Navigating Grief: Let It Be
I don’t think anyone has cornered the market on managing grief. I do know there are experts on the subject, but I am not one of them. I speak only from lived experience. My bookends: I lost my father when I was young and my son before he grew old, and I can tell you that losing a person you love wreaks havoc with your life. From grappling with the initial shock and disbelief to carrying on with a life forever changed, the struggle to cope is formidable. It’s bigger than you are.
As the year 2020 comes to a close, the hundreds of thousands of lives claimed by COVID-19 have left our country with more grief-stricken families than ever before. The staggering number of deaths, not to mention the harrowing experience of all who fought to stay alive, is deeply troublesome. Even so, I find myself thinking about the survivors. I try to imagine the plight of those unable visit with their dying loved ones, those whose frantic days of hoping beyond hope came to a screeching halt—their prayers unanswered, their worst fears realized—only to be put “on hold” as plans for a memorial service were thwarted by the horror of overloaded morgues, while other familiar avenues for needed comfort and closure were precluded by social distancing. My heart breaks for these bereft families, emotionally depleted before beginning to grapple with the extent of their loss and likely gobsmacked by the overlay of anger, something that would be hard to ward off.
That’s the thing about grief. It’s complicated. Not only do individuals handle loss in their own way, but other factors—the circumstances surrounding the death, the role the deceased person played in your life, and the emotional entanglements that provoke anger or guilt or worry—defy a prescribed course.
It’s also evident that this year will deliver a record-breaking number of overdose fatalities—a count that was on the rise before the virus caught us off guard, further challenging mostly lack-luster attempts to mitigate this wildly escalating crisis. These families, too, have a unique and difficult path to navigate. Sadly, dealing with the sorrow of a drug overdose death can be overwhelmed by shame, a feeling that oftentimes begets uncertainty about how to even characterize the death much less how to get needed support. Worried that others will judge you and your loved one harshly, you may resort to withholding information, suffering in silence and isolation—just when you most need a shoulder on the road. This heart-wrenching phenomenon is one for which there is no end in sight.
If I could wave a magic wand and snuff out the stigma that throws an already devastated person into such a quandary, I would do it. But the prevailing attitude that drug use is shameful and, in fact, criminal, is so deeply ingrained in our culture that overcoming it is—to quote my late son Paul—“a dimly lit porch light, far off in the night.” Nevertheless, we strive to attack the stigma, mostly because doing so is fundamental to reducing overdose deaths in the first place, but also to spare the added heartache for those who lost a child or a sibling or a parent to a drug-related fatality. My wish for those who grieve such a loss is the conviction to expel the shame, and the confidence to know that it’s not well-founded, that it gets in your way, cripples your path forward, and wastes your time.
In addition to the challenges that are part and parcel of the emotional roller-coaster of grief, I bet most would concur that it is a lonely journey. Immediate family members grieve differently from one another, friends want to expedite your healing and begin to steer clear of the topic, and some folks avoid you altogether. So, we seek comfort in safe places and otherwise try to protect others, stuffing down our unwelcome pain and striving to appear fine when we don’t, in fact, feel fine. Maybe there is a functional component to this tact, something that occurs to you when the day comes that you do, in truth, feel okay. Even though your heavy heart tags along with you and always will, you begin to realize it doesn’t dominate your outlook on life or diminish your investment in the future.
Recently, I noticed a question posed on social media by a member of an affinity group, “Do you hang your deceased child’s Christmas stocking?” I didn’t weigh in, mostly because I rarely do but also because: 1) my son Paul died three years ago and I am not in the midst of such a decision, and 2) he was my child but he wasn’t, by definition, a child since he died at the age of thirty-four. There’s no right answer anyway but, the fact is, I DO hang Paul’s Christmas stocking, or I have so far. But the question prompted me to think about why I do this, and I concluded that the choice has more to do with my personality than my belief system or any advice I may have to offer a fellow parent. For one, I save everything, and two, I am prone to rituals. I have always loved Christmas and think the repetition embedded in my way of celebrating it is probably unrelated to anything more profound. I don’t buy Paul gifts or write him notes, but I do like to honor him, and I jump at any chance to keep his memory alive, stocking or no stocking.
As my healing grows so does my insight. I am better equipped to predict the bouts of sadness, and I no longer fear them. Furthermore, I have figured out how to channel my anger in a way that stands to make a difference for someone like Paul—a sweet and gentle soul who deserved to live. I believe my efforts are worthwhile and that Paul would be proud of me. And, I can say with all honesty that this year, despite the considerable confines of the virus, I am excited for the upcoming holiday. Certainly, evolving from feigned enthusiasm to genuine enthusiasm is cause to celebrate.
The best way to put it is that I have gotten a bit of a footing. At the same time, my heart is forever changed, and it goes out to all those who face the pain along with the unknowns and the confusion of the labyrinth that is grief. There is no way to outsmart it or to short change it, but I do remember being soothed by the words, “grief is love with nowhere to go”—a notion that has helped me to honor the source of its power and to just let it be.
[photo credit - Luke Southern]