While at a national conference a few years ago I learned that a young colleague had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I sought her out to offer my sympathy and support and I am still embarrassed by how poorly what I said accomplished that. Fortunately, she told me what I was doing wrong, from her perspective, so I have not made that same mistake with anyone else. But the reality is, responding with support and caring to someone that is experiencing grief and loss can be the most difficult kind of communication. And one of the most common complaints of people experiencing grief and loss is the aloneness they feel in response to the insensitive or irrelevant comments made by people trying to be helpful. There are lots of ways that things can go wrong.
Maybe words aren’t the answer. Clichés can get us through awkward moments like on a cop show when the detectives are interviewing a family member of the deceased. They always begin the conversation with “I’m sorry for your loss.” Only we viewers know that this family member is the prime suspect in the disappearance or the homicide they are investigating. Not sure if you spend as much time in the drug stores’ greeting card section as I do searching for just the right card for a particular person and their particular situation, but it demonstrates that there are many things that can go wrong to obliterate our good intensions. What makes this so difficult? And what does a person going through an episode of grief and loss really need?
In beginning to answer these questions we must acknowledge, “It’s complicated, and complex.” Aside from who or what the person may be grieving, there are 5 types of grief that they may be experiencing or trying not to experience at the present time.
1. Anticipatory grief happens when we begin preparing for a loss ahead of time, as a way of lessening its impact. This can begin with a diagnosis, a child’s graduation, or a notice that your employer will be downsizing– a realization that the life you have now will likely soon end.
2. Delayed grief can happen for a person whose loss occurred when they were young and as they hit points of transition in their life, graduation, marriage, birth of a child–they miss the person who is missing their event.
3. Absent grief occurs when a person is numb and still in shock, or after a long illness, and focused on the relief of having the suffering end, for themselves and their loved one. It can be a case of mistaken identity when grief masquerades as anger, difficulty focusing, or excessive worry.
4. Inhibited grief is usually when someone is attempting to squash or outrun their grief. Staying busy or using substances like drugs and alcohol are some of the most popular methods used.
5. Disenfranchised grief is a loss not recognized by a person’s culture or community. You are the stepmother, the never married live in partner, the illegitimate lover or child, with no right to grieve. Or your reaction to the loss of your best friend is not understood because you grieve the loss of a pet.
This past weekend, while attending the women’s circle, I’ve been a member of for over 30 years I got some clarity on why one person or a series of individual people’s good wishes, thoughts and prayers, or words of wisdom as we grieve are not enough. As we met, some of us for the first time in person since the pandemic, we went into circle and spoke into its center. As we expressed our longings and losses, our hopes and dreams, our pain, and sorrows they, and us were honored and held. In what the women said I recognized many of the five forms of grief in what we expressed and realized it was the container that was supporting our grief and allowing us to support one another. We would call our container “going into ceremony” to place the details of our lives “on the altar,” but whatever we call it, our grieving needs a community container and the agreements and forms that hold, respect, and honor it.
Many types of groups have the agreement and practice of using a talking stick. When you have the stick, you can talk. When you don’t, you listen. The 12 step meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and AL anon, that have been held all over the world for 88 years, maintain the agreement of no “cross-talk” or commenting when a person speaks in the meeting. As the speaker shares their grief, they also share discoveries of strength and hope they’ve made while dealing with diseases of addiction in themselves and family members. Group members support by listening and learning, and often tell a speaker after the meeting what they have gained from their sharing.
In the improvisational practice of InterPlay, storytelling forms are structured to prevent the dangers inherent in the telling and retelling of our own stories. We can reinfect ourselves with the pain and difficulties of our experience or take on the pain of others, so those that witness hold space for the storytellers to use art forms of music or movement to transform their grief.
These containers and structures help us to avoid mistakes of trying to fixing or cheer up or other forms of disrespecting a person’s grief. What is needed and what we are attempting to do when people we know, and love are grieving is to be with them in their grief – to companion them on their journey. Grief educator and director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, Alan D Wolfe lt reminds us that companioning is about “listening with the heart, not analyzing with the head…being present to another person’s pain; not taking it away, …going to the wilderness of the soul..not thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.”
A favorite art resource for understanding grief companioning is the song “Soul Sister” on the MaMuse album, Prayers for Freedom. The song makes clear the gift we are giving and getting –the reassurance that we are built to grieve. “Hold up your hands, or crumble to the floor, whatever it takes for you to thrive. Your body knows, like a river that flows, and it will get you to the other side.” Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTP9VS23B84
