freedom from our pain, only to discover that in being rid of harm we also lost all possibility that the parent we need would someday appear.  Whatever has been left unsaid, the acknowledgement of harm, the “I’m sorry”, the “Please forgive me”, will forever be unspoken, silenced by our parent’s exit.  It can be a devastating and confusing loss.

Words said that can’t be taken back.  Words never said that we wish could be spoken.  Questions never asked.  Choices never explained.  Stories never told.  All these and more are frozen in time for us when a parent dies.  Their weight varies depending on where we are in this marathon. From being parented in infancy through the love hate race of adolescence.  From the renegotiated relay of adulthood to the discomfort of accepting the baton to run this final leg of the race as our parent’s parent.  And if they cross the finish line before us, to know it is ours to grieve the success and failure of their life, ours to allow them to rest in peace in their death.  Ours to learn to run our own race untethered by what is now behind us.

“I am amputated, inconsolable.  My father has died.
Now I must invent him, perhaps fictionalize, mythologize him.
Most of all, I will have to find a way to mourn him.
E. M. Broner, Mornings and Mourning:  A Kaddish Journal

Grief in hiding…

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We all grieve.  But each in our own way.  Grief as fact is universal.  Grief as experience is personal.  There are common themes, but even those are shaped by our personal touch.  Regardless of your way of grieving, it’s important to remember two things.  Loss may be an event.  Grief is a process.

What we know in theory, sometimes becomes blurry in reality.  We bring our own histories and personalities to this partnership with grief.  We are still at risk of assuming that others grieve like we grieve.  We forget that differences, like our age, or the number of times we have encountered grief, affect how we feel our grief.  Our experience in the dance of loss affects how we show our grief.

Our acquaintance with grief begins in childhood and continues through adolescence.  Friends move away.  We lose pets. Grandparents die.  Painful lessons about life and the passage of time, happening in an order we don’t like, but come to accept as life’s way.  Sometimes loss happens out of order, bringing painful lessons about time cut short.  Sometimes we are children facing the loss of a child, a peer.

I was in junior high school the first time I faced the death of a peer.  He was a year younger than me.  We didn’t go to the same school, or even live in the same town.  We weren’t best friends or extremely close. Perhaps it made a difference that we had become friends on our own.  Our parents didn’t know each other.  Our respective friends didn’t know each other.  I met him during the summer when I visited my grandparents.  We rode horses together, talking about incidentally important teenage topics.  At the end of the summer he stayed in the country, I went back to the city.  And then the news came that he had killed himself, with a shotgun, over a girl.  He left a note.  “She doesn’t love me anymore.”

I traveled the fifty miles, by myself on a Greyhound bus, to attend his funeral at the local high school. The gymnasium was filled with people from the rural community and beyond.  There were junior high and high school students.  Young people facing the loss of a peer, a death out of order.  I was there to pay my respects to a brief friendship, and perhaps to stand with other teenagers as we each found our voice of grief.

I lost and grieved other peers, all too young to die, as I finished adolescence and stepped into young adulthood.  In the years that followed I have sat with grieving children and teenagers as they found their own way through loss that came too soon, to those too young.  What should we take from young grief? Who should we be to the children and teenagers in our lives who are facing overwhelming and traumatic loss?

We’re used to learning from the wisdom of age and experience.  When children grieve we discover there are things to learn and lessons to be reminded of from the wisdom of innocence.  For the sake of the young let’s remember

  • they are not empty human-like containers who are here but devoid of feelings until they reach the magic age of majority at 18.  Our failure to recognize this means we may be insensitive to the ways their life has been disrupted.
  • not displaying emotion doesn’t mean a child isn’t feeling something.  Are we modeling a variety of ways to express feelings?  Are we respectful of their need to be with us, and to have time alone?  We may fail to acknowledge the hole left in their lives if we assume that silence means there is no hole.
  • they are not adults in smaller bodies.  They are not fully equipped to identify, feel, and express the complex range of emotions related to loss.  We may explain away their emotion by referring to their displays of grief as adolescent drama.  Defining their grief as overstated may allow us to hide our own discomfort with grief in understated ways.  Will we risk being uncomfortable to be with them in these raw moments?
  • they will accommodate us, at their own risk, if they believe we can’t handle shared grief.  If the things they need to say, the questions they need to ask “make” us cry or shut down, they will take care of us by keeping their thoughts and their questions to themselves.  We get to help them know it’s okay to cry, okay to be quiet, okay to step outside.  We get to show them how to grieve, even as grief continues to be our teacher.  It’s not our grieving that harms, but our determination to leave it the unnamed presence in our midst, and children to wrestle with it alone and in hiding.

“Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect.  The wisest know nothing.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson                                    

Best laid plans…

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The GrowthLines blog is about growing up, becoming a complete person.  Growing up is the process of a lifetime, literally.  Our growth often depends on our willingness to make a change.  It seems only fitting that a blog inviting readers to grow, should be willing to change for growth too.  With that in mind, I hope you will consider joining me in thinking out loud about:

  • conversation by photograph – We’re probably all familiar with, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  Some say the original quote actually referred to “ten thousand words”.  Either way, we know the power of images to speak.  Bloggers have recognized the benefits of purposeful silence in Silent Sundays, and of using photography in lieu of words in Wordless Wednesdays.  I haven’t chosen a standing title.  I may not hold to a single day.  I do plan to post a single photograph on a weekly basis, sometimes accompanied by a quote.  No explanation or commentary.  A photograph standing on its own.  That’s where you come in.  I hope readers will share their thoughts about the voices and stories in the image.  I’m eager to hear the growing conversation that begins in silence, observation, and thought.
  • a broader view – Since the first week of November, the focus has been on grief and loss.  In the days ahead, the GrowthLines blog will take an expanded look at life and growth by thinking about community, relationships, parenting, and self awareness, to name a few.  I hope you will…, join the conversation by sharing your thoughts on posted topics and by suggesting topics for us to talk about.  (Please keep in mind, it’s not personal if a suggested subject doesn’t become a post topic.)
  • layers of loss – because grief is an intricate part of our experience, we will continue to talk about both the pain of loss and the growth that is possible in our seasons of grief.  I appreciate the courageous fellow strugglers who have taken pain in hand and stepped into this important conversation to the benefit of us all.

Watch for picture, and start the conversation.