Guilt Also? Isn't Grief Enough?

[My Son, Brian, and I, at the International Peace Gardens, 1987]

                          

In my last post I wrote about the events leading up to the death of my Father. That series of events raises a question.  If my Father was dying of cancer the summer of 1965, why would I have chosen to spend the last summer of his life working away from home at a bible camp?  Why would I wait until just three days before my Dad’s death to finally return home?

Well, those questions are painful and they reflect reality.  But I was not conscious of this at the time.  Like a swimmer who has gone out into the ocean too far and is struggling to return to shore, at that time I was struggling just to keep my head above water.  One of the ways I did that was by not allowing myself to consciously process what had just taken place.  But neglecting an issue never leads to healing.

In my post of July 31, 2015, about the death of my first wife, I talked about the repressed anger I had at God which complicated my grieving process after the deaths of both my Father and Mother.  Well, after my Dad died, I repressed the guilt I felt inside about not being with him the last summer of his life.

Who knows what toll repressed anger and grief take on our lives, but I carried both for many years.  In the case of my anger at God, that lasted some 15 years.  As for the guilt I felt about my Dad, that lasted 10 years.

As part of my studies to become a pastor, in 1975 I spent the summer in Boston taking a required course called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).  I was doing pastoral care in a geriatric hospital and also spending time in a small, ecumenical group of other clergy: a Catholic sister, a UCC female pastor, a UCC male pastor, who was our supervisor, and a male Baptist pastor.  In that group we not only critiqued each other’s pastoral visitation techniques, but we discussed our families of origin and how they had affected our approach to ministry.

That summer I had begun to have a dream about my Father.  I would receive the news that I was going to be granted a period of 24 hours to be with him, during which I could discuss anything I wanted.  I was elated and I could barely wait for my Dad to appear.  However, each time, just as I thought he was about to appear, I would awaken from my dream.  I was so disappointed!  I felt so empty and helpless!

This dream repeated itself several times, and each time it was almost exactly the same.

One day in group the assignment seemed rather simple.  I was supposed to tell everyone about my Father and our relationship.  I began to talk about Dad and then I began to feel this surge of emotion welling up from deep inside me.  All of a sudden I was convulsing in grief, and I looked up and addressed Dad:  “Dad, I’m sorry for abandoning you.  I am so sorry!  Can you ever forgive me?”

Then there was silence, and the group got up and gathered around me.  Finally one of them said, “You know, Brian, you feel you did not love your Dad enough to stand by him as he was dying.  The truth is you loved him so much you could not stand to see him die.”

That was the truth.  It took awhile for it to sink in, but it was the truth, and I knew it was the truth.  I never had that dream again, and, for the most part, I have been able to live the last 40 years without feeling guilty about my last days with my Father.  Once again I have been able to celebrate the wonderful relationship we always had.   But, as so often happens in life, the pain of grief had been compounded by another unresolved emotion: in this case, guilt.

It did, however, make me a better pastor.  I can smell guilt when it is mixed in with the other emotions of grieving, and sometimes am able to draw it out in a helpful way, and, if need be, to pronounce absolution.

[Golfing with Brian, ca. 1996]

                                                   

A few years later, in 1985, the year after my son was born, I went into therapy to deal, in part, with the losses I had experienced.  I brought up my relationship with my Father.  Gail, my therapist, helped me work through what had happened, and when I said that I still regretted what I had lost by not having spent more time with Dad as he was dying, she replied:  “Brian, you were 14-years old then.  You coped the best you could.  Your task now is not to look back, but to look ahead.  The way you will continue to love your Father is by loving your son, and being the best Father you can to him.  This is how healing comes: not by going back, but by going forward with what we have experienced and learned, painful though it may have been.”