THOUGHTS ON GRIEF

By Fr Jim Cogley

Recently I had the privilege of celebrating the 10th anniversary mass of a young wife and mother who died in her thirties leaving three small children. Her loss had been a devastating blow to her entire family and understandably had left them all broken and feeling shattered to pieces. Their grief has been a long and difficult road with many stops and turnings. Anniversaries can mark significant stages in the journey of recovery from loss, if there is ever a full recovery, since we just learn to live our lives around that open wound. Hopefully this is where we find the light coming through. In this case the family gathering for remembering seemed more than just the members coming together. It felt like a coming a coming together of all the pieces that had been shattered by her untimely death. It was literally a re-membering event not just for the members but for the bits of the members.

November is traditionally the month when we remember our beloved dead. The word November and Remember dovetail very nicely since they share the same ending. Remembering is a very basic need as it is a portal to how our loved ones remain with us in spirit. Sometimes to try and forget and to not remember is easier. We want to block out the painful memory of when we got that tragic news, the cruel disfigurement of the body following an accident or illness or the dying process and feeling helpless. We can be so traumatized by such events that we suffer seriously in a manner that seems to go on forever but we fail to grieve. In fact, our suffering masquerades as grief, but there is a difference, grief has a season with a beginning, a middle and an end, it does not go on forever whereas the suffering that arises from having blocked grief knows no end and leaves us with a sense of being stranded and abandoned.

The vast majority of us suffer serious loss in the course of our lives but not all recover, many remain stuck in unresolved grief. The reasons for this can be both simple and complex. The simplest is carrying regrets. After a significant loss we look for something to blame ourselves for. So, it becomes the word spoken in annoyance or impatience or the words that were never spoken that needed to be. Self-blame and regret exercise a considerable power in blocking the normal grieving process and leave us tortured with a tyranny of ‘if only’s’. Most bereaved would like to honor a loved one but fail to ask the question, ‘do I do so by my never-ending self-torture and self-punishment or by choosing to forgive myself and living my life to the full? When we ask what our loved one would be most pleased with the way forward becomes very clear.

A lady believed that between herself and her husband there has been no secrets for the fifty years of their marriage. She felt betrayed to find that his will had been made with only his brother knowing. Her reaction was ‘if he hid this from me why should I bother grieving for him.’ She didn’t, but she did suffer his loss. To forgive a loved one is an essential part of grief. It might be some aspect of how they treated us. If death was by suicide, it could be the perceived selfishness of reneging on responsibilities, leaving a family without a parent, a mountain of debt, or a host of unanswered questions. The grief over suicide is extremely difficult because it demands performing a balancing act. On one extreme loving that person to bits, and at the other being violently angry at the mess he or she left on your doorstep plus that legacy for future generations. Both of these very different emotions need to be held gently and accommodated long enough for resolution to take place.

When grief is resolved there is a real sense of death being a continuation rather than a separation. Once grief has passed the love that was always there is still there, and while there is the awareness of physical separation there remains a sense of communion and connection. Two people can sleep in the same bed and be light years apart while another couple can be in different continents and enjoy an incredible closeness that is ever deepening because of their physical apartness. The dangerous myth is that only when we get to the other side of life can we be reunited. The truth is that we need to get to the other side of grief in order to find connection and be re-united. There we find that a loved one while no longer with us as they were, is still with us wherever we are.