About a decade ago, I expanded my view of loss and what situations need grieving. I had written a book, Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss and the Rituals that Heal that illustrated the grieving of personal and familial situations of loss and touched on the involvement of the larger political/social environment in some of those losses. But what about the occasions when changes occur in the larger political/social environment? Are these situations and the losses they create, something we need to grieve? And what helps us to do that?
I began a weekly blog that I titled, “Dancing with Everything.” This fit my perspective that much that life hands us does not come in response to our having invited it. This is especially true for the larger scaled events. In that fateful year of 2020, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell got my attention with these words, “None of us has the luxury of choosing our challenges. Fate and History provide them for us.” Throughout the years of this weekly writing practice, I explored what was currently happening in the larger world while asking the question, “Is this a loss that needs grieving?” From what eventually became The Art of Grieving: How Art and Artmaking Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives I was carried back to the beginning concept – to dance with, to make art out of what happens to us, although we didn’t get to pick what that was.
Recent experiences with countries, borders and wars
- When I moved to Pittsburgh in 2005, I asked people where their ancestors immigrated from when they came to work in the steel mills in the late 18th century. Before naming the country –Russia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungry, Ukraine or Yugoslavia, they would put the phrase, “Formerly known as.” Since many people came originally with the intention of going back home at some point, it must have been hard to not have a home to go back to. And our country of origin has a strong effect on our identity and where we feel we belong.
- Shortly after war broke out in Ukraine, I was having brunch one Sunday morning with my husband’s family in New York City and learned that both his grandfathers were from villages in Ukraine. For Jewish families particularly, such details have historically made the difference between salvation and demise of the family members and their descendance.
- I was working on the Art of Grieving book when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched the coordinated armed incursions into Israel on October 7th 2023. Over 1000 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage, including 30 children. This attack triggered a war that is still trying to end to have the hostages returned and the people of Gaza relieved of their horrific suffering and the devastation of their surroundings.
- And this week, in the peaceful transfer of power, the United States of America has, as a country moved further from the intentions of its founders –a country ruled by equality under the law with equal freedom and opportunity for all.
So, grieving for a country one loves and is in the process of losing is something deserving of our grief. But like dealing with anything in the larger world, we cannot, and must not, try to do it alone. After the Oct 7th massacre in Israel, David, one of the members of my online InterPlay group who lives in Israel came online for a few minutes from his home. After he left, we decided to finish our time together by dancing on his behalf, which is the InterPlay form we consider a prayer. I wrote about this in the chapter on Sweet Sorrow through the Long Arc of Grieving —
Looking up at the list of songs on my playlist to select one to accompany our dancing for this occasion, the song “Kinder” by the acapella singing group Copper Wimmin caught my eye. I was especially drawn to the album’s title, which I had never noticed before: “The Right to Be Here.” A strong kinesthetic signal in my body confirmed the irony in using this song for this occasion. Wars and armed conflicts are, at their core, a fight over who has a right to live in a particular place or who has the right to live at all.
As the other participants and I followed and led one another through the dance, the song took me to a place that its lyrics suggested. In the face of horrific war, injustice, fear, and death, “I decided to be happy, I decided to be glad, I decided to be grateful, for all I ever had.” We felt those sentiments and sent them to David, remembering what he desires is ‘smiles and soft tones.”
Later that afternoon, I realized how good I had been feeling since the morning visit with David and dancing on his behalf. I began feeling something that grievers often feel, a kind of guilt that we are allowing ourselves to feel good when the loss we are grieving, or that those around us are grieving, is so great. I questioned whether feeling good was the right response to the difficult situations that people I know and people I don’t know are being faced with around the globe.
Just then, a notice came into my email box to join a Community Vigil for Our Collective Pain, sponsored by one of my favorite organizations, Reimagine. Their mission is to host programs that reimagine loss and channel life’s challenges into meaning and growth. I know vigils to be a time of keeping awake, of coming together in silence with others after something horrific has occurred, to slow our responses down to enable clear attention and awareness, to offer prayers for those affected, including ourselves. This opportunity seemed just the right one for me on this occasion. I joined 146 other people online…as we were intent on uniting and grieving our collective pain. That evening, I played the song again for myself and moved to it to reinforce those decisions that the song had caused me to make –“I decided to be happy, I decided to be glad, I decided to be grateful, for all I ever had.”
I ended the chapter with the question, “Could it be the obligation of those of us not living in the center of the storm to keep alive the loving, peaceful energy that the world needs to get us all there?”
