Comforting Those Who Grieve, Part V: Survival is Victory

[Vincent Van Gogh, Landscape]

I don’t know if there is anything worse in life than grief.  Because it is so painful, we assume we just want it to end.

But not really.  Grief is our response to loss, and loss is our response to what we love that is no longer present.  Is there anything we want more in life than to love deeply?  Even eternally?  The deeper the love, the deeper the loss, the deeper and more long-lasting the grief.

This is the paradox of grief.  It is so painful—we want it to be over—but what we fear even more is what would happen to us if we no longer cared about or were bothered by what we have lost.

Now, I have already talked about the ways in which we get stuck.  We idealize, or even idolize, the one who has died.  We have experiences where we make ourselves vulnerable and share the deep sorrow we are experiencing, and our sharing is rejected by another, which we experience as a violation of what is sacred to us, which may lead us to close ourselves off even more from those around us, including those we love most.  And then there is this:  we know that the only way to quit grieving is to quit caring about (loving) the one who is gone.

When I worked with Widow and Widower Groups, I could quickly sense this despair.  Because those closest to them kept indicating in one way or another that the bereaved was not doing as well as they should, they began to believe that about themselves.  They were not only grieving deeply, they were also down on themselves, assuming they should be doing better “by now.”

This is when I would step in with a firm word of grace.  I would quietly say, “You know, words have been said to you that have led you to believe that you are not doing as well as you should.  And so your deep grief and sense of loss have been compounded by a feeling of rejection, even by some of your family and best friends.  I am here to tell you something important, something you likely do not realize.  And that is this:  Survival is victory.  Grief can lead people to debilitating anger, to lifeless cynicism, to no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-feeling-sorry-for-yourself, to broken relationships with those you love most, to alcoholism, to drug addiction, to poverty, to suicide.  So don’t set your goals too high for yourself.  Make your goal simply to survive a day at a time, without falling into self-destructive behavior.”

Our tendency is always to make the spiritual journey too grandiose.  We think that if we are deeply spiritual people we will be able to handle “well” anything that comes to us in life.

Grief is often a firm “no” to such grandiosity.  It is the in-your-face reminder that if we are willing to risk love, we make ourselves vulnerable to loss beyond what words can describe.

In those moments of the “dark night of the soul,” as St. John of the Cross put it, we ask not to be conquerors, not to be outstanding examples of people who suffer loss well, but we ask simply for one thing:  just to survive.

That is the first task.  It is the only important task.  It is a task too great for so many suffering souls, whom we do not judge—we simply join our tears with theirs as the pain of life engulfs them.

In grief, if we set our goals too high, we risk losing ourselves, and life itself.  The goal is just to survive, and, if we can do that, to trust that one day new life will be ours.

No one can say how long that new life will take to blossom.  We will know it when it happens.  But it can’ t happen if we are not there to experience it.

Comforting Those Who Grieve, Part IV: Is There a Future?

In Part II of this series, posted on 3/13/16, I reflected on how we tend to idealize, if not idolize, loved ones who have died.  Even after death, or because of it, we may look on our relationship as being ethereal and eternal.  Now, this is fine in a way, but what if

it keeps us from joy and fulfillment in whatever life we survivors still have left?  Are we doomed to live in the past, stuck in a tomb of loss and sadness (and perhaps also regret) for as long as we still have life?

After Pauline died, I remember vividly a painful journal entry. I reflected on how as a youth I wondered if I would ever really fall in love and have that love returned.   In Pauline my dream had come true.  Then I raised the obvious but tormenting question:  if you had such a dream, and it had been fulfilled, but then shattered, can you ever really dream again?  At the the age of 32, were the best days of my life locked forever in the past?

I was stuck in this depressing possibility that threatened to keep me moored to the past and essentially unable to move with any kind of conviction and direction into the future.

This went on for months, but deep inside me a seed of insight was somehow planted, and began to grow.  I do not know the steps that finally brought the following insight to fruition: I can only share what the final result was.

It began with a theological and philosophical insight about life itself.  For all of our efforts at finding love and creating community, in the end, as at the beginning, we are alone.  We arrive in this world alone, although hopefully we will be embraced immediately by love and community.  And, at the end of life, no matter how surrounded by love, community, and intimacy we are, we have to journey ALONE into the next stage of life.

In Michelangelo’s famous painting of the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel (pictured above), we see the hand of God and the hand of Adam at the moment of birth.  God’s hand lets go of Adam’s and for a moment Adam is alone, until he is embraced by human community.

Death creates the same separation, no matter how brief.  We cling to our dying loved one, refusing to let them go.  But eventually their hand slips out of ours, and they go on to their new life, once again joining the hand of God.

After Pauline died, my greatest longing was for her to return to me.  I would have done or given anything to have her back.  But finally it dawned on me:  what I wanted most in life was unfair to her.  She had already done what we each must do.  She had faced death, gone through it, and now lived in the new reality that was hers.  Did I really want her to come back, and have to go through that process again?  It hit me like a bolt.  What I thought was pure, eternal love, was actually just my selfishness.  I wanted her back for me, not because it was best for her.  And then I saw the truth.  Loving her meant letting her go.  Letting her go to her new life.

This eventually gave way to a companion revelation.  Pauline had gone on to her new life, and now it was time for me to go on to mine.  I didn’t need to feel guilty about leaving her behind.  The truth was, she had left me behind.

We had done everything we possibly could  to stay together.  But inevitably we each must leave even those we love the most, and go “alone” to our new life.

Pauline had found her new life.  Now I needed to find mine.