Scared to Death of Dying and Denying Grief

When I invited Martha to the gathering at my house, she accepted the invitation cheerfully.  Martha was new to the area and so I thought this small potluck I was hosting would be a chance for her to get to know other women in our town.  Martha stuck it out till the end, softly responding to each person’s questions about where she had moved from and the details involving her current job.  It was not until the last guest left that night that she was able to utter her fears, “Oh, Alice, maybe I shouldn’t have come.”  Then she fell apart in tears.

Martha’s son had died in a car accident in Tennessee a year ago. She had tried to hold it together during the whole evening, blocking her tears, until at last she had to let go.  A private person, she hadn’t wanted to tell the others gathered about her son.

As she sat at my kitchen table with the tissues I supplied for her, Martha shared about her son Tony and her love for him.  She needed to go over the circumstances which led to his accident that snowy night on a mountain road.

I well remembered how much my husband and I had needed to go over every detail at the one-year anniversary of our son Daniel’s death.  We had to relive it all in order to get beyond the truth that we could not have prevented his death; we had not been in control.

To complicate matters, before coming to my house, Martha had just gotten off the phone with her sister.  Her sister was excited over her upcoming marriage to John.  Martha couldn’t muster up an ounce of happiness for her sister’s special day for the thought that her Tony wouldn’t be at the wedding was all consuming.

Then when her sister laughed and said, “If John’s dad wears that horrible toupee of his, I think I’ll die!” Martha felt her heart ache.

Martha was having a hard time dealing with what all of the bereaved must deal with - how a society can carry on as though we should be “fine” about the death of our loved one, especially after a year’s time and how we can keep on in a society which denies our grief and even pokes fun at death.

We do not live in a sensitive society, especially when it comes to understanding death and grief.  Perhaps the use of certain phrases that have the word “death” in them, but don’t mean physically dying, proves that we are not “death sensitive.”  One of Daniel’s oncologists answered my question of “Why do we make fun of death?” with “We often make fun of what we are afraid of.”

How many of these phrases that have to do with death and yet do not involve really dying have you heard this week?

Drop-dead gorgeous

A dead ringer

Deadline

Dead in my tracks

Almost died

Scared to death

Dying to see

Died laughing

To die for

She looked like death warmed over

It was like I died and went to heaven

We aren’t really speaking of death when we throw out these phrases.  The girl who wore the t-shirt to the museum that said she was “brain dead” during school hours didn’t really mean she was either.  Yet, it offended me and anyone else who has had a loved one who was medically brain dead.  She thought it was cute.  I wanted to leave the museum and cry.

Do others “get it?”  Do they care?  Some days their words may help; other times, their words sting.  They may be well meaning, but they are at a loss as to what to say.  Some say nothing and some say the wrong thing.  And there are days when the arms of a church or family member may encircle you and make you feel included and loved.  There are other times when you feel isolated from your family and friends.

It was stated to me many times that I should tell others how to treat me.  I needed to give them wisdom in knowing how to reach out and help me.  In the early months of grief, this can be one of the strangest things to have to do.  It is like having a broken leg and telling the doctor how to fix it.  Shouldn’t he know?  Likewise, we are the hurting ones having just buried a loved one, shouldn’t the rest of society know how to help us?  Why do we, when we are already in agony have to show people how to treat us?

If we don’t, they will never get it.  If we don’t let them know that we need permission to grieve, they will continue on in their lack of understanding.  If they say, “Well, he’s in a better place,” and you let it go, they will not know how that statement tears at your heart.  But if you can say without too much venom in your voice, “But he’s my son and I want him here just like you want your son with you!” then you have done a great service to that person.

I wish that we could all be as truthful and articulate as my friend Peg from Wisconsin.  She says, even now, nine years since Ross, her 4-year-old’s death from cancer, “I miss what he would have brought to the rest of my life.”

For the truth is, death is all around us.  We are born to death.  From the beginning of time humans have had to deal with their own mortality.  But instead of accepting this, we joke, tease and try to avoid death.  We use the phrase that the only two certainties of life are death and taxes and yet, we pretend death won’t get us.

To speak about death has been called the greatest taboo.  Yet, really, even more of a taboo is to admit that grieving over the death of a loved one is real and important.

We want to shove grief out the door.  People don’t want you to make them feel uncomfortable or sad when you cry.  They want to see you smile and be like you used to be before the death of your wife or sister.

When asked by a coworker how she was doing one mother, who had just lost her son said, “I’m not doing as well as I was three months ago.”

“Three months ago?” asked the coworker, puzzled by this answer.

“Yes, that was before my son died.”

There is nothing wrong with saying, “Not so good today” when asked how you are doing.  Sure everyone wants to hear that you are “fine,” but if you’re not, why lie?

However, we all know the setbacks to telling the truth.  We struggle because, while at times we want to let others know how we really are doing (not well today, thank you), we want to be careful that we don’t get an earful of unwanted clichés or platitudes that wrench our stomachs and torment our minds.

There are other platitudes people say in order for them to have something to say or perhaps in hopes that these will make them feel better about your devastation.

“Just trust God.”

“God needed another flower for his garden.”

“Life isn’t fair, you know.”

“You’ll grow stronger and better because of this.”

“God never makes a mistake.”

Whether these are true or not, the bottom line is that they don’t help we who are grieving.

In the words of Joe Bayly:  “I was sitting, torn by grief.  Someone came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it happened, of why my loved one had died, of hope beyond the grave.  He talked constantly.  He said things I knew were true.  I was unmoved, except to wish he’d go away.  He finally did.

Another came and sat beside me.  He didn’t talk.  He didn’t ask me leading questions.  He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listening when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left.  I was moved.  I was comforted.  I hated to see him go.”

People want us to “get over it” and to “move on with our lives.”  These do not know the first thing about grief.   Grief is not an illness or an act of stubbornness or a desire to be difficult.  Grieving the loss of a loved one is a deep complicated inexplicable truth.

Over the next months I tried to help my friend Martha learn the ropes we bereaved parents all must learn - gently teaching and guiding others to understand the heart of a griever.

By Alice J. Wisler

Copyright 2002

Visit Alice’s website at:  http://www.alicewisler.com

Bereaved Eyes

“…Eyes — the windows to our soul…”

She seemed so small and frail in the graduation party atmosphere. And yet this was her granddaughter’s party–a gathering of family and friends amid the festive tiki lights and streamers of tiny lanterns. High school had commenced for her granddaughter and in the late summer the youth would be ready to head out to the exciting world of college. Friends bringing congratulatory gifts were decorated in smiles and small talk. A grandmother deserved to be proud and happy at a time like this.

Perhaps few outside of the immediate family could see what I did. This woman was newly broken. I could sense tears were not far from her aged eyes. As a close friend of the graduate’s family, I knew. This woman’s life-partner, her best friend, the man who had always been by her side at graduations and significant events, was no longer with her. Cancer had taken his life.

When I hugged her I could feel some of her pain. It mingled with mine and bonded in that commonality we bereaved share. Mine was old pain-although fresh tears were often not far. Over the eight years, I had learned to cope and adjust to my pain. She was not familiar with this intense aching and longing, a newcomer on this griever’s journey.

Her grief was for her husband’s loss. Mine, for my four-year-old son. Both loved ones had cancer. She and I had seen suffering as we had administered care and hope to our dying precious ones.

Knowing what it was like to feel small and frail and yes, dead-like in a room full of vibrant celebration, I ached for her. Even when I sat and caught up on the lives of those I hadn’t seen in years, I couldn’t help but look over at this bereaved woman and know the agony she must be feeling. It was in her eyes-that combination of bleakness right at the retina mixed with hollowness at the white of the eyes. It was there, deep and as constant as an echo that cries what-am-I-going-to-do-now?

I was afraid that the wall would absorb her until she disappeared. And then I thought that she probably would like to disappear and soar up to Heaven to be with her husband, leaving the hurt and sleepless nights of earth behind.

Bereaved eyes. They look the same to th rest of the world, but to those who have seen death take loved ones, we see the difference. These eyes will never be as they once were. They have changed over from the old life and now see the life without. The life without a loved one.

The bereaved acknowledge others in grief with their eyes. Like a secret handshake, it is at times silent, yet dominant. A bereaver’s eyes can be the hardest pair of eyes to look at. However, in time, the bereaved are also able to see more compassionately through their eyes because now they hold a new understanding of what it is like to suffer. Almost like a softness surrounding the pain, a bereaver learns to find rainbows in the midst of storms, tender daffodils in the early morning dew. She sees what is important in life and shields her eyes from what is not.

I am sure that is what my elderly widow friend is finding as she copes each day. Hopefully she will continue to connect with others, those able to hold her close and help her see the rainbows as she shares the life-giving memories of her beloved husband.

While voices can betray true feelings, when you set your sight into the eyes of someone grieving, there is no hiding; the pain is evident.

By Alice J. Wisler

Educating Merna

A few excruciating days after my four-year-old son Daniel died, I got a phone call from Merna, an elderly woman in our church.  “Just think,” she said,  “God needed another flower in his garden and he chose Daniel.”

I felt something sour in the pit of my stomach and my swollen eyes widened in disbelief.  Too numb to say a word, I let her continue, telling me I’d be fine and to carry on with my life and family.

By the time I got off the phone, anger had risen within me.

“God needed another flower!” a fellow-bereaved mother spat out when I conveyed my conversation with Merna.  “Did you let this woman know how blasphemous that sounds?  As though God is greedy and takes.  That is not the nature of God.”

Little did I realize at that critical time during the early months of my bereavement journey that part of being bereaved is having to deal with those who want to console but are basically clueless.  I’ve had to learn that I need to guide them in knowing what is appropriate and what is not.  I’ve had to help those who want to comfort me understand just how to go about doing it.  It’s like having a broken leg and being called in to teach the doctor how to fix it.  Isn’t he supposed to know what to do?  Likewise, aren’t others supposed to know how to soothe the bereaved person’s wounds and what to say and what not to say?

Occasionally a newly-bereaved parent, spouse or sibling may encounter a person who knows that saying, “I’m so sorry” is really about all that can be said.  There is no magic formula of words that make the pain of grief go away.

But people still try.  It seems that everyone has an answer to our pain. “Don’t dwell on the death.  Don’t think about it,” many will say.  However when they are faced with the agony of loss, suddenly their advice does not work, not even for them.  I’ve even heard psychologists and grief counselors say that the advice they’d once given was immensely lacking and did not work when they suffered their own loss.

My friend Jan’s father died a few months ago.  She has already planned not to attend church this Father’s Day, her first one without her dad.  I tell her this is understandable.  Her mother and siblings don’t agree with me.  “Daddy would want you to go to church on Father’s Day,” they insist.  Jan feels it will be too painful to go to church on this day without him.  Finally she tells her family, “I’ll decide what to do when I wake up that morning.”

Grief is unique, as unique as the relationship we held with the loved one who has died.  My middle-aged friend, Kathi, says people look at her funny when she breaks down in tears over the breast cancer death of her aunt.  “She was more than an aunt,” explains Kathi.  “She was a mother to me.”

Many tell us that time heals our wounds.  But then I turn to the words of fellow-bereaved parent, Henry Nouwen, and wonder if this is only another myth we’ve created.

Nouwen writes:  “Real grief is not healed by time…  If time does anything, it deepens
our grief.  The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who he/she was for us, and the more intimately we experience what their love meant to us.  Real, deep love is, as you know, very unobtrusive, seemingly easy and obvious, and so present that we take it for granted.  Therefore, it is often only in retrospect–or better, in memory–that we can fully realize its power and depth.  Yes, indeed, love often makes itself visible in pain.”

I’ve lost contact with Merna over these five years.  But since then I have had plenty of her types enter my life.  One changed the subject when I told her about losing Daniel.  Being the stubborn person I am, I gently brought the conversation back to him.  I liked this woman, a co-worker of my husband’s, and was certain she could do better about handling my grief than changing the topic to her pet dog.  I continued to talk about Daniel and how it is without him.  She was touched by the things I do in his memory.  By the end of our talk, she was asking questions about what he had been like.  There were tears in her eyes.  I felt I had given her permission to show her empathetic side.

Yes, I’m all for educating the Mernas of our society.  I even hope that someone, somewhere has been educating her.  Perhaps she’ll call one day and ask how I am.  And when the topic comes to Daniel, maybe she will let me talk about how much I miss living without my blond-haired, blue-eyed son.  I can always hope.

By Alice J. Wisler

Copyright 2002

Visit Alice’s website at:  http://www.alicewisler.com

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