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Grief is grief: no
matter what the circumstances of your loss or who it is you have
lost, grief is an inevitable and intense psychological reaction
that is unlike anything else you will experience. And while you
are grieving, what you are experiencing will always be the most
intense and dominant aspect of your life.
Having said that, I also recognize that the circumstances of a
loss may make the loss more or less difficult to come to terms
with. For example, where the person dies after a protracted
illness, there is an identifiable cause (which in at least some
cases can be seen as unavoidable) and the survivor has some
opportunity to anticipate the loss and to start to come to terms
with it prior to the event. On the other hand, I think that sudden
death, by accident or misadventure or malice, brings up additional
issues for the survivor which can complicate the grieving process
for years – the “what-if’s”.
More than 20 years ago now, my mother died at age 59. She had had
some health problems for several years prior to that but I was
unaware that any of them were life-threatening. Her loss was
sudden and it was a shock to me at least, and part of coming to
terms with that loss was that I berated myself for letting life
get in the way and not making the time to visit her more often in
the last few years before her death (she lived and died in
England, while I was living in Canada). At the time, this was the
worst loss I had ever faced and, because of the kind of
relationship I had with my mother, I was devastated by it. It also
seemed to me that for her life to end so young was unjust and
intolerable.
Then, about 8½ years ago, I lost my 17 year old daughter in an
automobile accident. Where the loss of my mother was devastating,
this loss was paralyzing. In retrospect, I realize that as
shocking as was the loss of my mother, it was the result of
failing health and at least there was some sense of it conforming
to “the natural order of things” – one sort of expects that
eventually one’s parents will get older and predecease you. With
the loss of my daughter, I was plagued by a myriad of feelings
triggered by the fact that it was accidental (and therefore
preventable), that in part it was the result of somebody’s
negligence (at the time the county was trying to save money on
snow clearance and salting/sanding; she died when she lost control
of the vehicle on an icy road that had not been sanded), and that
it seemed to me that it was contrary to all natural laws – parents
are supposed to die before children, not the other way around.
But certainly one major component in my grief then and now was
anger and outrage at the council members who had made such a
short-sighted and stupid decision to save money on something that
ended up taking my daughter’s life – to think that she might be
alive today were it not for a decision to save a few dollars was
almost unbearable. Even now, every time I read about a town
council talking about saving money on services like that, I want
to scream – as I write this, the nearby city of Ottawa, Canada,
has recently adopted a policy of not sending out the snow plows
until there is a forecast of at least 7 inches of snow (previously
it was 4 or 5)… I wonder how many people will have to die in
automobile accidents as a result of this policy before the city is
sued and/or agrees that the few hundred thousand dollars saved by
the decision are not worth the life of even a single human being.
I think that these are similar to the feelings many people
experience when a loved one is lost due to an industrial or
workplace accident. Again, there is that sense that the loss could
have been avoidable, preventable, if only the employer had been
more focused on employee safety and less focused on saving money.
The anger, the rage, the hatred that one feels in response to such
a perception is almost worse than the grief. One seems to be torn
between grieving the loss of the person you love and wanting some
sort of revenge against the people who took him or her away from
you. In my case, I felt at times “angry that I had to feel angry”,
since it felt as though in some ways the county decision had first
taken my daughter from me and now was taking away my ability to
focus on grieving for her – irrational, of course, but nonetheless
real.
“The Five Stages of Grief”
Most of you have probably heard about “the five stages of grief”:
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. What is not
well understood as that the concept of The Five Stages was
introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (On Death and Dying, 1969,
Macmillan) to describe the process she observed in terminally ill
individuals in coming to terms with their own approaching deaths.
She was not talking about survivor grief. However, since that time
it has come to be used in a general way to describe the process of
grieving for the loss of a loved one.
As such, the concept has some general utility. However, what
worries me about it is the implication that there is some sort of
schedule or time-course for grieving. This is even suggested in
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(American Psychiatric Association), where a distinction is made
between “normal” grief, “complicated bereavement”, and major
depressive episode, again partly defined by severity of “symptoms”
but also partly according to whether grieving lasts longer than 2
months or 6 months respectively.
Let me be very clear about my own opinion in this regard: There is
no recipe for the proper way to grieve; there is no schedule or
timetable for grieving; there are no right or wrong ways to
grieve. Grief is a very individual and personal thing. The only
right way to grieve is to do whatever you need to do at any given
moment. The only timetable for grieving is your own. There is no
length of time beyond which grieving should end: you do not “get
over” a loss like this – you learn to accept it to some extent, to
cope with the loss, and to live with it. In some cases, depending
on who you are and who the individual you have lost was/is,
grieving in one form or another may well last a lifetime.
On the other hand, if you do not feel that you are making or can
make progress on your own toward a degree of resolution of your
loss, or if you feel that you are just not able to cope with the
loss by yourself, seeking counselling or psychotherapy from a
professional who has some expertise in grief and bereavement can
be helpful. It is also true that sometimes grief can precipitate a
major depression and you should seek professional help and
treatment if that occurs (symptoms of major depression include
depressed mood, “anhedonia” or loss of enjoyment or pleasure in
previously enjoyed activities, changes in sleep patterns or
appetite, impaired concentration, and emotional lability, with the
cluster of symptoms persisting for a minimum of 2 weeks).
Coming to terms
In the beginning, most of us who have suffered a loss struggle to
make sense of that loss – How could this have happened? What could
I have done to prevent it? What can I do to make it go away? What
kind of world is this where something like this can happen (or
even what kind of god would let something like this happen)? This
is about trying to make sense of the death of the person we love
and miss. It is a normal reaction to such a loss.
Many years ago, the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl published a book
titled, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which is still in print. Dr.
Frankl developed the ideas on which he based his book and his
approach to psychiatry (which he called Logotherapy) on his
experiences as a concentration camp inmate during World War II. On
a daily basis, he suffered loss and grief, humiliation and fear.
And he tried to make sense of his experiences. His belief,
described in the book, is that the need to find meaning in life
(and death), to make sense of our experiences, is universal. So in
the face of loss of a loved one, this is what we do.
However, I have come to the conclusion, at least on a personal
level, that it is fruitless to try to make sense of death – for
me, it simply did not and does not work. But what I can do instead
is to try to make sense of life – to learn how to focus on and
force something positive to come from the life that person lived
and the legacy she or he left behind.
This is not about “finding the silver lining in the cloud” – there
is no silver lining in the loss of a loved one. Rather, it is
about refocusing your thoughts and memories on who that person was
when she or he was alive, what gifts she or he has left behind
that will continue long after all of us have passed on. You are
who you are today in part because of that person. So are all of
the other people who came into contact with that person during his
or her life.
It is about honoring the memory of that person’s life. It is about
understanding the legacy of that person’s life. It is about
creating a living monument to what that person’s life meant.
Because that is something that never ends, that cannot be taken
away from you.
Finding and creating a legacy
This may seem contradictory at first: Is the person’s legacy
something that already exists and your task is to define or
identify it? Or is it something that you, as the person “left
behind”, need to create?
I think the answer is, “Both.”
As with all other aspects of grief and loss, there is no single
way or right way to do this. For some, it is a very private,
personal, quiet thing: part of it for me was a resolution to take
what I had learned from my mother and my daughter and try to make
sure that I lived my life by those lessons, and that I passed on
their gifts to me to other people I had the opportunity to
influence in my life. I think of this as a network across time and
across space: Their influence on my is not lost if I use that
influence to pass on to other people, and in that way they are
both immortal. Similarly, every time I interact with another human
being in my life, I can choose to try to make that a positive
thing or a negative thing – and the choice I make at that moment,
because of how I influence that person and how that person then
goes on to influence others, can ripple across the lives of many
other people, people I will never meet. I think of my mother and
my daughter in all those interactions, about how what they taught
me and gave me I am passing on to people who have never heard of
either of them – and that is another kind of immortality.
You might also choose to do this in a more public way, especially
where your loss was the result of accident or malice – think of
something you might do that even in a small way might help to
prevent such a loss in the future. Years ago, I was involved in an
inquest where I was required to provide some information to the
coroner as to the sequence of events that led to the release of a
convicted repeat child molester who went on to murder a young boy.
I was impressed by the courage and determination of the boy’s
parents, who day after day showed up and stayed in court until it
adjourned to the next day, listening to what must have been
painful details of what had gone wrong. When I completed my
testimony, they both approached me to shake my hand and to tell me
that whatever came out of the inquest they were committed to
activism on behalf of their son to do whatever was possible to try
to ensure that no other parent had to suffer the loss they had
suffered. To me, that was an example of two people who, in the
face of unspeakable and unimaginable tragedy, were determined to
make sure that the life (and death) of their young son would not
be forgotten – that his legacy would be something positive and
meaningful.
I think this is very relevant in the case of accidental deaths or
deaths by misadventure. One way to do this is by creating a
website designed to draw public attention to the problems or
issues – to the mistakes that were made or to weaknesses in the
system that contributed to your loss. This website is of course an
excellent example of this. You can find a few other examples on my
website (www.psychlinks.ca/pages/grief.htm).
Another way is to get involved in activist groups or lobbying
groups (e.g., Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) which work towards
systemic change, changes in legislation or public attitudes. It
often takes time for such groups to have an impact but they do
work. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper to draw
public attention to the problem. Call local or national radio talk
shows. The best way to initiate change and to force those
responsible to take responsibility is to raise public awareness.
But again, whether you choose to create a private legacy or a
public one or both is entirely up to you – whatever works for you
and helps you to accept and adapt to the loss that you have
experienced. The only rule that applies to grief is the one that
says there are no rules.
Seeking help and helping others
-
Sometimes, and perhaps
usually, we find that we cannot travel the road alone – that to
come to terms with loss we need the help of someone else. This
can be hard to admit for some of us. For a year after my
daughter died, I blundered on somehow, thinking I was doing
okay. And then one day, an old friend asked, “How are you
doing?”. I answered, as I always did, “I’m okay”. He immediately
replied, “No, you’re not”, and I broke down in tears. That’s
when I realized he was right and that’s when I went into
therapy. And yes – it did help.
-
Once again: there is
no timetable for this except your own, but it does sometimes pay
to listen to the observations or concerns of people around you
who care about you.
-
Don’t hide your grief
from others who care about you, especially your children.
Initially, as a parent, I tried hard to grieve alone, away from
my sons, in the mistaken belief that this would make it easier
on them, or easier for them. After a while I came to understand
that I was conveying a message to them – I was inadvertently
telling them that it was wrong to grieve openly, or to “inflict”
your grief on other people. Once I understood that, I was able
to share my grief with them more openly, and by doing that I was
telling them, “Your grief is understandable and expected, and it
is okay to share it – you don’t need to hide your grief from me
to protect me, just as I don’t need to hide mine from you to
protect you”.
-
Within the first
couple of days after my daughter died, a neighbour approached me
and said, “I know how you feel. I lost a son.” Now, I knew
rationally that this person meant well and outwardly I mumbled
something socially appropriate. But inside I felt a surge of
anger. Inside my head I was saying, “No you don’t! You don’t
know me. You didn’t know her. You don’t know anything about us.
You can’t possibly know anything about how I feel.” Now, when I
am asked by others how they might help a friend or family member
who has suffered a loss, I tell them about that experience.
Listen. Offer support. But don’t try to fix what cannot be
fixed. And don’t assume that you have any insight into that
person’s experience beyond your own experience – it is better to
say, “I can’t pretend to know how you’re feeling but I too have
suffered the loss of a loved one and if you ever need an ear
please let me know.”
-
You may find it
helpful to participate in on-line grief forums or in local
real-life support groups. You can find listings for on-line
grief support resources on my website, or do a search using
Google for the phrase “grief support”. In my area, there is an
organization called Bereaved Families of Ontario which offers
counselling and support groups. Another resources is a free
monthly newsletter called “Healing Hearts”, available at
www.healingheart.net (primarily a support group for bereaved
parents and siblings).
A
final note
It is not uncommon for someone who has suffered a loss to feel
guilty for laughing or having fun or enjoying anything ever again.
Resist this feeling: remember that what you are trying to do is to
honor the life of your loved one, not his or her death. When that
person was alive, you shared laughter and joy and life – the
legacy he or she left behind should surely include those memories
and a determination to live the way he or she would want you to
live. Celebrate life. Celebrate your life, and the life of your
loved one, and the life you shared. That is, in the end, how we
defeat death.
Dr. Baxter is a psychologist in private
practice in Ottawa, Canada, and owner/webmaster of
www.psychlinks.ca (a psychology and self-help website).
© David J. Baxter, 2004. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part without the express written consent of the author
is strictly prohibited. |
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