Death of a Parent
How to Move Beyond Grief and Why it’s NOT about Emotion
Today’s guest post is from Kristie West, a grief specialist who focuses on helping those who have lost parents. The advice Kristie gives in this post is helpful for anyone who is experiencing the bereavement of a loved one.
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How to move beyond grief when you’ve lost your mum or dad and why it’s NOT about emotion
Huh?!
I know what you’re thinking, “How on earth can you say that, Kristie?! Do you have any idea how I am feeling? It’s all about emotion!” Well if you’ve read me before you know I don’t throw out weird-sounding statements without explaining what I mean. So here goes…
I get asked all the time about where emotions fit into my work – am I encouraging them, suppressing them, ignoring them, allowing them to be released?
Every time I am asked this my brain blows a big raspberry at me, my mouth opens and out come some words that fit together, and the person I’ve been speaking to walks away thinking they know my position on emotions….even though they can’t possibly…..because even I am not sure what I said. And I am left feeling like a lemon.
But there is hope -I’ve finally figured out what the issue is. It’s because when I am asked about how emotions fit into my work my brain frowns and asks, in a confused way, “what does it have to do with emotion?”
So…where does emotion fit in then?
It isn’t about expressing or suppressing your emotion. You do need to let it out – yes. Cry, scream, write, move your body, have massages, whatever works for you – all that emotion gets stored and your body doesn’t want to hold it. So expressing your emotion is great, don’t hold it in, but simply expressing your emotion is not how you heal completely.
We’ve all spent plenty of time expressing a great deal of emotion over a great many things…enough to know that, while useful, it doesn’t take the problem away. The emotion is not the problem. The emotion is just a symptom.
Hold up a second….
Now let’s just stop for a second. Grief and all the emotions involved can seem beyond comprehension or rationalisation when you are in that space and it can be very tough to be objective about something so big and overwhelming, so to make sense of this let’s step away from grief for a second and use an easier example.
We often berate modern medicine for treating the symptom instead of the problem. Your doctor might give you paracetamol for headaches without trying to find out why you are getting them, or they might throw anti-depressants at you without once asking you to examine what thoughts you are thinking when you are depressed and do something about those. Treating the symptom helps alleviate your symptom. But the real source of your pain hasn’t been touched so the symptoms will keep coming in some way or will come back.
This morning I went to my chiropractor as my neck is hurting me. The pain isn’t the actual problem (though yes, it is what I am immediately experiencing as difficult and what is alerting me to a problem). The real problem is the source of the pain and that is why I go to my chiropractor. I don’t just start bunging on arnica cream hoping that will fix the problem for good. I do use the arnica (because having a sore neck feels horrid) but I know there is something causing this pain…and that is the thing that I need to work out.
How does this apply to grief?
Your grief is the same. Expressing your emotion is wise….but it won’t totally heal you. Because the source of your pain (and the source of your emotion) is your experience and understanding of the loss of your mum or dad. And that is what you have to change to move beyond your grief. Because you can let out all the emotion you like, scream it out, exercise it out, write it out, tap it out….but doing this won’t change yourexperience or perception of your loss. And as long as the source isn’t touched you could potentially be dealing with a bottomless cup of emotion. Yes it feels better to get your emotion out today. But what happens tomorrow? Or next week? Or in 10 years time when you talk about the loss? More emotion. More ‘symptoms’…….because the source, the root, the cause of your pain, is still exactly where you left it.
A new way of thinking
I know this is totally different to probably everything you’ve heard or read. If it’s healing you want, then just working with your emotions – no matter what you do to them – won’t provide that. You need to go much deeper. Because here is the thing with your emotions: when you go deeper than them, when you get underneath them, and change your experience and understanding of what has happened in your life….then the emotions change. And this is where true healing happens.
Are you ready for a new way of thinking?
It can seem an impossible journey to reach a different understanding and perspective of your loss. But it starts with the first step…and though deceptively simple, that step is profound and powerful.
The first step is to ask yourself whether you are prepared to try a different way of looking at your loss. And to be able to answer ‘yes’.
If a new perspective is possible….are you willing to look?
If a new perspective can move you beyond your pain….are you willing to look?
If a new perspective can allow you to talk about, remember, and love your mum or dad without it hurting you….are you willing to look?
If a new perspective allows you to feel closer to them than you imagined was possible… are you willing to look?
And don’t stop asking until your answer is yes. Because that is the first step in an incredible journey….and your journey cannot start until you take that first step. And this journey will change your experience, your life and your connection to your mum or dad for good.
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Kristie West is a grief specialist. Her experience with the death of six family members (including her father) in a four month time span and her personal journey through those devastating months provide her with a unique position to speak about this tender subject with objectivity and sensitivity.
Head on over to her website and sign up to receive her free e-book, “The Seven Biggest Myths about Grief”.
You can also stalk her on twitter and like her on facebook.
On Not Knowing Where Your Dad is Buried
Today’s guest post is from Lisa Colón DeLay, who describers herself as “CREATIVE, NINJITSU INTERVIEW PRACTITIONER, IMPROMPTU HUMORIST, DISPENSER OF FREE SAVVY, SPIRITUAL FORMATION PROVOCATEUR.” You can stalk her on Facebook, follower her on Twitter and visit her blog. But, be forewarned, if you attempt any form of stalkery, her Ninja skills will find you out.
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The long and drawn out precursor to my father’s death is something out of a bad made for TV movie. It has all the twists, turns, and unbelievability that would make a most incredulous 90 minutes on the small screen. After all, how many people do you know incur a brain stem infarction (kind of like a stroke, but much creepier and not nearly as well-known) only to live through it, become permanently brain injured, and profoundly disabled (think: Terri Schivo). Then comes the 11 year grieving process as he physically wastes away in a nursing home, battling countless infections. At the onset, I was 20 and my father was 44. You can’t make stuff like this up. And I didn’t even mention the lawsuits.
Death and its many friends wreak havoc on an already shattered family. The details are scandalous, but not as important or profound as a memorial service with no body with whom to part. The trouble isn’t so much the service or the memorializing, it’s not being told where they laid him. It’s not just me–it bothered Mary Magdalene quite a bit too. My step mother still sends Christmas and Easter cards, but she’s never told me where my father’s ashes are buried. He could be on her mantle, for all I know, or interred at a secret place as a result of paranoia. A bit of spite can go a very long way.
And so what resurrects is not a hope in seeing my dad’s resting place, but rather in understanding that many, if not most things in life remain outside of my control. Even things one would consider simple and common.
I’ve thought about what I’d do if I knew where my father was buried. In the movies it’s always raining when they bury someone. Later when people visit the grave, it’s usually breezy. It’s warmer out too, which is nice. I would pick a mild day. 72º and mostly sunny. I’ve pictured myself putting notes, or flowers, or photos near the headstone. Praying as a sit in the grass near the site, or singing. A grave doesn’t help the one who died, I’ve realized. It helps the one who’s left behind.
Transforming from the bruised hopes of a missed connection with a departed loved one, I think more about the living now, not the dead. And about my own living. Some of that I can and should control. Photos and memories take the place of a gravestone, and I try to do right by how my dad would want me to think about the situation.
He’d want me to be gracious. He’d want me to remember not where he was buried, but how he loved me, and the better parts of how he lived. And that is actually the same thing I want for my own children. The bigger lesson is in the living memory, not the ground marker. (I say this to myself when I’m feeling particularly strong.)
Maybe the marked spot would trap me somehow the way an unknown spot never can. Maybe it’s not so savage after all. Maybe I can find a gift in the pile of manure. With a Living God this is possible.
I wish for everyone to get whatever they need in the process of grief. I understand what mementos mean. They are precious things because they signify something that mattered. They honor what was lost. But for those who have nothing to call a burial place for someone they love, I wish for freedom from that sort of extra hurt. I wish for something bigger and life-giving to grow out of that tender spot.
This Is Hard for You to Understand
I picked up the phone with my rehearsed, “Hello. This is the Wilde Funeral Home. Caleb speaking.” The voice on the other end says abruptly, “I have a problem … my son-in-law was killed in a motorcycle accident yesterday.”
Now that I know the nature of her call, the next five or six sentences are as rehearsed as the first.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you” she says.
I pause … waiting to see if the silence elicits any farther response; and, at the same time I’m contemplating if I should deviate from the script and ask her about details of the death.
Keeping with the script, I continue on, inquiring about the hospital he’s at, the name of her daughter, her daughter’s phone number and then the hardest question of them all:
“Do you know if you want embalming or cremation?” I say with hesitation.
And what proceeded was her only scripted response.
“It depends on the condition of his body. The coroner told us he slammed into a tree without his helmet on, but they wouldn’t tell us anymore. If he’s bad … cremation. If he’s okay … embalming.”
We then went over the plan of action, which consists of me calling the hospital to see if her son-in-law’s released, calling the coroner to inquire about the condition of the body and then calling her back to let her know a time she could come in to the funeral home and make arrangements.
I called the coroners.
Got the release from the hospital.
And an hour later I was standing in the morgue unzipping the body bag to see if the body of this 40 year old man was viewable. It was the back of the head that hit the tree … something we could fix for his wife and four young children (ages 5 to 13), so they could see their husband and daddy one last time.
15 hours of restoration. He still didn’t look right. Dead people never look right. We’re so used to seeing them alive that dead is never accurate … but this was different. This was a motorcycle accident that threw a man into a tree.
We gave the wife the choice to continue on with the public viewing or close the lid and she chose to keep it open, sharing the reality and source of her pain in all its distortion … sharing it even with her four young children and all their schoolmates that came out in support, many of whom saw unperfected death for the very first time.
The scheduled end of the viewing came and went but people kept coming to view.
Finally the last person filed past the casket and the family knew the time to say their last good-bye had approached.
The viewing was held in a church, with the casket positioned at the front of a totally full sanctuary. As a way to provide privacy to the family, we turned the open casket around so that the lid blocked the view from the pews … creating a private space where tears could be shed in all their honest shock.
The sanctuary echoed with the cries of four children and their mother.
And the sanctuary echoed with the cries of four weeping children and their mother … making time stand silent.
Until the grandfather came up to the casket, wrapped his arms around the children and said, “This is hard for you to understand.” The tear soaked porcelain skin cheeks. The last look of their father’s physical body save the memories their young minds have stored.
In those moments as the sanctuary resounded with the cries produced by an inexplicable death, there wasn’t a person in the room who understood.
Yet all tried to understand. All grasped for an explanation.
In these moments — as we watched these young children — we all became like them. With all the well intended cliches emptied of meaning, we allowed our minds to reconcile with what our hearts were telling us: we simply can’t understand something that doesn’t make sense.
A Lesson in Significance from My Mom’s Funeral
Andi Cumbo is a writer, editor and writing teacher who is currently working on a book about the people who were enslaved on the plantation where she now lives. She blogs regularly at www.andilit.com and if you’d like more information about her book project, you can visit her Kickstarter page.
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My Mom's hands.
It’s easy to think that to make a difference we have to do great things – cure a disease, write a bestseller, invent the newest social network, end hunger. Somehow, we have come to think that greatness only comes with magnitude, not with simplicity or individual attention. We have some to see the day to day as mundane, unimportant, invaluable. My mom knew better.
The church that day seemed to shimmer with light. Despite the tears and the grief, the place felt serene, peaceful, uplifted, like a strong arm was pulling us all close to share our warmth with one another.
Every single pew was full of people who loved my mom. I don’t know why this surprised me; she was loved by everyone who knew her. I suppose somehow I had absorbed the view she had of herself – that she was “just a piano teacher” and “just a church choir director.” Inadvertently, I had come to understand her as she saw herself, but no one ever thought of her as “just” anything.
Each week for over 20 years, Mom taught dozens of kids how to play the piano, but while there was music involved in her lessons, more than anything, these were times where her kids (as she called them)got one on one attention from someone who, despite lack of familiar relation, loved them unconditionally. She would tell me about them when I came home to visit – the funny stories they shared about school and the challenges they faced with the demands of childhood. That time on the piano bench with Mrs. Cumbo was precious – for them and especially for her.
One evening a week, Mom led the church choir. Her practices – I was recruited for many of them by means of daughterly obligation and mirth – were full of laughter and Mom’s dry, dry wit. Her sense of sarcasm blended perfectly with her tact to make her not only a very accomplished director but a motivator as well. While we may never have rivaled the Cambridge Singers, Mom always helped us make a “joyful noise.”
So that day, one year ago, where we filled the church to celebrate Mom’s life, when the place was haloed in love and a peace that passes all understanding, we did our best to make a joyful – if tearful – noise, in honor of the woman who was never “just” anything. The woman who knew meaning and change came through a piano bench and a little sarcasm on a Sunday night. Thank you, Mom.
One Year with Suicide
Leanne Penny’s journey has taken some heartbreaking turns. Including her sister’s car-train accident, losing her father to heart disease and her mother to suicide. Through all this pain she has chosen to persevere. God has led her to share her story of hurting, healing and choosing joy as a writer and blogger at leannepenny.com. You can also follow her on twitter.
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In Michigan the leaves are changing bold and beautiful hues and falling to the ground. Fall has always been my favorite season, but this particular fall day lacks beauty for me. You see, today marks the one year anniversary of my Mom’s death. One year ago today she took her life.
Last year on October 13th I was just getting into bed after staying up too late when I heard my cell phone ring. It was my brother, and after a glance at the clock I realized that time in Michigan was midnight thirty. My heart sank and I braced myself for a blow, because calls after midnight rarely bring good news. My husband took the call and after he hung up the phone he gently filled me in. Earlier that evening my mother had taken her life on the same train tracks that my sister had her accident years before. I didn’t burst into hysterics or tears, instead I sunk into shock. I couldn’t believe that all the hope I had been grasping so desperately had shattered on the tile floor of our bathroom. There was no coming back from her depression. It had finally defeated her spirit. She had been so mentally and emotionally unavailable for years, and now she had faded out of my life completely.
I wanted to write about what it feels like to spend one year processing and grieving suicide. I know a lot of people tell me that they can’t imagine what it would be like to have your mother take her life. Well I think that if I could sum it all up into one word it would be this: confusing. After 365 days of living with suicide I am still confused. I know that the body, mind and soul of a person are unbreakably connected. When the mind is very sick it has the power to take down the other two. When the body is sick it can take down mind and soul down as well. However, I have seen enough optimistic cancer patients to lead me to believe that the worst place to get seriously sick, is in the mind.
My mother struggled with depression for about 30 years, and it eventually took her life. Some days I view her death as a struggle with terminal depression, a disease of the mind. Other days I wonder what was inevitable because of her diagnosis and what she could have fought through. But every day I wonder who my Mom really was underneath that thick gray crust of pain and sadness. Toward the end of her life she was usually a warm body and a blank stare, existing in a world I couldn’t seem to reach. I listen to stories and glean pieces of the person God made her to be, she was bright and fun loving, a warm hearted and servant minded person. She felt other people’s pain like it was her own and she was the star of the school play. I miss her even though I hardly knew her at all. Mostly I am frustrated that I missed out on her. That my life was spent watching her blow away like dandelion fluff, piece by piece drifting somewhere unknown.
I can honestly say I was angry at her, for all her failures as my Mom, and for being locked behind a wall I couldn’t penetrate no matter what I did. I kept reaching for her just like my own baby son reaches up for my face. As much as you hate to admit it, You always need you mom, and she couldn’t be mine anymore, even though she was sitting right across from me. I won’t ever fully understand that, it’s utterly terrible grieving someone who is still alive.
I don’t know why some people die of physical illness, some people die of mental illness and some people die in sudden tragic accidents. I do know that one out of every one person on the earth will die and that even though my moments on earth seem endless, they are anything but.
I try to remember the good memories of my Mom, but most of them happened years ago. When she was alive, the idea of being like her terrified me, so I rejected everything in hopes of avoiding her fate. Well now I am confident that I can avoid her fate while at the same time being her daughter. I am now brave enough to talk about some parts of her that I carry on in this life.
1) When Noelle was born she came to visit and kissed her right on the lips. I thought that was weird, but now I smooch those little lips whenever I want to, because I am mom, and I can.
2) She always left her coffee cup in the bathroom because she finished her last mug while she was doing her makeup. I do that too.
3) My mom’s favorite season was fall, mine is too. She would drive us around town just to find beautiful trees to fuss over, as a kid I didn’t get it, but I have every intention of subjecting my kids to that as well.
4) She wore the diamonds my dad gave her when he proposed, I am now brave enough to wear them too. They are a symbol of all the beautiful intentions they had when they started our family, and that’s a part of all of this that I want to carry into the future.
Suicide is messy and inexplicable selfish, I doubt she had too much control over it, as far gone as she was. It is a terribly confusing thing and difficult legacy to leave your children. All that being said, I am my Mother’s daughter and I have every intention to fight like hell against metal illness. I will love autumn with reckless abandon. And every morning I will leave a mostly empty coffee cup on my bathroom counter before I get out there and live life to the very fullest with every intention to leave an amazing legacy in my wake.
