Tag Archives: hospice

Faces of grief

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On May 12, 1986, in the early hours before dawn, 19 students and adults from Oregon Episcopal school left the Timberline lodge to climb to the summit of Mt. Hood.  They hoped to watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain.  Six hikers turned back early while the rest continued to climb.A freak spring blizzard moved in when the hikers were about 100 feet from the summit.  A hiking guide and a student turned back in hopes of finding help.  The nine remaining climbers dug into an ice cave for shelter as the storm continued for three days.  Rescuers found the climbers late in the day on May 14. (The Seattle Times, July 25, 1986, Jack Broom and Steve Bovey.)  By the end of the day only two teenagers of the climbers rescued survived.  One made a complete recovery.  The second had both legs amputated. (AROUND THE NATION, May 19, 1986.)

About four years after the tragedy on Mt. Hood, I heard Doug Manning, author of Don’t Take My Grief Away From Me, talk about the loss of a child.  He spoke about the depths of grief for parents and the process of holding on to their child’s life to insure its meaning.  And then he talked about the lives lost, and saved on the mountain.  He had spoken at a conference in Portland shortly after the tragedy.  He talked about those who died, and about the young man, 16, who survived, thanks to the amputation of both his legs.  He spoke about a hidden face of grief when he said:

“We’re going to have a hard time letting this young man grieve the loss of his feet.  We’re going to tell him how lucky he is that he survived.  But no matter how lucky he is, he’s still going to miss his feet.”

As if the grief of death is not enough, we are faced with the grief of what was lost in surviving. Sometimes the mere fact that we survived becomes our loss, our shame.  That for no apparent reason someone died, and we did not.  We bury those losses inside, keeping them silent because they are without merit compared to someone else’s.

The loss of a home, or a job would never compare to the loss of a loved one.  But what if loss isn’t about comparison, but connection?  What if by being present for each other in all our layers of loss, we can begin to understand our relationship with grief.  What if the loss of lesser things teaches us that grief of any size is hard, and that we can survive it?  Grief has many faces.  We may find the strength and comfort of healing as we learn to see them all.

Papa’s Stocking

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I attended a Hospice Memorial service just before Thanksgiving several years ago.  The room was filled with families and friends who had experienced the death of someone they loved during the past year.  It was a time of remembering.  And a time to focus on the journey of living through grief.

Loss is one of the few experiences besides our birth that is universal.  We would be hard pressed to find a single person in a crowd, who has not had some personal contact with grief.  How is it then that grief can feel so solitary?  Perhaps that mixture of solitary and universal is why talking about our grief brings both pain and relief.  But talking about loss and the grief that follows is important if we are to weave both joy and sorrow into our own rich fabric.

I don’t remember the name of the speaker at that Hospice service, but I remember the personal story he told about finding joy in the midst of grief.   After his wife’s mother passed away, his father in law came to live in their home.  He quickly became an integral part of their daily lives.  And then last year, in the fall, Papa had died.  The man, his wife, and two daughters were left with the empty spaces that Papa had once filled.  As Christmas drew near, the depth of their loss was magnified.  Christmas traditions that had been a source of joy, were now a reminder of Papa’s absence.  This was especially true when it was time to hang their Christmas stockings.  There was Papa’s stocking, empty.  Just like his chair at the table.  Just like the hole left in their hearts.

They began to talk about the pain of Papa’s absence, and the dilemma of how to have Christmas without him.  A new tradition, a ritual of healing, was born out of that conversation.  Papa’s stocking would be hung in its place on the mantel, with slips of paper near by.  In the days leading up to Christmas morning, family members wrote their thoughts, memories, feelings about Papa and dropped them in his stocking.  On Christmas morning after presents had been opened, and their own stockings emptied, they read the notes from Papa’s stocking. There were tears, and laughter, and connection with each other and with Papa on that Christmas morning.

I don’t know if they hung Papa’s stocking beyond that first year he was gone.  But I do know their Christmas story is a wonderful example of partnering with grief to create a moment of celebration that will last a lifetime. They had discovered that although Papa was gone, he was not lost to them.  Sometimes healing comes not from avoiding the painful moment, but from stepping into it to create a new meaning.