Rabbi Dr. Earl Grollman is a past chairman of the National Center for Death Education, and a renowned bereavement author, speaker, crisis intervention specialist, and grief counselor.
emotional intelligence
Every day an anniversary
Much has been written about the “anniversary effect” and its relationship to grief and trauma survival. As much as death is a certainty, in a death phobic culture it’s reasonable to see how it could be considered traumatic. I see this regularly, even when the very elderly die. We are not prepared emotionally because we don’t even like to use the word death. We say the person “passed away.” Intellectually, we tell ourselves that we accept the inevitability of death, but that’s where we stop. It’s not our fault – we are, to a great degree, the products of our prevailing culture – but we must wrest with this emotional death phobia, I believe, if we are to grieve well, or even at all.
As January 5th approached this year, I started mentally preparing myself for the anniversary effect. Even with forethought, starting right before Christmas, I was hit hard. I was unprepared for the degree to which this fourth anniversary of her death would affect me emotionally. Her “deathday.” We don’t use that expression. Even I don’t. We say the “anniversary of her death.” So why not deathday, like birthday?
Now that it’s March, I can see some of the reasons this year was particularly difficult: I delayed my annual trip to be with the family on her deathday, it’s been a colder, snowier winter this year, I had a really miserable upper respiratory virus, 2017 brought substantial and stressful changes to my life, etc. These considerations have helped me weather the anniversary effect, and so has this thought: every day is an anniversary.
Quite literally, very few days in a year go by without some important recollection, seasonal memory, tradition, or commemoration of our lives together. More frequently, it’s the small, yet significant reminiscences that populate my every day life. Things like gifts she gave me, recipes, songs from our youth, art and poetry mutually loved, TV shows from decades past, cards and email correspondence, videos, photographs, clothing, and ephemera from half a century of living this amazing life in each others’ orbits.
At least once a week, or so, I say something like this to my husband, Eric: “Today was the day Kissie and I went to…” or “Six years ago this month, we all got together for…” or “Every time I hear that music, I remember how she loved…” He listens, and usually remarks how ever-present our shared experiences remain, be they commonplace or extraordinary. It’s no surprise, then, that our interwoven lives and the cultural and familial backdrop of the last fifty years, make it virtually impossible not to stop and recall – even if it’s just in the midst of a hectic afternoon – some aspect of our pivotal relationship every single day.
Every day, an anniversary.
Grief as an Act of Protest
“Grief undermines the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and the sanctioned behaviours of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life force… It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated… It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.”
-Francis Weller
In his resonant and challenging description of grief, psychotherapist and author Francis Weller declares that grief is “necessary to the vitality of the soul” because it is “untamed and cannot be domesticated.” I think that’s why grief scares us so much, and why we create “rules” for its expression, and diagnoses for when we think it has run amok. In acknowledging the predominant and unspoken agreement to be emotionally restrained, even numb, when it comes to mourning, Weller asserts that embracing our grief openly is tantamount to cultural rebellion! It certainly feels that way to me, and continuing to grieve for Kissie past some socially approved expiration date, is not only my act of personal protest, but truly a kind of sustenance for my psyche that is, as Weller put it, “suffused with life force.” I’ve never heard anyone refer to grief as a life-giving emotion, and what a relief to know I’m not alone in this experience. In shunning our grief, we are inadvertently thwarting our essential capacities for passion, vigor, and the love of life.
Grief and Social Media: At time of death
A topic for which one post will undoubtedly not suffice, the age of social media is rife with considerations we might do well to address sooner rather than later. Social media was the furthest thing from my mind during the last precious days of Christine’s life. As we gathered to share those final transformational hours as a family, time was seemingly suspended, never to be the same again.
In the immediate aftermath of her death – that initial, fragile, devastating time – we held on to each other, and as we could, began placing initial calls to our nearest and dearest who were solemnly waiting for word. The next circle of family and close friends would follow as soon as we could muster the strength. Some would be asked to be personal messengers to others as our emotional strength gave out. Not a half day had passed (she died in the morning) before we began to hear that people were learning of her death via Facebook. Among them, some we hadn’t yet had a chance to contact.
I was called by a dear friend of ours I’d wanted to phone myself, a historical friend who knew our lives and relationship, someone I could sob and be overwhelmed with. But she had already been contacted by a mutual friend who’d read it on Facebook. I was instantly furious, and then, crestfallen. She had to calm me down and tell me it was alright that she didn’t hear it from me personally. It felt as if our undiluted, first opportunity to mourn together was stolen. It wasn’t until much later that we really cried together. My anger wasn’t about who had received word first, or from whom, but how.
Only scant hours after Christine’s death, social media posts felt intrusive – as if our profoundly personal and meaningful passage had been co-opted as just one more bit of “news,” and precisely when we most needed to share our thoughts and emotions first-hand. Our life-altering experience felt reduced – reported in others’ “news feeds” with their interpretations and motivations. It felt insulting and painful to my mind, heart, and emotions. How could it be that the time we needed in our most vulnerable state, was underestimated, misunderstood, not considered? A few hours was too soon.
In contemplating this relatively recent phenomenon, I’ve realized how little exists in the way of guidance when it comes to the use of social media around death and grief. Some people possess an approach that’s basically parallel to their offline social behavior: if they wouldn’t do something offline, they wouldn’t do it online either. Others, by contrast, seem at a loss to know how to align their online behavior with what they would customarily do in person. The disconnect, at least in part, seems be related to a number of readily observable phenomenon. One being the immediacy of social media communication and the sense of urgency it engenders. I can feel it almost instantly on any number of social sites as soon as I log on. The urge to post something new, exciting, and attention-getting is part and parcel of the experience. This compulsion to create content can, and sometimes does, override better judgement. Another is a kind of “personal insulation” – a sense of detachment from consequences and considerations one would make in person, but that online, one may rightfully renounce.
I have no intention of deriding the respectful and responsible use of social media for sharing the experience and impact of a death, and to inform wider circles who may not have been personally close to the deceased, but who nonetheless care and want to support their grieving loved ones and friends. Quite the contrary, as these are legitimate uses. However, much more care and consideration can be taken to keep the grief-stricken foremost in mind and heart, beginning in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death. To slow down, to patiently pause, to consider the magnitude of death, of its unalterable consequences, is to move toward real empathy, and then to act accordingly.
Grief’s Meaningful, Beautiful Coincidence
The following personal essay, by Amy Tan, came to me printed on a brown paper take-out sack. It came with the nuanced significance of a truly brilliant synchronicity – particular meanings that I, and those familiar with our family’s stories, would immediately understand – in the form of a writer’s singular and profound truth.
I’ve experienced so many stunningly timed and emotionally charged coincidences since Kissie’s death (a year and a half ago today) – experiences that have left me in breathless wonder and tearful gratitude. I usually hesitate to share them directly (outside of my close, personal group), but I do sometimes risk it with other rational, intelligent adults who’ve experienced the death of someone close. When I do, I frequently find relief and enthusiasm, but the stories are told surreptitiously, as are mine.
I recently read a blog post where the author asked if we could just talk about these “random and precise” occurrences, and make it safe without having to defend our intelligence first. I concur. Beyond personal beliefs, and scientific explanations, there is beautiful, unperturbed mystery.
Two Minutes About Ghosts – by Amy Tan
Ghosts are among us. I am one of the 42% of Americans who thinks so. Then again, even if 100% believe something, that doesn’t make it true, does it? Like people who think they’re superior to others. Or voters who believe their candidate is best. Or those who say an invisible prankster is pounding up the stairs and making the sound of chandeliers crashing onto their bedroom floor. One of my ghosts used to do that. I thought it was my husband, a member of the 58% who did not believe in ghosts. But then he heard the tune to Jeopardy whistled behind his back—off-key, twice, and once when he was naked in the shower. Naked with a ghost! My husband now believes, sort of.
I bet many of the 58% have never heard a whistling ghost. They think ghosts are merely grief inflated by wishful thinking. Would they change their minds if the ghost named his murderer? One of mine did that, and the murderer was sentenced to life in prison. He also told me I would one day be a writer.
Defying science and reason, my mother sailed into my bedroom the night after she died, looking like a statically charged hologram of light. I was punched breathless with the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer. From time to time, she brings me gifts—uncanny coincidences in the form of particular books, photographs, music, paintings, and people—at precisely that moment when I’m flailing in my writing. She helps me observe that happenstance can have meaning, that grief is beautiful, and that percentages are nonsense. There are things you feel because they are true. Like love, like loss, like ghosts.
A Map of Mourning 