grief culture

Channeling Anger

~ Mimi Ray ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been asked if I’m angry about your death. I am. I suppose the question came up because the friend who asked hasn’t seen me express it, at least not openly, in it’s unrestrained, torrential state.  I’m glad she asked, though. Since then, I’ve been paying more attention to my occasional outbursts, or the slow-building broody weeks that seem to catch me by surprise, with no seemingly outward catalyst.

Yes, there among the myriad emotions and memories and reflections about your illness and death, and my life in the wake, anger exists. And, like most emotions, it doesn’t hold up well to rationale when I’m feeling it full-force. With a little distance, I’ve been able to get some perspective, and have some empathy toward myself. I love this quote by Harriet Lerner: “Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.”

I’ve noticed that anger is not a predominant aspect of my grief for you (I don’t feel mad at you for dying, for instance), but I definitely get good and angry when I recall some of the circumstances surrounding your death, and the attendant interpersonal and cultural dynamics then, and since. I’m angry with myself for some of my decisions. I’m angry that you suffered so much. I’m angry that our culture shuns and minimizes grief and grievers, and that we consider death itself so unconscionable that we inadvertently harm those we love who are dying. To name but a few.

I sometimes don’t know what to “do” with my grief-anger. It does, occasionally, come out sideways – a sure sign I have some acknowledging to do. Part of the channeling of my anger is this blog – a place to expend the energy, examine the disappointments and expectations that fuel it, and simply to offer it, in honor and love, for you.

 

 

Shelter

~ Mimi Ray ~ Leave a comment

Over the many years you were sick, from time to time, I would try to imagine what I would feel, how I would cope, if you died. It wasn’t a question of when, really, unless there was a setback and a new treatment protocol – a storm to weather. Then, that far off time would inch closer, only to retreat again until the next threat. Unfailingly, you lived for the day. More than anyone else, you taught me to seize it, and the people in it, with wholehearted exuberance. We were shelter – each to the other. I couldn’t possibly have imagined how I would feel, or deal. Your death is beyond precedent in my life, despite the deaths of many of our loved ones before it. And because there was, and continues to be, no cultural framework for learning about dying and grieving as skills, I find myself searching for some kind of community engaged in creating one.

Some friends and I were talking recently about the “club.” Like other clubs of similar ilk, the cancer club most notably,  it’s one you never want to join. But there you are, and you gravitate to others who can relate most keenly because of the magnitude of the death they’ve experienced. A death that levels you. Shatters any semblance of life as you knew it. They know what you’re talking about as you all nod your heads about death having its way with you. And what life is like now.

This is the company I seek, and have been fortunate to find, especially when I’ve needed it most. Companions with whom I feel a strange and comfortable refuge and authenticity, even if I don’t know them well. It’s unorganized, impromptu, and feels rather “underground.” It’s balancing, and clarifying, and loving. Like you, it’s shelter.

Unwelcome Guests

~ Mimi Ray ~ 6 Comments

Missing you hurts like hell, Kissie. It’s a fact of my life now. How could it be otherwise? I’m socially conditioned to judge my pain, so I struggle not to. I don’t think it’s productive, it doesn’t change anything, and it feels harmful. I’m convinced that judging my emotional pain also perpetuates the grief phobia I observe and experience regularly. It’s really difficult to stay out of that judgement, needless to say.

Culturally, we’re definitely not of the mind Rumi was when he wrote The Guest House, encouraging hospitality for our darkest emotions: “Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.” How to entertain my darkest emotions? For starters, I’m offering regular, open acknowledgement of my grief, even when it’s uncomfortable for others, as it often is. Grief, disappointment, longing, anger, sorrow, and pain are communally viewed as “unwelcome guests,” and trying to entertain them, as Rumi suggests, is like swimming against a powerful, though often subtle, current. Persisting takes energy, and I’m not high on energy right now. But, I am committed.

When I spend time with others actively embracing their unwelcome guests, or attempting to integrate their “shadow aspects,” as Carl Jung called them, it’s such a relief to my body, mind, and spirit. Maybe more importantly, I feel a sense of burgeoning community. This unorganized, under-the-radar companionship, and the humanity I feel privileged to encounter there, are giving me the strength to resist self-judgement, and to keep “treat[ing] each guest honorably.”

Book Review -Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul

~ Mimi Ray ~ 3 Comments

Last spring I was delighted to be asked to review a book by author and teacher Stephen Jenkinson, whose work has had a tremendous impact on me. Though Jenkinson has yet to visit the Twin Cities to discuss his book, I hope my review – recently published by the Minnesota Coalition for Death Education and Support and shared here – will pique the attention of those interested in challenging our prevailing understanding, and addressing the great misunderstandings that have informed the death and grief phobia so prevalent in north American culture today.

Who would expect that a death would alter their way of life forever? Or that a book would show up on the heels of such a harrowing crossroads to offer the only thing close to solace — the idea that perhaps we must finally “make room for dying in [our] way of living?” Certainly not me at 54, and certainly not so soon after my sister Christine’s death at 51 in early 2014.  That first raw and surreal spring, as I was grasping for a language for my grief, a friend shared a link to the 2008 documentary Griefwalker, and in the midst of the most penetrating sorrow I’ve ever known, I clicked that link.

In Griefwalker, I was introduced to Stephen Jenkinson, former director of palliative care counseling at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital (with masters degrees in social work and theology), activist, storyteller, author, and teacher. In conversations with dying people, families, care providers, and the film’s narrater and director, Jenkinson gives voice to the scope and prevalence of death-phobia in our culture, and the unintended and unacknowledged effects on the dying and those who love them. Remarkably, he puts forth the monumental idea of grieving and dying as skills to be cultivated — even held as “prized possessions” — and laments the misunderstanding and isolation that presently underscore dying (and grieving) in our part of the world. With Griefwalker came the profound realization that dying could be done, and done well (or as Jenkinson puts it, extravagantly), expressly for those who would live to see it, and that this was what my sister had desired and — against the odds — achieved with her death.

My grieving heart wanted more. I ordered Jenkinson’s newest book, Die Wise, published this past March, and dove in. I’ve read it twice, and continue to revisit sections of it often, as a workbook of sorts, a way to continue processing the hard-earned wisdom that Jenkinson elaborates on, and that resonates so accurately with all I’ve experienced as absent from my personal, and our collective, experience of death and grief today.

This is a book to turn to for the forthright asking of the weighty and difficult questions — the ones that hang in the air unspoken and lingering when someone is dying, or that wake you up in the middle of the night while you’re in the throes of mourning. He has called this book “a manifesto for sanity and soul,” and that it is — a ponderous opus for those of us who have felt crestfallen and abandoned by the status quo during one of life’s cardinal and perennial passages. It is, in Jenkinson’s words, “for those of you working in the death trade with all kinds of good intent about helping people,” and  “most especially for those of you who have the news of your dying in hand, or who are waiting for the news that seems certain to come in, and for those who love you.” Chapters with titles such as “The Ordeal of a Managed Death,” “Stealing Meaning From Dying,” “The Tyrant Hope,” and “What Dying Asks of Us All” go straight to the heart of what families and dying persons themselves are caught up in, and in them, I learned about Jenkinson himself, personally and professionally, and the experiences that have shaped his philosophy and teaching.

His writing style, much like his speaking, is a provocative mix of reasoned discourse punctuated by the soul-stirring accounts of a master story-teller. My understanding of the text benefitted from having listened to a number of his interviews, videos of talks (many of which can be found at orphanwisdom.com), and from viewing the film, Griefwalker.

Early on he cautions readers to abandon hope for a master plan to fix what’s broken, yet as somber as some realities may be, there is possibility in these pages — a manifesto is both testament and plea. I read the book looking for my cognitive schemas and hard-wired biases to be challenged, and I was not disappointed. More importantly I found humane sustenance and the beginnings of a language for what seemed to be an innate, but unschooled, knowledge around grief. Ultimately, Stephen Jenkinson pleads eloquently with us to bring death (and our own forgotten ancestry) — fully acknowledged — into our daily lives, to our benefit now, and as the last and lasting gift to all we love.

Grief Positive Environments

~ Mimi Ray ~ 3 Comments

Sounds rather contradictory, eh? How could grief possibly be positive? Its very mention seems to evoke diminishment and uncertainty. And what would a constructive environment for grief be like? I’ve found myself thinking quite a bit about this, especially moving through the holidays, and approaching the second anniversary of Kissie’s death.

A “grief positive” environment (or atmosphere) is where, and with whom, we feel the expression of our grief (mourning) is allowed, welcomed, and valued. Outside of an organized “grief group,” I would venture this is hard to come by for most, and especially in a prevailing cultural and social climate so accustomed to the pursuit of personal mastery, and the silver lining. Very fortunately, I have a grief positive spouse, and home life. I’m also lucky to have in my midst, a number of family members and friends who allow, acknowledge, and even embrace their own grief, and who in turn have the capacity to extend a developing understanding to me and others without constraint or prescription.

To be able to openly express my sorrow, and talk about whatever comes to mind without reproach, is crucial. I can’t imagine how I would fare without these touchstone relationships, and the islands of sanity and mutual understanding they provide in this strenuous time of grieving. Yet, they are not everywhere, and they are certainly not commonplace. My fellow grief practitioners are my ports in a storm of misapprehension about what grief has to teach us, and what will become of us if we learn.

Continuing Bonds

~ Mimi Ray ~ 4 Comments

“Letting go” of Christine, whatever that means, is not an option for me. Our continued bond not only feels natural, and vastly preferable, but some days it’s what gets me out of bed and into the day with a desire to be present in all my relationships.

So what are continuing bonds? The concept, as named in bereavement lexicon, was first written about in the 1996 book Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief (Klass, Silverman, Nickman), which reconsidered the popular 20th century notion that the purpose of grief was to “sever bonds with the deceased in order to free the survivor to make new attachments.” In Continuing Bonds, the authors present their research, offer historical perspective, and present a model for a “resolution for grief that involves a continuing bond the survivor maintains with the deceased.” An idea that lost favor about 100 years ago. Before that it was the prevailing cultural paradigm. Thanks a lot, Freud.

In short, the model of “continuing bonds” is one where interdependence is sustained even in the absence of one of the parties. If you think about it, don’t we do this everyday in all our sustaining relationships with the living? We can’t be together every moment, and yet our bond is not shattered by this reality. As Phyllis Silverman, one of the book’s authors, so aptly put it, “A person does not always have to be present for us to feel connected.”

I continue to feel deeply connected to Kissie, and though that connection has radically, irreparably changed, and though I miss her physical presence so enormously, I nurture that connection, long for it acutely, and make a concerted effort to maintain it.

Here’s a thoughtful piece Ms. Silverman wrote in her Raising Grieving Children blog for Psychology Today: Thinking About Continuing Bonds.

What Is Said

~ Mimi Ray ~ 2 Comments

I did not “lose” my sister. She died. I am deprived of her corporeal existence because she died. She could only be lost to me if I lived what remains of my life without the regular acknowledgement of hers. And of her death.

If I utter this ingrained expression, you will hear me correct myself immediately. What we say about death (and grief) is that powerful. Words can change everything.

The Presence of Absence

~ Mimi Ray ~ 2 Comments

“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled, one remains connected to the other person through it.

It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled, and thus helps us preserve – even in pain – the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past, not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This hit me like a ton of bricks when I first read it, about three months after Kissie’s death. I was unfamiliar with the author, a German theologian who died in 1945. His words were a thunderclap, and a resonating voice to the gaping emptiness that overwhelmed me, and that I was unable to articulate. I had read nothing to that point, and little since, that openly advised an enduring connection by the conscious acknowledgement of absence, and the effort to “leave it precisely unfilled.” It was counterintuitive, and yet it made perfect sense. My irreplaceable sister.

In the past fifteen months, I have learned just how hard it is to “leave it precisely unfilled.” Culturally, we do not consider absence a state to be cultivated, with the living or the dead. We’re encouraged from every corner to fill our emptiness with something. Physical, intellectual, and spiritual distractions, compensations, and comforts abound. A philosophy for remaining connected to our deceased loved ones by staying in the presence of their absence is eloquently subversive. So is the idea that the torment of our separation could be transformative.  

The Grief Police

~ Mimi Ray ~ Leave a comment

I discovered the term “grief police” while foraging for writing on grief in western culture. It showed up in Psychology Today as it pertains to grief shaming, and in other sources as it relates to cross-cultural examinations of bereavement.

So what does it mean? Basically, the term is applied when talking about a society’s or culture’s grief “rules” — how the associated emotions are to be handled and displayed, both privately and publicly. What intrigues me about the term is that it not only underscores a strong and somewhat fearful grief indoctrination, but also critiques it.

The “grief police” can be thought of as those in our personal and professional spheres who react to, and measure, individual bereavement experiences in accordance with mainstream social prescriptions for how grief should be expressed, how long it should last, what it should mean, and so on. As such, grief policing typically doesn’t acknowledge characteristics and circumstances of particular relationships, and it generally leans toward evaluation and comparison over empathy. Let me just say here that we are all subject to cultural imperatives. It’s impossible not to be influenced by them. I’m sure I have “policed” without even knowing it, or intending to cause any harm.

One of the realities of this cultural and social indoctrination around grief, (not all of it negative), and the policing that sustains it, is that those of us who are grieving the death of a loved one are subject to the shame and anxiety that sometimes result from not feeling “up to cultural snuff,” or being able to satisfy an appropriate social standard. This is hard on those in mourning.

It’s approaching 15 months since Chris died, and part of my struggle continues to be how my mourning of her is perceived, acknowledged, and supported. As social creatures we need feedback from each other to know that we’ll be okay, and to be comforted when our losses are immense and we feel most broken. Raising our own and each others’ awareness of these dynamics feels imperative to me. I hear my own experience reflected back when others share with me their fears of inadequacy as they face the reality of their grief.

I’d like to cover this topic in more depth in future posts, and examine external beliefs and expectations we’ve internalized that may not be accurate, helpful, or compassionate, and that, in fact, may be harmful and flawed.

A Meditation on Tears

~ Mimi Ray ~ Leave a comment

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”
-Washington Irving

These words were incredibly validating to me in the first weeks and months after my sister Christine died, when my daily crying was frequent and uncontrollable. Irving’s profound recognition of the value of this instinctual outpouring, and its testament to the reach of our love, continues to confirm my understanding of the importance of grieving deliberately.  Tears authenticate our humanity.