Grief Digest V10I03

Featured articles . . . . . . . . .

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Suicide - Without Warning, by Nan Zastrow 4-7 My Heart, by Bev Dennison 8 Lessons From a Cactus on Grief and Healing, by Sharon K. Tschannen

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Why Rituals Still Matter, by Deirdre Felton 12-14 The Capacity to Love Requires the Necessity to Mourn, by Alan Wolfelt Bari: Always & Forever, by Sheila Swedlow

The Battle With Addiction: Treatable but not Curable, by Elaine Stillwell

16-17 19 20-22

Thank You, Flint, by Robin Fiore 24-25 No Grief, by Paul Moon 26-27

Contributor’s Info

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A Note For Contributors

What gives this magazine its heart and soul are the contributions of the people who know the path of pain. Your stories and experiences and insights bring hope and encouragement to others who may be just beginning their journey into the world of grief. We encourage you to write and share. Write from your heart about what you know because you’ve been there! We like to keep the stories about 1200 words (but we are flexible), and we prefer that you use first person (I, me) rather than (“you should…”) etc. Send your contributions via email centeringcorp@aol.com. We’ll ask you to read and sign our writers’ guidelines (our permission to print) and we’ll need a recent photo of you and a one- or two-paragraph bio about you. If your material is published, you’ll receive complimentary copies of that issue, and we offer you a full page in that issue to promote whatever resource you’d like to share with our readers. Happy writing!

Letters for Healing -

The Therapeutic Power of Writing to a Lost Loved One

When Von Kopfman lost his 21 year old son, Jacob, in a work-related accident he decided to make something positive out of the tragedy and Letters for Healing was born.

Letters for Healing; the therapeutic power of writing to a lost loved one, includes very brief introductions to narrative, exposure, writing, and music therapy. The body of the book includes 48 letters to lost loved ones, as well as a photo and short biography of those lost. There is also a place to write your own letter to a lost loved one in the back. The songs for healing CD is included which is fifteen songs written based upon letters from the book.

$19.95 Product code: LFHO ISBN: 978-1-61169-088-0

www.centering.org or call: 866-218-0101

By Andrea Gambill, Fishers,Indiana

Apologies!

Many people and entities (businesses, groups, corporations) set perfection as their goal, because that objective has been encouraged in us from the time we were young children, and it has been reinforced throughout our lives. However, since perfection is both unattainable and unrealistic, setting a goal of high standards is much healthier.

Our “high standards” at Grief Digest magazine have recently failed to meet all our expectations, but we have chosen to learn and grow from our occasional hiccups, because we are confident that no matter how many times you are “knocked down,” what’s important is how you respond as you get back up!

So, before we go one word further, we want to sincerely apologize to all of our subscribers and readers! From the bottom of our collective hearts, we offer you our regret and promise you our repentance.

In terms of schedules, timelines and deadlines, the last few issues of Grief Digest magazine have simply gotten away from us. We are keenly aware of how much you all love and appreciate this publication, of how you practically wait by your mailboxes for its arrival, and your patient loyalty and understanding when we’ve been late. Please forgive our past tardiness and hang in there with us as we work hard to overcome and restore.

Once, a long time ago, I heard a pastor say, “Circumstances are like a feather bed. They are wonderful when you’re on top of them and suffocating when they are on top of you!” Well, circumstances got on top of us for a while. The nation’s unfortunate economy has had its impact on us as well as on so many of you. There have been financial challenges on both fronts. As much as we realize that many of you would love to have subscriptions, and give subscriptions as gifts, you have had to make the more pragmatic choices of food, shelter, gasoline, etc. We understand!

However, the realities of paying our bills has been a bit of a “suffocating feather-bed” experience for us

as we work hard to produce a high-quality resource, filled with hope for the hurting. Printing costs have not gone down, postage costs have not gone down, paper and ink costs have not gone down. There are no little pixies who come in during the night and take care of the more mundane tasks, so somebody has to keep the databases current, work hard on choosing just the right graphics, negotiate with the vendors, order supplies, and on and on….The folks who take care of all these (and more) details are called “employees,” and they really earn their meager salaries! Their costs for food, shelter, and gasoline have not gone down, either.

I have a friend who likes to say, “I’d give up chocolate, but I’m not a quitter!” Well, we’re not quitters either, so we are not giving up. However, in the future, we will be making some small production changes.

• Since it’s more expensive to print in color, we are choosing now to use black and white instead.

• We regret that we will have to cut back a little on the “complimentary” copies we have been so generous with in the past. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any free copies (there certainly will), but they will be chosen with more circumspect.

• Also, we will be working toward a goal of greater consolidation in our mailings.

We beg your understanding.

Our New Year’s resolution is to trim our sails, keep up our spirits and commitment and move ahead with dedication and determination. You—our contributors, readers and subscribers—are truly the “wind beneath our wings,” and we are resolute in our pledge to face every challenge we meet with a spirit of victory and with faith in our mission.

Our feather bed is turning around, and each of us thanks you for your continuing love and encouragement!

Volume 10, issue #3–Phone: 1-866-218-0101 –3–

By Nan Zastrow

Suicide

Without Warning Wings1@charter.net

I never liked being referred to as a “survivor of suicide.” However, I accept the literal translation.

The word “survive” is derived from two French words. One means “to live” and the second means “over or beyond.” To me, living beyond is more than surviving. It means rising above and beyond the dreadfulness that society associates with choosing to die. Learning how to survive after our son’s death was harder than any other loss we had ever experienced. We developed unique coping skills to deal with society and our own feelings of disbelief that something could go so wrong.

Suicide is described as the deliberate taking of one’s life. In some cases there is a cry for help, but sometimes suicide occurs without any warning at all. When that happens, families often experience a lifetime of searching that may never result in rational answers to “why?”

Our son, Chad, died in 1993 at the age of twenty-one, when suicide was considered taboo and wasn’t spoken about publicly. Families affected by suicide were often avoided, and whispers of “Did you hear?” were spoken quietly. Friends offered their sympathy without acknowledging how the person had died. Others chose to say nothing. A few churches considered the departed soul unworthy of Christian burial. Family survivors seldom spoke the stigma word “suicide” out loud; instead they used euphemisms such as “accidental death” to protect themselves, while they silently wore a cloak of shame.

©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –4–

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Chad’s death was unexpected by those who knew him. Chad was a typical young adult, earning a living and planning a future. He paid his taxes just two days prior to his death. He sent his fiancé roses and laid away a new fishing pole at a local store. Weeks earlier, he had made preparations to move home so he could save money to buy a longed-for boat. One of his commanders in the Army National Guard told us he teased and joked with them on a training maneuver.

In addition to Chad’s fulltime job, he enjoyed fishing, hunting and outdoor sports. These are signs of living life, not signs of someone designing his final moments or his death.

unplanned. Planned suicides occur when a person has contemplated the act, often in great detail. About eighty percent of those who are suicidal demonstrate through verbal or behavioral cues a cry for help, and they want someone to acknowledge their pain. For those suicidal persons, there is a window of opportunity when a caring person can help them choose life over death.

However, there are also situations where no matter what interventions take place, the victim doesn’t see an option for relenting, and that victim will complete suicide.

Unplanned suicides also rate significantly high.

Stressful life issues, drug and alcohol dependency and some mental health issues such as bipolar can lead to unplanned suicides. I personally believe that unplanned suicides can sometimes occur as a result of single or repeated triggers, aggravations or social harassments.

And finally, some unplanned suicides occur acutely, randomly and suddenly, without provocation due to an emotional trigger or aggravation.

When we were faced with surviving Chad’s suicide, we quickly tried to understand what had caused him to act with such a permanent result. We accepted that suicide was a beast, not to be feared but explored, understood and prevented. Through the information we read, we quickly learned that, in those years, suicide was generalized and fell somewhere between mild, mental instability and high risk for self- destruction. There didn’t seem to be a category for “without warning” or unplanned. But we felt differently; we knew both sides of suicide intimately. Ten weeks after Chad’s unexpected death, his fiancé took her life, too. Both suicides were distinctly different—one unplanned, without warning, and one precisely planned and carried out. Regardless, both left families crippled by the wounds and wondering how they would survive their losses.

We’ve listened to countless stories of suicides that weren’t planned, and couldn’t be verified by behavior or verbal clues. There was also no medical history of mental disease. For some reason, usually unknown, the individual makes a fatal decision in a nanosecond of time. It just happened, reason unknown. Such stories include: •

I believe all suicide involves two prominent factors, fear and the absence of hope. When an individual is confronted with fear, whether real or imagined, it overrides the choice to die and all common sense.

Therefore, it self-justifies the act. In addition to countless other reasons, fear may be founded on relationships, physical health, danger, financial insecurity, job loss, loss of identity, dread or something completely unknown. Loss of hope is the final blow when nothing seems possible to change the course of one’s path or future.

•

• • • •

In August, 2012, USA Today reported a twenty-two percent increase in suicide among active-duty soldiers.

An Army analyst theorized that the higher rate may be due to the drawdown of troops from combat. Soldiers are spending more time at home and the emotional adjustments are a struggle. Former Green Bay Packer linebacker, George Koonce considered suicide when he found himself out of work and depressed. (Article, Associated Press, 6/9/2012). His forced retirement left him isolated and a hero in transition. He was unprepared for “life after.” Fear of the unknown precedes some end-of-life choices.

A person who took his life because of a devastating medical diagnosis; A person who suicided because of financial difficulties that were overwhelming and unfixable.

A teen who died “accidentally” when using drugs An alleged criminal who suicided when pursued by law enforcement.

A child who succumbed to suicide as a way to escape bullying.

Military personnel who felt overwhelmed by their circumstances.

Suicides like these leave family wondering what went wrong. Prior to the moment of death, they perceive the beloved family member as being of sound mind, decisive and rational. There remains the possibility that there are “things” a family didn’t know about the victim, but for the family experiencing the death without such knowledge, the grief aftermath is a nightmare. This article acknowledges those survivors.

It’s written for those who feel guilty, who believe that they “should have known.” I’m sorry you didn’t know; we didn’t know either. Chad’s death by suicide was random, a surprise and a mystery.

Gratefully, we learned not to judge or generalize.

Basically, there are two kinds of suicide: planned and

Volume 10, issue #3–Phone: 1-866-218-0101 –5–

continued on next page...

In writing this article, I don’t mean to suggest that unplanned suicide is any easier than planned suicide.

Suicide death of any kind is a devastating experience for every survivor. I merely wish to acknowledge that society should not generalize that suicide is unthinkable, selfish or committed primarily by those who have serious mental disorders. Every victim has a unique story that should be honored. This is an important piece in the puzzle of suicide. If the story could be told, I believe that in every case we would sympathize with the victim and wish we could have resolved their plight.

Statistics say that for every suicide, there are at least six people affected by that death. I argue that those numbers multiply rapidly, when the death of a loved one occurs without warning. By nature, we are compelled to seek answers, and as we investigate the situation, we touch the lives of others who can’t imagine our loss. It is very much like those who seek answers after other senseless deaths such as homicide and abuse. Answers that lead to reconciliation may never be attainable.

After a suicide, family and friends have some unique challenges that require special coping skills to heal their pain. Here are a few suggestions that may help in the aftermath of uncertainty: 1.

2.

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Ask questions and seek answers for as long as you feel you need to. Planned or unplanned? Only you and a few may want to know, but it can aid in relieving guilt or anger with the loved one. Answers will not take away grief, but, it’s sometimes necessary to exhaust the human brain with a lot of analytical information when trying to understand why.

It’s likely there are no plausible answers that will ever be satisfying.

Remember, suicide is just death by another name. Disengage yourself from the ugliness of statistics and media reports about suicide deaths. Too many details and too much information can lead to many sleepless nights and unsettling thoughts. Every human will die in some way. It will not change the fact that your loved one will not be coming home, so why cause unnecessary stress over how he died.

Expect that during the first few years you will experience emotional disorder in your

life. Your imagination will be your enemy and may punish you mercilessly. You may feel isolated from family and friends, often as a result of your personal guilt and thoughts. Find a place where you feel safe or someone you feel comfortable with to help you during these troubling times.

4.

Don’t make excuses for your loved one’s actions. You don’t need to defend your loved one’s death. Tell your story based on your comfort level. It’s not necessary to tell everyone the details of the death, even if they ask.

With some people, you may feel comfortable revealing intimate feelings. None of us know what the victim’s thoughts were at the very moment when he/she took their life.

©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –6–

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Some family or friends may express shock or disbelief. Their response may be genuine based on the person they knew. It may be difficult for them to understand, too. Allow them to integrate their feelings with their story apart from your personal analysis. They are grieving in their own way.

Friendships that imply judgment or that dissolve based on the cause of death are not worth trying to salvage. You do not deserve pity or assumptions. You will only frustrate yourself by trying to maintain a one-sided relationship. A genuine friend walks “with you.”

Talk to others with similar experiences, but don’t expect their interpretation of their loved one’s death to parallel yours. It may give you comfort to know their story and what to expect in the days ahead. It may even help you to accept that you are not alone. But their story is theirs, and yours is still evolving.

In time you will acquire your own story that you believe to be true.

Tell personal stories about your loved one.

Every person has a legacy that tells who they were and what they meant to you. Share the stories about how s/he lived, not how s/he died. Love is unconditional and it never dies.

Accept that you will grieve differently.

Your relationship to the person who died was individual and unique. Your feelings of grief will be measured by the depth of your relationship. No one’s grief will be quite the same as yours.

10.

Let God in when you are ready. Traumatic death challenges the belief system and may temporarily interrupt your relationship with church and God. Faith is there to protect you.

It can’t prevent bad things from happening, but, it can help you pick up the pieces and restore your life again.

11.

Turn away from guilt. Guilt implies that you control the situation. You had no control over your loved one’s action, whether planned or unplanned. After the fact, some people find a way to take control by becoming an advocate or a companion to others going through loss.

12.

Get help from professionals if you need it.

You’ve experienced a traumatic death. Find a professional certified in dealing with trauma to coach you. Join a support group that feels right to you. It can’t take away your pain, but it can educate you about what is normal grieving.

It can also help you connect with others who have also experienced loss.

13.

When you are ready, speak the word “suicide” when talking to family and friends about your loved one who died.

The word is not something to be feared. I found that I’m not afraid to talk about suicide anymore. There are all kinds of death, many with stories just as troubling, and I am a survivor who is willing to talk to others about suicide which personally affected me.

14.

Live vicariously in honor of your loved one. Finish something s/he started. Rally around a cause that enriches the lives of others.

Do something s/he would have chosen to do.

Take up a hobby, start a business, write a book, create a memorial. Live your life purposely and fully. Allow his or her memory to live through you.

15.

Teach others about suicide. Expel the myths and share the facts about suicide, in general.

If we don’t talk about it, we can’t teach others about our grief. When you live as a true survivor—who lives beyond—you live as an example of triumph over tragedy. It will heal your scars and honor life and the living.

It has taken two decades for me to learn to live beyond the consequences and the taboo of suicide and to fully accept Chad’s death. There are days when unresolved and lingering thoughts still urge me to seek more answers, but most important, I’ve learned that no one can ever assume who is at risk for suicide. Suicide does not represent the rich or poor, young or old, educated or uneducated. It occurs in any religion. Suicide is not a disease, nor can it be inherited. Suicide can be planned.

Suicide can be aggravated and result from certain triggers. Suicide can be unplanned, random and occur without warning. One nanosecond in time changes countless lives forever.

Scan this code f or more info on Wings Grief

Volume 10, issue #3–Phone: 1-866-218-0101 –7–

M y H e a rt

By Bev Dennison The dull pain in my heart still comes and goes, Much the way that a tide ebbs and flows.

Alone, I endure this anguish and despair; There is no one who comprehends with whom I can share.

In my guilt and my grief I’m completely alone The light of my life—my son—now is gone.

Your brilliance extinguished by your own hand, An effectively lethal act—spontaneous, unplanned.

In one brief moment, the decision you made To end your life—the ultimate price paid For a life so full, yet somehow beyond sad, Suicide the only option that you felt you had.

You’re never to know just how widespread Was the shocked disbelief at learning you were dead.

My world in shambles, nothing ever the same, Irrationally feeling as if somehow, I were to blame.

My brave façade shows the world my smiling face, Though inside, emptiness has taken my heart’s place.

But at night, safe in my bed, where no one else hears, My new best friend—my pillow—accepts my silent tears.

Desperate for answers, I search and wonder and ask God, “Why?” I know God listens, but as yet, there’s no reply.

Yet, His Word assures me that in another time, another place I will once again see your beautiful, heavenly face.

That thought sustains me and I somehow carry on In a way once thought impossible after you were gone.

Though now a new person, changed in ways I’d never dreamed, Learning through tragedy that you weren’t who you seemed.

This painful journey must be solitary and alone; No way to avoid it; the grieving must be done.

So for a brief span, but a lifetime, we will remain apart, Till I see you and hold you and reunite with my heart.

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Luke! March 17, 1978 – October 21, 2008 With love from Mom

©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –8–

Survivors of Suicide Support Group A support group for those who have lost a loved one to suicide.

A safe place to express your loss, ask questions, and share experiences with others who are survivors.

This group is NOT for those contemplating suicide. If you are in crisis, call: 911 or 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-784-2433

Meeting third Saturday of each month from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Curran Building, 315 S. Oneida Ave. (one block north of Burger King which is located on Lincoln St.), Rhinelander, WI Room 101 (lower level) Free and open to the public.

If you have questions, please call: Sue Mackowski 715-275-5399 or Tina Werres 715-499-3002 You Are Not Alone!

Volume 10, issue #3–Phone: 1-866-218-0101 –9–

Lessons From a Cactus on Grief and Healing

By Sharon K. Tschannen tschannen09@comcast.net

My cat, Grace, slumbered on the buffet with whimsical visions of mice in his dreams. Suddenly, there was movement in the yard outside, and Grace awoke. As his radar kicked into gear, he scrambled from window to window, scouting the movement as he went. In a moment of foolhardiness, he hurdled into the wooden plant stand, causing my Christmas cactus to flop and plummet to the floor. Branches burst and potting soil spilled on the white carpet. The racket pulled the plug on Grace’s pursuit, and I glared at the sight of the empty plant stand. As I lifted the pot off of the floor, soil cascaded into a heap on the carpet.

That plant was treasured because it had been a start from my grandmother’s Christmas cactus, and I had cherished her. Some years, it bloomed on Christmas, living up to its name; sometimes it didn’t. In its advanced years, it had become confused (much like Rose had in her later years).

After she died in 1963, the cactus had lived on, as if preserving her memory. It had occupied a place of honor in front of a stained glass window—until now, anyway.

Trimming off the broken branches, I put the cactus just inside the garage door so it could catch the sun’s warmest summer rays. Its limbs were propped up all the way around the pot until they could grow strong enough again to support their own weight. While I refilled the pot with soil and saturated it with Miracle Grow®, I focused on the blue liquid soaking into the soil. I believed this injured memorial needed a miracle to survive, so I monitored it daily. Over time, the cactus did snap back, and a new strength emerged. Branches stretched up and out to receive the sun’s

! ©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –10–

rays, and strong, new leaves appeared. After while, it didn’t need the props anymore; it would survive. It was a miracle.

At the grief-support group I attend, I shared the story of the cactus. Though some of the members’ husbands had died (as had mine), we never would say to one another, “I know just how you feel.” We understood that no one who has grieved a death will ever know just how another feels. We are all individuals with unique personalities who have shared similar experiences.

Some couples had enjoyed many anniversaries together, and some had had only a few before experiencing their losses. Some spouses had been supportive of each other’s needs and desires, while others were less so.

Some were blessed with a truly phenomenal marriage, but some had a bewildering one. Some spouses had been ill for years, and some had died suddenly. A death caused by an accident or a suicide may be more emotionally complicated, making it harder to achieve closure. There can be financial challenges, unrealized dreams, uncompleted projects and hurts and angers that were not resolved. Forgiveness may be necessary.

Some couples had young children who are still at home, while others have adult children. Some families are geographically close and can be supportive, while the family members of others may be many miles away.

Some of the widows may have to master new chores, like paying the bills and mowing the lawn. Even though there are many differences in our circumstances, we all agreed on one thing: we could all relate to the cactus.

We had all been torn apart.

pink flowers. It’s Thanksgiving week, but the cactus is so chipper it couldn’t wait for Christmas to bloom.

What an awesome surprise; three weeks later the cactus is still blooming. I hope it will still be blooming next week when we gather for our grief group. I can’t wait for everybody to see it.

Never anymore do I take the flowers for granted. They represent new lives and new hope. Once I was broken, but I bloomed again. I’m sure grandma Rose is tickled pink too that her memory lives on in the cactus. I still leave the window shades up at night for Grace so he can leapfrog from window to window in his dreamy adventures. But, the cactus now lives on the glass coffee table in the middle of the room where it absorbs the sun’s rays through two windows, south and east. It is blooming, thriving, giving joy, sharing its beauty and reminding me that there is hope for the future.

I placed a stack of antique books on the plant stand, and as I completed this story, I noticed the title of the book on the top of the stack: Helen’s Victory by Georgie Sheldon. I haven’t read the book yet, but maybe the story will revolve around Helen surviving the loss of her beloved husband. I know Helen’s journey won’t be exactly like mine, and she will never know just how I felt when my spouse died. She probably didn’t even have a cactus plant or a cat, named Grace. But, my cactus and I just want to say, “Hope for a miracle and a “new normal” life. Let it be your victory, too!”

Like the cactus, we had all rested securely on our supporting plant stands in front of stained-glass windows, absorbing the rays of the sun, until the moment when we experienced a midair belly flop and found ourselves plummeted to the deepest grief we had ever experienced. Limp and broken, we breathe heavily and feel as if we have been torn apart. Our lives are upside down, and we need others to prop us up—sometimes for days, weeks and months. We need to receive loving kindness; we need to be cared for with loving hands. We appreciate real friends who will companion us, listen to our stories and dry our tears.

We yearn for miracles!

But we know there is hope for tomorrow, and that there is power to create a “new normal” in our lives! Just as the cactus snapped back, so can we. It will take time, hard work and tender loving care (like Miracle Grow®), but there is hope, and the cactus has shown it to us.

For whatever reason, my cactus had not bloomed for several years prior to its fall, but, surprise, it is blooming again! New pink buds are bursting into full, Volume 10, issue #3–Phone: 1-866-218-0101 –11–

By Deirdre Felton

Why Rituals Still Matter I recently attended the service for a deceased friend up here on the Maine seacoast, and upon entering the sanctuary realized that there was no casket and no urn. This is not unusual, but it was unexpected. Later, I asked the minister about it and he said that it had been quite some time since he had conducted what he would term an actual funeral. “Families don’t request it the way they used to.”

I asked him why he thought this might be so and after he thought for a minute, he said, “I guess for some people it’s a case of what they can’t control, they deny. More often than not, families are requesting that no service be held. People just disappear.

It’s sad, really.”

His response made me think about the rituals I’ve experienced in my own life and

why I thought that they were so helpful. I would like to share some of those impressions with you now.

Rituals Acknowledge the Tear in the Fabric of the Family In Western society, and particularly here in the United States, we tend to be a people on the move. Even in times of great stress we are expected to keep going and not give in to sorrow and pain. It is as though our ability to go right back to school or to work is a litmus test for toughness.

Rituals are an Enforced Pause.

They provide us with established ways to express our grief and our loss, which are universally recognized. Rituals, spiritual or secular, are a signal to others that our world has been shaken, and when it all sifts down, nothing will ever be the same

again. There will always be an empty place at the table, at the graduation, at the wedding, at the school play. It’s a numbers game. When my younger brother, Brendan, died last year my sister Kathleen looked at me as we were leaving the cemetery and said, “There were always seven of us; now, it’s six. The number’s not right, and every family photo from now on will be incomplete.”

Rituals Acknowledge the Tear in the Fabric of the Community This loss didn’t just happen to the family, it impacted the community. It’s the neighborhood, the workplace, the school, the house of worship, the athletic team; it’s all of us. Rituals make room for the grief of non-family members who need a framework to express the fact that

©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –12–

their lives will be different from now on. There are cultures in the South Pacific who, for up to two years after a death in the community, prepare for the ceremony and the feast that follows. It is important that others have an opportunity to console and meet the needs of the principal mourners. There is a sense that life and death is a question of taking turns, and everyone understands that “I am here for you today and expect that you will be there for me when my turn comes.”

A number of years ago a young girl in our church, Pamela, was killed in a skiing accident while on spring break.

The shock and heartbreak hit us all like an ocean wave that we couldn’t outrun. But quickly a group galvanized and people volunteered to meet mourners at the airport, arrange for food, provide housing for the out-of-town family members and offer to coordinate with the clergy who were told to expect several hundred teens at the funeral for the popular fifteen-year-old. Getting these things done not only gave us something useful to do during a terrible time but allowed those tasks to be transformed into acts of love and compassion when no words could be found to express the depth of our own sense of loss.

Rituals Buy us Time Most of us are familiar with bereavement-leave policies in our workplace or at school. Strangers usually come up with these policies, and it generally only covers immediate family members (and sometimes grandparents), but nonetheless we get some time off in most cases. That time allows us to deal with the immediate shock and takes us out of our everyday routine to reinforce the dramatic impact of our situation. We allow others to care for us. We acknowledge that we need help with the planning of a funeral, a memorial, and that it’s okay to let others pick up some of these details.

Again, when Brendan died, I was able to make one phone call to the funeral home and knew that the folks there would coordinate with the church, with the military for the ceremony at the cemetery, with the funeral home in the state where he had died and the transport of his remains to our childhood home where he would be buried. They were patient with me when I couldn’t make it through phone calls without breaking down and kept having to ring them back.

Eventually we got through the entire check list and I knew that I could leave it in their hands, trusting that all would be well. It was. The same was true for the hotel reservations to be made and the menu for the funeral luncheon. The professionals said let us do this for you, and they did. And they did it in three days.

Getting these things done not only gave us something useful to do during a terrible time but allowed those tasks to be transformed into acts of love and compassion when no words could be found to express the depth of our own sense of loss.

When you are operating on no sleep and the details seem overwhelming, the knowledge that there are people who know their business and who will help to prop you up when you feel as though there is nothing solid under your feet is nothing short of a miracle.

Rituals Leave Room for Spiritual Consolation When you talk to people who are not naturally inclined to a spiritual belief system they will tell you in many cases that when the rug is pulled out from under them, they want Volume10, 10,issue issue#3–Phone: #3–Phone:1-866-218-0101 1-866-218-0101 Volume –13– –13–

The men (many of them boys, really) would be wheeled into the solarium to get a little sun on their faces. All of this was done with quiet dignity, love and compassion. Whenever one of the men died, there was a Sister who would calligraphy his name on a scroll kept in the chapel that was once the parlor. Above the list of names was the word, “Departures.” to talk to clergy—any clergy. It doesn’t matter what faith tradition that clergyperson may represent, what is needed is someone to listen, who will try to help us find our way through the fog of what we cannot understand. When there are no words we can come up with on our own to express the unthinkable, we look to someone we hope has a better handle on this than we do. Just because religion can’t answer every question doesn’t mean that it doesn’t understand the questions.

When the father of a young friend of mine was killed in a car accident, her minister showed up at the house in his jogging togs and running shoes, having gotten the call when he was out for his morning exercise. After listening to Susan sobbing her heart out and questioning why a loving God would allow such a terrible thing, her minister put his arms around the thirteen-year-old and said, “Susan, life isn’t fair and today it wasn’t fair to your dad, and it wasn’t fair to you.” He couldn’t answer her direct question, knowing that such a question has no answer. But what he did say somehow got through to Susan and she was able to compose herself and face what the next days were to bring.

Rituals Allow us to Bear Witness Twenty years ago, I was a volunteer in an AIDS hospice in New York City. It was housed in a former rectory in the West Village, in an old brownstone with no elevator. I had two jobs there.

Every day someone had to start on the top of the fifth floor and work their way down with a sponge and Clorox, cleaning the stairwells and the toilets. On Wednesdays and Fridays, that was me. The second task was to bake cookies. Many of the residents couldn’t eat them anymore, but they loved the smell.

They never knew my name. I was just the “Cookie Lady.”

I knew their names though, and that was the point. You see, these young men were released from the New York State prison system when they were on the verge of death. The state did not want those stats on their books. The hospice was run by Mother Teresa’s order, MC, or the Missionaries of Charity.

(On occasion, we lovingly referred to it as Managed Chaos). These diminutive women would carry their fragile charges up and down the stairs, bathe them, put them to bed, and feed them by hand just to try to get some sustenance in them.

The men (many of them boys, really) would be wheeled into the solarium to get a little sun on their faces. All of this was done with quiet dignity, love and compassion.

Whenever one of the men died, there was a Sister who would calligraphy his name on a scroll kept in the chapel that was once the parlor. Above the list of names was the word, “Departures.”

We would wash the body, dress it and wait for the funeral home director around the corner on Washington Street to come and remove the remains. The neighborhood took up collections

for the cardboard caskets, and there was no charge for transport, because it was donated. On the same street was a Catholic church, St. Veronica, that had stood vigil there for over 125 years. The congregation was now small and aged, but when the Sisters needed a place where the funerals could be conducted, they stepped up and said “Of course, you must come here.”

And so they did. Sometimes there were two funerals a week. The choir would sing at every one of them, a funeral Mass would be said, and the ancient rituals of the final goodbye would be performed.

Many from the neighborhood would attend.

The body would then be taken to Potter’s Field in Staten Island, most of the deceased having no family, or at least any family that would claim them. (When you claim the body, you shoulder the expenses.)

It was important, you see. One of the Sisters put it to me this way.

“Never forget that it is important that this man lived; it is important that he died. And it matters that he is no longer among us. We do this to bear witness.”

James Baldwin once wrote: Not everything can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. Rituals help us to face what is hard to look at. As we start this New Year, perhaps it would be a good thing to keep that in mind.

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“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving, and the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.” — Henri Nouwen

The Capacity to Love Requires the Neccesity to Mourn, Part One

by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “All you need is love,” famously sang the Beatles. I couldn’t agree more. We come into the world yearning to give and receive love. Authentic love is God’s greatest gift to us as human beings. Love is the one human experience that invites us to feel beautifully connected and forces us to acknowledge that meaning and purpose are anchored not in isolation and aloneness, but in union and togetherness.

What higher purpose is there in life but to give and receive love? Love is the essence of a life of abundance and joy. No matter what life brings our way, love is our highest goal, our most passionate quest. Yes, we have a tremendous need for love— love that captures our hearts and nourishes our spirits. In fact, our capacity to give and receive love is what ultimately defines us. Nothing we have “accomplished” in our lifetimes matters as much as the way we have loved one another.

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Yet love inevitably leads to grief. You see, love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not—and cannot—exist without the other.

They are the yin and yang of our lives. People sometimes say that grief is the price we pay for the joy of having loved. This also means, of course, that grief is not a universal experience. While I wish it were, sadly it is not. Grief is predicated on our capacity to give and receive love. Some people choose not to love and so never grieve. If we allow ourselves the grace that comes with love, however, we must allow ourselves the grace that is required to mourn.

The experience of grief is only felt when someone of great value, purpose and meaning has been a part of your life. To mourn your loss is required if you are to befriend the love you have been granted. To honor your grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is lifegiving and life-sustaining, and it ultimately leads you back to love again. In this way, love is both the cause and the antidote.

Yes, it is a given that there is no love without loss. Likewise, there is no integration of loss without the experience of mourning. To deny the significance of mourning would be to believe that there is something wrong about loving. Just as our greatest gift from God is our capacity to give and receive love, it is a great gift that we can openly mourn our life losses.

It is important, however, that you understand that grief and mourning are not the same thing. Grief is the constellation of thoughts and feelings we have when someone we love dies. We can think of it as the container. It holds our thoughts, feelings and images of our experience when someone we love dies. In other words, grief is the internal meaning given to the experience of loss. Mourning is when we take the grief we have on the inside and express it outside of ourselves.

Making the choice to not just grieve but authentically mourn, provides us the courage to live through the pain of loss and be transformed by it. How ironic that to ultimately go on to live well and love well we must allow ourselves to mourn well. Somewhere is the collision between the heart (which searches for permanency and connection) and the brain (which acknowledges separation and loss) there is a need for all of us to authentically mourn. You have loved from the outside in, and now you must learn to mourn from the inside out.

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The Battle With Addiction: Treatable but not Curable

By Elaine E. Stillwell When my friend, Angie, a grieving mother, told her compelling story about her twenty-three-year-old son, Peter, and his battle with addiction, I was so moved by the powerful points she made I felt it was important to share her heartfelt message. She has given me permission to quote her in this article, as I describe her circumstances and report her words. (Peter’s mother’s words are in italics.)

It was November, 2006, when Peter, a nineteen-yearold college sophomore, called his parents and said he was not happy at college and wanted to come home.

Angie, who had just supported her brother through a life-threatening illness, instinctively realized what was important here, and agreed to have Peter return home; something she would not normally have done.

It was soon apparent, after having Peter home, that things were not what they should be. He had always been respectful, but now his behavior was erratic.

He was staying out late and sometimes not coming home. I believed he was drinking and smoking pot.”

A few months later, in April 2007, Angie and her husband sought help for their son. The counselor told them that Peter needed in-patient treatment, and their job was to go to Al-Anon. He frankly cautioned them, “Addiction is treatable, not curable.”

The counselor also told us two other things: Crying is healing, and if Peter should leave rehab and show up at our doorstep, we should tell him that we support his recovery, but not the disease. I can honestly say that as we were packing for him, I naively thought that in thirty days he would be back to normal, living at home, and we would continue with our lives. How very clueless I was!

When Angie and her husband went to an Al-Anon meeting, they heard stories of hope, they were told how the program worked and how important it was to keep attending meetings.

I thought I was going in order to help Peter.

Little did I know that I was going to help myself.

The leaders said, “Let Go, and Let God.” Peter’s addiction had knocked me to my knees, and I felt powerless. To hear that I should let go and let God sounded good to me, because the thought that someone else could help Peter was reassuring. The Al-Anon meetings saved my life and also helped to save my marriage. I learned about the three C’s: you didn’t Cause it, you can’t Cure it, and you can’t Control it. I stopped blaming my husband for not being able to cure Peter.

For the first few meetings all Angie could do was sit there, listen and cry, but from that first night she learned about “gratitude” and was so grateful for the steps of the program, the warm welcome and support she received, and the people who have become like family to her. After Peter’s thirty days in rehab were over, it was recommended that he continue treatment in Florida, which he did.

I asked his counselor what I could do to help Peter and he said, “Educate yourself and get support.” I will never forget those words. I learned that young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were most at risk for relapse, and that generally eight out of ten would relapse. I was so disheartened when I heard that. I asked his counselor about these statistics, and he said they were probably higher.

He also told me early on that a time may come when we had no choice but to put Peter out in the street.

When he said that, I actually felt my heart start to pound in my chest, and I told him I could never do that. He said that one day we may have no choice.

At times, I didn’t like the things he said to us, but I gradually came to really respect him as he guided us through the addiction maze.

Peter did well in Florida. He did suffer a relapse early on, but regrouped, found a job, went to

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meetings and developed a good support system. He visited us for Christmas, and we often visited him. We were rebuilding our relationship with Peter, and our visits together were made so much better because of all the tools we had learned in the program: you can’t change the past, you can only focus on today, take it one day at a time, be positive, make the choice to get better not bitter.

was in and out of rehab, and at that point, my husband had stopped attending meetings, but I continued. Whether Peter was doing well or not, I knew I needed to come. I needed the support, and I now knew I needed to work on how I reacted to things! What a huge “aha” moment that was for me! I couldn’t control others, but I could control how I reacted to events in my life!

We were starting to think about Peter’s possibly coming home, and were really looking forward to it! Since he was doing so well, we decided we would help him to buy a car. A month after buying the car he suffered a relapse, and his disease progressed from cocaine as his drug of choice to shooting up heroin.

The next year of Peter’s life was a difficult one for all of us. As I tried to keep the focus on myself, my relationship with Peter grew stronger. We allowed him to make his own decisions, understanding that in order for him to grow and find self-esteem he needed to be responsible for both his mistakes and his successes! I learned to set boundaries for myself and to respect Peter’s boundaries.

Addiction goes against everything that felt natural for me as his mother.

I had been working hard on building a relationship with my “Higher Power” and working on truly trusting Him and turning over my will and my life to Him. Peter was thrown out of the halfway house where he had been living after testing positive for heroin, and he was living in his car. We now had to face the decision of whether to leave Peter out on the street. I said at one of the meetings that if only I had a guarantee that he would be okay, I could do it. Sometimes all it takes is saying something out loud to really hear it. At that point I realized how crazy that sounded. When in life are we ever given guarantees? How arrogant of me to ask God for one. I knew I had to let go and let God. I saw it as Peter having a disease and like many diseases the treatment can be painful.

There are no guarantees, and sometimes, despite treatment, the disease wins. After a week, Peter called and asked us to help him get treatment. We said, “Yes, of course. We support your recovery not the disease.”

When Peter turned twenty-one in 2008, he had never had a legal drink in his life and the thought that he never would really bothered him. He frequently said he just wanted to “be normal” and that broke my heart. Peter

After many struggles that year, Peter went back to school in 2009, but overdosed in May, went back into treatment for thirty days in Pennsylvania and three months in Tennessee. He then moved to Chicago to live in a halfway house for fifteen months. Angie visited him seven times, and a couple of times her husband came along, too.

Both his dad and sister visited him separately a few times.

He came home for Thanksgiving happy that he had found a great support network, attended meetings and held a job for a year in Chicago.

He visited home twice the following summer (2010) and was doing so well that he finally rented his own place in Chicago that August and even adopted a beautiful kitten he named Buddy. A couple of months later, he returned home again for a wonderful Thanksgiving. Life was looking good and hopeful. Maybe all those prayers were being answered! .

Suddenly on December 11, two weeks before Christmas and just eleven days before he was scheduled to come home for Christmas, Angie received a phone call from one of Peter’s friends informing her that Peter had suffered a relapse

and was gone. It was hours before the police called to confirm her worst nightmare. She didn’t want to believe it and neither did her husband. That was the third time she saw her husband cry. It wasn’t until four days later, one hour before the wake started, that the family saw Peter in the funeral home. The first thing Angie said to him was, “I forgive you.”

Al-Anon had taught me to separate the disease from the person, and I knew that while Peter wanted to live, the disease had simply won. Al-Anon taught me so much: It taught me about gratitude.

There is always something to be grateful for. When Peter died, I questioned what I could be grateful for. Then I realized there were many things. First, that I was blessed to have had him as my son for twenty-three years.

Peter brought me such joy, and I am so proud he is my son. I’m also grateful that he died in his home and not on the street or murdered by some drug dealer. I’m grateful his friends realized he hadn’t shown up for work and notified the police. I’m grateful his cat Buddy was with him so he didn’t die alone and that we now have Buddy as part of our family. I am so grateful that Peter‘s disease didn’t cost anyone else’s life. Most of all, I’m grateful that we had a good relationship at the time he passed away.

(2) Al-Anon taught me about hope.

Someone at one of the meetings once said that as long as they are alive there’s hope. When Peter died, I questioned where the hope was. It took me some time but I discovered reasons for being hopeful: first, I hope Peter is at peace; second, I hope to spend the rest of my life honoring Peter’s memory, and last, I hope to see Peter again one day.

(3) Al-Anon taught me to be gentle with myself.

One of the tools of the program is meditation. I’m not sure I’ve gotten the hang of truly meditating, but for me it is quiet

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time: walking my dog, gardening or sitting with Buddy on my lap.

After Peter’s death, I allowed myself much quiet time to process all that had happened. Before the program, I would have assumed one of my jobs would have been to help comfort everyone else. Now, my family knows I’m here for them but the program has taught me that it’s not selfish to take care of myself. After Peter’s death, a woman said to my daughter, “Well Melissa, now you have to take care of your mother.” Luckily, my daughter repeated this to me.

Because of the program, I have learned that being a caretaker for everyone else is not necessarily a good thing. I was able to tell Melissa, “You take good care of yourself; I’ll take good care of myself, and we’ll be there for each other.”

(4) Al-Anon taught me that it’s okay to ask for help.

I’m still working on that, but right after Peter died, I did reach out to friends to drive us around to make the arrangements. No one in my family was in a frame of mind to drive. I continue to ask for rides when my grief fatigue is overwhelming me. I know whom I can call on a bad day.

(5) Al-Anon also gave me the gift of teaching me how to have a loving relationship with God. It took time and work, but I now trust God. I may not always understand, but I do trust Him. Like any good relationship, I don’t just turn to God in times of need.

I try to remember to thank Him every day for something. One of the most powerful things I have learned is how to pray. I mostly ask God for His guidance and the strength to carry it out.

Seven weeks after Peter’s passing, I was challenged again. A local boy whom Peter had known in high school passed away, also from the disease of addiction. I felt that Peter would want me to be there for Matt’s mom, and though it was really hard for me, I attended both Matt’s wake and funeral mass. I know Peter wasn’t the only one who guided me to that mass.

God needed me to witness quiet

strength and a powerful lesson.

Matt’s parents had the priest talk about mental illness and addiction during the homily. This was so unlike what had happened during Peter’s mass. As a matter of fact I am ashamed to say that at the time of Peter’s passing I didn’t notify our family’s old friends or even my elderly uncle upstate. I told myself I was just too overwhelmed and that my uncle couldn’t make the long trip anyway. But the truth is I was still feeling shame about the way Peter died. Little did I know that everyone pretty much knew anyway, and that when the old friends found out later on they couldn’t have been more supportive (and they continue to be). As I sat at Matt’s mass, I made a decision right then and there to never feel shame again about how Peter died. He had fought so hard and taught me so much that my way of honoring his life will be to educate people about the disease for the rest of my life and remember how he lived his life and the things he loved, like music.

the past; I can only move forward and change my behavior.

I started by telling my closest friends, and their reaction was so positive. My next step was to speak about Peter at a sponsored meal in his honor at a local soup kitchen, where I had started to volunteer after his first overdose. The twenty or so volunteers there, along with the staff, had been so kind to me after Peter’s passing. I wasn’t sure how Peter’s story would be received, but I figured I’d speak and if they judged me or Peter, I didn’t have to go back again, ever.

The tools I got from Al-Anon have helped me greatly with my grief.

I will be grieving for the loss of my son for the rest of my life, but I know I have a choice as to how to react to his death. I chose to get better not bitter, and by doing so, I can honor his memory. When I describe the hole in my heart when he is absent from family gatherings, I remember his face.

I remember Peter saying that he never wanted to cause me pain, so I know he would want me to choose to get better. Just because his life ended doesn’t mean our relationship ended. In fact, since Peter’s death, I have gotten many signs that he is always with me, and I believe he has given me the strength to go on.

Words cannot express how I felt after my speech. First, many of the guests at the soup kitchen came up to me and shared their stories with me. The volunteers and staff also supplied many great hugs and true compassion for me. It was the beginning of my family’s healing, and I will never again shy away from talking about Peter or the disease that took his life. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t speak openly about it while Peter was alive, but Al-Anon has given me the tools to know I can’t change

(6) Al-Anon taught me the importance of educating myself and getting support.

Once again, God led me to the best, and I found The Compassionate Friends of Rockville Centre, a support group for bereaved parents. It meets just a few miles from my home, and I started attending meetings three months after Peter died.

Again, I have much to be grateful for. The parents I have met there have inspired me, comforted me and taught me much about grief.

The other families that have lost children to the terrible disease of addiction have shown me that despite loving parents doing all they could, the disease simply isn’t always treatable.

TCF parents who have suffered the sudden deaths of their children because of car accidents, heart conditions, suicide and such have taught Angie that every day is truly a gift, and Angie says she feels safe here.

Even though Peter is no longer here, he is still making a difference in the world. Angie has learned that “If their song is to continue, then we must do the singing.” And she is singing with all her heart.

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Thank You, Flint

By Robin Fiore

fiorefamily@hotmail.com I lean over my notes so my classmates won’t see the tears.

No one else is crying over the video in physical anthropology class. I can barely see the screen anymore, but it doesn’t matter. I can feel his pain as he watches his mother die.

In the video, Flint nudges his mother on the screen, maybe she isn’t really dead. Eleven years, a lifetime ago, I am ten years old, looking at my father in a hospital bed. The heart monitor goes flat. I touch his hand, maybe he’ll wake up. He doesn’t. Flint will die of grief a few weeks after his mother, Flo, passes away. I will not.

I am not the only one who has watched a loved one die; Flint’s story taught me that. But as a child who experienced what children are supposed to be protected from, I sometimes felt as though there was no context for my grief.

How do you deal with something when no one has ever even explained its existence to you?

Flint did not deal with his grief. He had no context for death, because he hadn’t learned about it. When Flo died, she had not taught him how to let go. No one taught me either; I had to teach myself.

When Flint died he was eight-and-a-half years old and living at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Flint was a chimpanzee, but more than any human ever has, he helped me to understand my grief. Flint was the son of a major matriarch at Gombe named Flo. She was an excellent mother, but Flint had a bad case of Peter Pan syndrome—he didn’t want to grow up. The aging Flo was too tired to force him to mature and allowed him to stay a baby. Flint was unable to handle her death.1 Watching this story, I understand that I am not alone in my grief. Our closest relatives feel it just as strongly as we do, enough to die of it. Why? Is there a purpose to grief?

When I was ten, my father died from burns sustained when his plane crashed during a test flight.

I went to school that morning, and when I came back that afternoon, my world came crashing down around me. That day I did what Flint never could; I grew up. I never understood my grief, no one ever taught me, but I learned to push it aside. I realize now that I delayed dealing with it because I had no context in which to do so. I believe this is what a lot of children do. Maybe 1

Goodall, J. 1990. Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe. New

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York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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that’s why everyone thinks grief damages children so much, when really what damages us is not experiencing it.

For eleven years, I refused to look into that void, that part of me that I couldn’t understand, that I feared like nothing else. Watching Flint die woke me up. I realized I had been doing exactly what he had done. The only difference was that in my case it didn’t prevent me from getting enough food to eat.

Our society is reluctant to teach children about death, to tell them that mourning is natural. I don’t know why. All I know is that after my father died, everyone tried to cheer me up, but no one tried to teach me to understand what I was feeling. As I looked into Flint’s intelligent black eyes I finally saw the truth. I was going to have to teach myself to grieve.

My first question was simple. Why do we feel grief? We are certainly not alone in feeling it, as Flint demonstrated. If I can understand the origins of grief, the part it plays in the circle of our lives, perhaps I can learn to embrace it, to feel it as an emotion, to consider it as another facet of life and thus to heal from it. My scientific brain refuses to believe that we would possess an emotion that would do nothing but harm us. Grief must help us in some way, must do something for us no other emotion can. As an anthropologist, I look to where we always look when we want to discover the origins of a human emotion or behavior; I look to our cousins, the great apes.

On my journey I discover that Jane Goodall was by no means the first person to see a chimpanzee grieve, but I believe she may have been the first person to realize that it was fundamentally no different from human grief. As far back as 1879 it was noticed that chimpanzees in captivity would cry and become violent when a companion died.2 So this is a common behavior, I think.

There must be other accounts, with more details.

The exact detail I am looking for is in the account of Pansy, a captive chimpanzee who died a natural and peaceful death. Upon her death, the male members of her group attempted to rouse her, nudging the body and even becoming violent in their frustration.

I touched his hand, I hoped to revive him. They checked her mouth, making sure she was dead.

The doctors check his heartbeat.

They cleaned Pansy’s body of straw and dust. My mother brushed her hand across his head. Pansy’s daughter Rosie sat up with the body during the night.

My sister sits outside the door; it’s late but she won’t leave. For days, the other chimps ate less and played less. My mother loses almost twenty pounds; she won’t go anywhere anymore.

They avoid the sleeping area where Pansy died.3 We move to another state; there are too many memories.

In Pansy’s account I see what I never believed in, the “stages of grief” the counselors tried to force me into. But I see the truth that they didn’t acknowledge— the stages are different for each member of Pansy’s group.

Everyone feels grief differently, at different rates and for different periods of time. I’m beginning to understand the events of eleven 2 Brown, A. E. 1879. Grief in the Chimpanzee. The American Naturalist, 13, 173-175.

3 Anderson, J. R., Gillies, A., & Lock, L. C. (2010). Pan thanatology. Current Biology, 20(8), 349–51

years ago, and my own emotions.

I continue looking on the internet, becoming more and more amazed at the depth of emotion and grief that animals, not just chimpanzees, can feel. My grief is not a defective emotion; it is natural. Eleven years later, I have finally found what I was looking for, even if I didn’t realize I was looking for it: permission to grieve. I don’t want to be cheered up; I don’t want to be told it will be alright. No one told Pansy’s daughter that. In the end, she worked through her grief.

Pansy and her daughters, Flint and Flo, and unnamed other animals have assured me that what I feel is innate, I am meant to feel it. And I think I know why now.

Our loved ones shape who we are.

When they are taken away, we no longer know how to be who we are. It is grief that reframes our lives. When we grieve, we learn how to redefine ourselves and our existence without that person. We incorporate their lives, their lessons, their essence into ourselves. Before, they were external, but not anymore. We need this process. We need it to survive.

We need it to heal. We need it to move on.

My research done, I sit in front of my computer gazing at the last article I’ve read. I look at the picture of Flint and cry. I think about all the things that my father was: funny, loving, sensitive, overly emotional, quick to laugh, quirky, brilliant, brave. I incorporate these things into myself. They are part of me now.

I grieve, and I remember, and I realize that he is not gone. He is here with me, inside. I look into Flint’s eyes for the last time before I turn off my computer. “Go,” he says to me. “Do what I didn’t.

Live.”

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No Grief Paul J. Moon, PhD paul.moon@alacare.com

Would you agree that no grief on earth would be welcome? Lest a hasty celebration is commenced, it is a wonder what such a scenario might mean. Posed differently: What might we have to sacrifice in order to erase grief from our earthly human experience? Odd question, perhaps, but the query is founded on the fact that human grief does not magically appear from the air, but rather we grieve because of various, and undeniable human characteristics and developments. In short, we grieve due to specific human qualities that we tend to cherish.

Considerations Do you suppose we can grieve for something we cannot even remember? What if our brains worked in such a

way that our minds reset every morning, and so there is no continuity of thought and reflection from any encounters on the day before. Will this circumstance allow us to pine or yearn for something from our past?

Our ability to remember and recall is a gift. Indeed, an entire lifetime is sentimentally knitted through this human quality. Yet this ability to remember also necessarily (and quite involuntarily) prompts in us a constant ©Grief Digest Magazine–www.griefdigestmagazine.com –26–

compare/contrast mechanism. We, in willy-nilly fashion, compare our current times with our past.

We also contrast what is presently happening with memories of things that transpired some time ago. Through such an ability and process, we are enabled to recognize our improvements as well as our losses. In light of this, would you give up your ability to remember in order to have no grief?

Do you suppose we can grieve for something we have no fondness for? How about grieving the loss of a scab or a used toothpick? If you once possessed these in your life and then either lost them or discovered them gone, might you be driven to grieve? Becoming fondly attached to something is categorically different than the idea of merely “getting used to it.” Becoming attached to a person or an idea or a place deals with our development for and exercising of fondness, desire, favor toward the targeted thing. In a sense, becoming attached, especially in personally significant ways, is to “grow on” that something or allow that something to “grow on” us. What and who we become fondly attached to may be entities by which we feel “settled”’ or “at home” or “ourselves.” Yet, all temporal items we become fond of cave in to the nature of their temporality: they break, rot, become marred or inaccessible, get stolen, shatter or die. Once this occurs the sense we possess is one of becoming “unsettled” or “estranged” or “not ourselves.” In light of this, would you give up your ability to grow fond of something in order to have no grief?

Do you suppose we can grieve for something when we cannot generate emotions? Say that human beings are endowed with only logic and calculating minds and no bank of emotions. Will this circumstance allow us to mourn? If so, what will we look like as we express mourning solely attired with sterile logic and reason unaffected by emotion?

Emotions can be a mixed bag. Along with joy, we can just as well feel and express hot anger and rage.

Along with great affection, we can show abject disgust. Along with loving expressions toward those we are fond of, we are also skilled at dishing out hateful and regrettable speech to the same folks. Furthermore, our human emotions tend to fluctuate, sometimes capriciously and nonsensically so. What are we to do with our emotions?

Yet, grief is full of emotions, and internal ones

become externally expressed (mourning). Human emotions also serve as highly useful means of communication, especially the type where no words are necessary as linguistic interpretation can only muddle the visceral impact of a presenting moment. Such is when we behold other human beings trembling with sorrow and sopping with their own tears. No words are required in such instances. It is enough that we ourselves are moved with emotion that render in us the potential to “weep with those who weep” and offer memorable support in bold silence. In light of this, would you give up your ability to emote in order to have no grief?

Do you suppose we can grieve for something that is meaningless and senseless to us? In human history, the importance of finding and then assigning or attributing value and significance to things is inarguable. Think of how, if no meaningfulness exists in anything in life, what would be the point of war, peace, riches, poverty, crime, law, ethics, gains, losses and death? In other words, what in the world matters if all is void of meaningfulness?

Having our lives mean something is the very structure of sanity. Without meaningfulness, the sensibilities of any pursuit are darkened, and existence is bankrupt and cast away as lunacy. Yet life is teeming with significances, flooded with both meanings and meaningfulness. We find our human selves in such a condition that it is a practical impossibility to even be able to imagine or fantasize a world without meaningfulness, as such a world would not be anything. For humans to ache for meaning and meaningfulness is the very heartbeat of being. In light of this, would you give up having meaning and meaningfulness in order to have no grief?

Concluding thoughts So, might we still prefer that grief be extracted and excised from life as we know it on this earth?

Grief is a keep of prudence, as it directly reflects the sober truth of earthbound reality; a reality that is doused with conditions beyond the reach of mortals’ manipulation and alteration. Indeed, progressive loss inhabits our bodies, and thus death occupies space within all things mortal. And so, to “have grief” is to find ourselves in the thick of where we need to be; otherwise, we would be holders of no yesterdays, no fondness, no emotions, no meaning or meaningfulness, and no grief.

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Contributors

Andrea Gambill

In 1976, Andrea’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Judy, died after a five-month coma, as the result of a car-truck crash.

A year later, she formed one of the earliest United States chapters of The Compassionate Friends and helped to establish the first TCF National Board of Directors.

In 1987, she founded Bereavement magazine and owned that business and publication until 2000. The years of grief counseling, support group leadership, writing and editing have given Andrea an education and insight she had never dreamed possible. Over the years, she has worked closely with various kinds of support groups, and she has spoken to conferences, churches, civic groups, support groups, medical/hospital groups, schools and funeral directors around the country.

Andrea authored the booklets Tinsel and Tears (a guide to getting through the holidays) and Do and Don’t Suggestions for the Bereaved and Their Caregivers, and she has written two booklets for Abbey Press on the death of a child. Contact Andrea at andrea. gambill@gmail.com.

Deirdre Felton

Mrs. Felton is a dynamic and inspiring international speaker and presents seminars throughout the United States on current grief issues. Prior to establishing her consulting business, Deirdre worked in the bereavement field for over twelve years in various professional capacities. She was formerly the Bereavement Counseling Coordinator for the Hospice of Stamford, Connecticut, pro-bono counselor on the oncology service at Morristown Hospital in New Jersey and a Bereavement Counselor at St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been a faculty member of the American Academy of Bereavement since 1993.

She is currently contributing editor for the American Academy of Bereavement’s quarterly newsletter. Her audiotape series on “Compassion & Bereavement” has received critical acclaim.

Bev Dennison

Check out the eMagazine Online

My son, Luke, took his own life on October 21, 2008. He was thirty years old, handsome, charismatic, adventurous. He left no notes, no explanations, only questions and guilt for those of us left behind. Although I’ve previously dealt with the suicide of a loved one (my brother, Dale), nothing in my life’s experience prepared me for the emotional devastation of the loss of a child, especially to suicide. I have been an active member of a local Survivors of Suicide support group in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and have made friends and found comfort on the website www.suicide.org.

Knowing that I am not alone on this path has been immensely therapeutic for me. I’ve lived in Northern Wisconsin all of my life and have been married to my high-school sweetheart, Bill, for thirty-seven years. We are blessed to have a second son, Jesse, and his two young children in our lives.

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Sheila Swedlow

Robin Fiore Robin Fiore is currently a senior in Anthropology and Ecology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She spends her semesters doing class work, serving in anthropology club as Presidentelect, and beginning research on a thesis about grief in primates. She spends her summers on various archaeological digs and trips around the world with her mother, Carol Fiore, a regular writer for Grief Digest. Robin is a volunteer at the Denver Zoo where she is always thrilled to share her knowledge of primates with children and adults. This is her first article for Grief Digest.

Paul Moon

Sheila Swedlow is a wife, mother, grandmother. Since the passing of her daughter, Bari, sheís added a new dimension to her writing, hoping to reach and inspire the struggling bereaved to heal from their losses. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she attended Brooklyn College and was graduated Cum Laude from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. Sheila taught in the public and private school systems on Long Island. She also had careers in local government, real estate sales and collecting and marketing antique American clocks. Since her retirement, she has been able to focus on her passion of playing golf. Presently, residing in Atlantic Beach, New York, with her loving and understanding husband, Dick, she attempts to adapt to a new life irretrievably altered by their loss.

Paul is the Bereavement Coordinator at Alacare Home Health & Hospice based in Birmingham, Alabama. He is married to Esther, and their children are Samantha, Christopher and Andrew.

Paul studied mental health counseling and adult education, and has worked in the field of hospice for several years.

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Elaine Stillwell

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Wife, mother, grandmother, educator, author and speaker, Elaine E. Stillwell, M.A., M.S., shares her gifts of hope and inspiration with the bereaved, simply telling what she has learned to cope and survive following the deaths of her two eldest children, twenty-one-year old Denis and nineteen-year old Peggy, in the same 1986 automobile accident. In addition to being Founder (1987) and Chapter Leader of The Compassionate Friends of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York, (along with her husband Joe), she is also a Charter Member of Bereaved Parents/ USA since 1995. From 1998-2010, she served as Bereavement Coordinator for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, NY, reaching out to the bereaved in 134 parishes, organizing and training the bereavement facilitators through special enrichment programs and chairing the annual bereavement conference. Elaine shares her unique gifts of caring and humor with audiences across the United States at workshops and seminars, in radio and television appearances, and through her numerous magazine articles. She is the author of two crafts books for grieving children, Sweet Memories and A Forever Angel (Centering Corporation), a pamphlet of spiritual meditations, Stepping Stones for the Bereaved (Liquori Publications), and a book filled with suggestions for parents who have lost a child of any age, The Death of a Child (ACTA Publications).

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Sharon K. Tschannen

In June of 2006, I was active in helping form a grief support group for the parish church I attended. I was thrilled to be given an opportunity to help companion others in their walk through grief. After my husband, Tom died in 1993, and as a way of thanking God for his presence in my new “normal” life, I volunteered at the Hospice Home of Northeast Indiana where I did a wide variety of tasks. It was there that I learned of Dr. Alan Wolfelt and have attended three of his seminars in my hometown. As facilitators for our grief support group, we use Dr. Wolfelt’s book, Understanding Your Grief, Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart, along with time to share, listen, laugh, pray and enjoy refreshments. Our support group is in the process of working hard to expand our services to others in our country setting.

My heartís desire is to continue companioning others in their grief journeys through our group and by writing.

Grief Digest Back Issues

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Alan Wolfelt

Dr. Alan Wolfelt is a respected author and educator on the topic of healing in grief. He serves as Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and is on the faculty at the University of Colorado Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt has written many compassionate, bestselling books designed to help people mourn well so they can continue to love and live well, including Loving from the Outside In, Mourning from the Inside Out, from which this article is excerpted. Visit www.centerforloss.com to learn more about the natural and necessary process of grief and mourning and to order Dr. Wolfelt’s books.

Magazines are a great addition to a home, church, or local library.

Nan Zastrow On April 16, 1993, Chad Zastrow, the son of Nan and Gary died as the result of suicide. Ten weeks later Chad’s fiancée took her life. This double tragedy inspired the Zastrows to create a ministry of hope. They formed a non-profit organization called Roots© and Wings. Through workshops, seminars, group presentations and other methods, Nan and Gary create community awareness about grief experiences.

Additionally, they host an annual Spring Seminar and Holiday workshop. They also facilitate a Sudden Death Learning Series. Nan is the author of a book, Blessed Are They That Mourn, and over thirty Editor’s Journal Articles in Wings and other publications. The Wings non-profit organization is the recipient of the 2000 Flame of Freedom Award for community volunteerism. In May 2002, Nan & Gary earned their Certificate in Death and Grief Education from the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado.

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