public mourning

In Honor of a Time

~ Mimi Ray ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. And what a time it has been.

The grief of the pandemic has — and is still having — its way with me, as grief does if allowed in. Emotionally rocking me, dashing my expectations and hopes, and showing me things about myself and others I thought I’d rather not see. Exacting unplanned solitude. Exalting togetherness in a way that only the threat of separation can.

In many ways, I’ve cleaved to the solitude and limitation, much of it pandemic-imposed because of underlying health concerns, but some of it self-imposed because the time we are living in seems to be asking something of us and I want to attend to it somehow. Just as I did with my personal grief, and grief in general, when I started this blog in 2015. I feel largely alone in this, too.

My writing lately has gone to journaling, memoir, and plain contemplation, mostly about Kissie and grief. Yet, these past couple of weeks, as the year ends, I’m feeling drawn back here. A couple of friends have mentioned missing my thoughts about grief, especially as it relates to what we’re going through with the pandemic. They have no idea how much that means to me.

I wonder, too, if they’re expressing an unspoken, but persistent sense that as we rush unquietly back to business as usual, trying to recapture what has ended, we may be passing over an important grief and its counsel. Leaving it mostly unprocessed at best and ignored at worst. And are we, in the process, eschewing a “grief practice” this pandemic time might be urging us toward?

I’m impatient and fatigued with discomfort, the moving target of fear, and inconvenience, too. It’s in the cultural water, so it’s herculean not to be. And just as with death and grief, we want to get past it as quickly as possible and get things back to normal and comfortable again. “The top six steps experts suggest to embrace the post pandemic lifestyle” — is what I see most, of course. I’d like to make some space here for other perspectives about a post-pandemic life. Or maybe a pandemic life, first. And the sadnesses, beauties, reckonings, gratitudes, and unexpected clarity to be found here.

As time flows

~ Mimi Ray ~ 6 Comments

12 weeks, and they have flown by, since I’ve posted here, Kissie. I’ve traced these months with memories so fragile and distinct; so immense and complex that I feel I’m standing at the sea waiting for the words to rush in and write me. So I go to my pen and paper and scratch out my feelings there, or on my walks in the early light, I speak to you, out loud.  I say your name, and talk as if you are walking beside me, as we used to. I don’t ever want to stop saying your name — in fact, all your names: formal, informal, married, single, and best of all, your nickname. The name I gave you as a child when I couldn’t say Chrissy.

As time flows, no matter the measure, this blog remains close to my heart. It’s one of my ways to love you now.

Also as time flows, I find that I want more ways to grieve you and remember your life, not less. I notice I get angry and frustrated and impatient when I find these outlets lacking, and people unwilling to mourn and revisit the past. So I seek them out, people unafraid of their own grieving, and those weaving their memories into something worth keeping. Those who did not lose their loved ones but who had to, nonetheless, say goodbye and see them down. When I can’t write, or spend time in the company of these fully alive souls, I find that I must cry it out. It’s cathartic for me, and as honest as it gets when words are of no use.

This resonant piece – Death and families: when ‘normal’ grief can last a lifetime – by a bereaved sibling has some excellent observations on the passage of time and the pervasiveness of death phobia.

Grief and Social Media: At time of death

~ Mimi Ray ~ 2 Comments

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 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.

Sinking Into Sadness

~ Mimi Ray ~ 2 Comments

In his op-ed Getting Grief Right (NYT 1/10/15), author and psychotherapist Patrick O’Malley briefly outlines what he’s identified as three “chapters” in the story of loss, as based on his own and his patients’ experiences. Namely, chapter one being the degree of attachment and its bearing on the intensity of grief, chapter two being the death itself, and chapter three, as the time when the outside world stops grieving with you.

I was reassured to read O’Malley’s encouragement to his patient to let herself sink into her sadness instead of trying to reassure others that she’d come to some kind of closure. I have certainly felt the strong pull to do this (and have succumbed to the pretense in various situations), especially now that a year has passed since my sister’s death. I have needed to consciously and consistently thwart the reaction, which feels like a betrayal to myself, and to my sister. I think the cultural reality that the outside world does stop grieving with you, creates this compulsion to put on a strong face. O’Malley mentions the exhaustion of keeping up the facade, and coupled with the sheer exhaustion of grief itself, seems to be a recipe for much more distress when the limits of human endurance are reached.

One of the ways I try to dismantle the facade is to try to be aware of how I’m really feeling when asked how I am, and to reply as simply and honestly as possible. If the circumstances are ripe for more of a conversation, great. If not, at least there’s no self-recrimination. Another thing that really helps is to talk as regularly as possible with my “safe” people. Those friends and family who are trusted grief-confidants  –  with whom I can speak frankly about my sadness, pain, regret, and the gamut of emotions that don’t normally see the light of day as the world marches on.

Privately,  I feel most able to “sink into my sadness” by pouring out the rawness of my pain in my journal, and by regularly carving out the time and space to cry – sometimes alone (unless I’m feeling particularly vulnerable) and sometimes with a trusted person, like my spouse. Crying brings me a temporary calm, and a renewed appreciation for the magnitude of both the death and the life for which I now mourn.