Comforting Those Who Grieve: Part VI: Scars of Remembrance

(The Weight of Grief, Celeste Roberge)

What does it mean to move on, when it comes to grief?   Does that mean “getting over” the one who has died?  Does that mean not feeling pain or sadness anymore?

Many years ago I knew a man who worked in addiction counseling.  He said one of the biggest problems we have in our culture is that we have defined pain, rather than being a part of life, as somehow “wrong.”  And so, as soon as we feel pain, we “take something” in order not to feel the pain any longer.

As a culture, one of the pains we are uncomfortable with is grief.  We want others to “get over it” quickly, and, when we are the ones grieving, we think we should strive for that also.  One of the words we use so often when it comes to grief is “closure.”  Somehow we think that we can just “close the door” on grief and the pain from it will never bother us again.

However, as I stated in Part V of this series, grief is our response to loss, and loss results from no longer having what we love.  If total closure was actually possible, we would lose touch with what we have loved, and to lose touch with what we have and continue to love is to lose an essential part of who we are.

Moving on in grief is not about forgetting, closing a door, or no longer feeling pain.  Moving on occurs as we are able to face the pain, allow a measure of healing to take place, and then move into the future, not because we have forgotten, but because we have learned how to live with the pain.  Living with this pain will, over time, lessen it, although it will never go away totally, because we do not want it to.

In my journaling following the deaths of my parents and first wife, Pauline, I wrote about having a hole in my heart for each of them.  Those holes were there because of my deep love for each of them, and I never wanted to forget that love.  I just wanted the gaping wound to begin to scar over, so it didn’t hurt quite so much.  But I never wanted the scars to go away completely.

Several months ago, the wife of one of my best friends died.  I was working on a sermon and searching for a quote from the profound German theologian, Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was killed in a concentration camp in Germany.  In my search I came across the following words from him, which describe profoundly the experience of grief and how it affects us as we move into the future. Having lost both family and friends in war, and being imprisoned the last two years of his life,  prior to being executed a month before the end of the war, he certainly had experienced the depths of grief and loss:

“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so.  One must simply hold out and endure it.  At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it.  

It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness.  God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship.  Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.  But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy.  One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.” [Letters and Papers from Prison]

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.

Comforting the Grieving, Part III: Violating the Precious

Kathe Kollwitz

In my last blog I talked about part of grieving as idealizing, or even idolizing, our love ones who have died, and possibly getting stuck in that idealized relationship.  But, before I share how I was finally able to move forward into the future, it is important to share one of the things that can keep us stuck in the past. 

I pointed out in the last blog that time does not heal; only grieving does.  And one of the most important parts of grieving is being able to tell the story of our loss over and over again.  And here is where the problem arises:  we want to tell our story long after most people no longer want to hear it.

Why and how this happens remains a bit of a mystery to me.  However, I have experienced it repeatedly as being true, both in my own grieving experiences, and with people I have tried to support as a friend or as their pastor.

I can think of a host of reasons.  First of all, not many people are actually very good listeners, and none of us are good listeners all the time.  We tend to hear what we want to hear and focus on what we want to say, rather than really, really listening to others, especially those in pain.

Secondly, and to be frank, we may simply tire of hearing the same painful memories repeated over and over again.

Thirdly, we may find ourselves at times not having the psychological and spiritual energy to keep empathizing and drawing out those in pain.

Finally (and sometimes family is the worst here), we so want the grieving person we love to get better that we become impatient with their seeming lack of healing and ability to move forward.

Whatever the reasons, here is how it happens.  The grieving person decides to open up and share either something that they have already shared many times, or a new feeling of grief they are having, and they sense that the listener doesn’t want to hear what they have to say.

This has happened to me many times, but here is the most dramatic instance.   After Pauline died, I was simply too drained and depressed to work, and so I told the congregation I was serving that I needed to go back home to the midwest for a couple of months, and I told them they didn’t have to pay me if they didn’t want to.  (And they didn’t, which, for some reason, tends to elicit laughter whenever I have shared that in presentations on grief.  I’m really not sure why.  Perhaps it just shows how business-like our world is, no matter how much we are hurting).

Anyway, I was gone for several weeks, and, when I returned, I told the pastor I was working with that I just simply did not feel like I could get back into the pulpit right away.  About three weeks went by before I preached, and in that sermon I told the story of how Pauline had died, and also shared some of her journal entries written as she was dying.

A couple of weeks went by before I peached again.  As much as I wanted to keep talking about Pauline, I decided to preach on Saint Francis of Assisi, as that particular Sunday was his saint day.  Now, this was in the days when many Lutheran congregations only had communion on the first Sunday of each month, and that particular Sunday was a communion Sunday.  So, at the very end of my sermon, as I transitioned into sharing something about the Holy Communion we were about to share, I told the story of how Pauline and I had given each other Communion right before she died.  This was after she had already had one cardiac arrest, was revived, and we knew death was imminent.  I shared how I had come to see even more clearly what an amazing gift this is, as we shared it and I pronounced the blessing on Pauline, “May the body and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, keep you now and unto life eternal.  Go in peace!”

On Wednesday of the following week I received a phone call from one of our most faithful members who asked that I come to her place for coffee.  I sat down, she gave me a cup of coffee, and then she wasted no time or words, “Brian, we do not want to hear about Pauline anymore!”

I felt like a knife had been thrust into my heart.  It is really impossible to describe how absolutely painful such experiences are.  I call it the Violation of the Precious.  It happens when you share something that is so intimate and meaningful to you, and you sense that the other person simply does not want to hear it.  And guess what?  They will get their wish!

Violation occurs when we open up from the depths of our pain and struggle, and it is rejected by another.  As a kind of shame experience, our response is rage, and we slam the door shut, determined not to open it again.  In fact, I never mentioned Pauline in another sermon, until my final Sunday, when I thanked the congregation (genuinely, I might add) for their support and love of Pauline and me during those two years there.

Now, a feeling of violation of a precious relationship does not need to be that dramatic.  It might be as simple as sensing the person is not really listening, or we notice that they kind of raise their eyebrows, as if saying, “Oh, no.  Not this again!”

This is not meant to scare people away from the grieving.  In fact, just the opposite.  Obviously, it is extremely important for one who is grieving to have a counselor, pastor, or support group where they can continue to tell their story and explore new feelings and insights they are having.  However, in addition, everyone of us can play an important role in facilitating healing.  When we encounter someone who has experienced a loss, all we need do is look the person in the eye, and simply say, “How are you REALLY doing?”  The person will sense we actually want to hear what is going on for them, and they will often open up immediately.

In the words of St. Francis:

Comforting the Grieving, Part II: Idealizing Those Who Have Died

Pauline Marie Peterson Erickson 1950-1982

I wrote in my last blog about the shock and adrenaline we experience early in grief, which are gifts from God that help us function when we would otherwise simply fall apart.

However, soon these two gifts, like a strong painkiller, wear off and we find ourselves in agony.  We keep telling ourselves that all that has happened is a bad dream, but, day by day, as we wake up and realize it wasn’t a nightmare, reality begins to set in.  There is no escape from the pain and loss we feel.  This is our new way of life, and it is not going away.

A common next step at this point is to idealize (or even idolize) the loved one who has died (I fully realize there are many exceptions to this, where there has been abuse or neglect: I speak here of generally positive—although not perfect— relationships.)  The Scriptures talk about our sins being washed away and forgotten.  This may not always happen in life, but it does happen in death.  And this is a good thing.  We begin to forget the weaknesses and mistakes of the one who died, and focus on the strengths and beauty of the person.

This can happen to the point where we may begin to wonder if we are mentally ill.  After Pauline died, I had a ritual every evening where, right before I would go to bed, I would walk throughout the house and kiss each of my pictures of her (and there were lots of them).  Then I would crawl into bed on the side she had always slept on.

Over the years I have done a lot of work with Widows and Widowers Support Groups, and one of the positive things about such groups is that you begin to realize you are not really crazy:  many people have their seemingly strange rituals in grief that bring comfort to them.

The ironic thing is that most of us, if we get married, wonder if we will really be able to keep the vow of being faithful “until death parts us.”  And yet we may find ourselves in total commitment and faithfulness to our partner who has died, long after that death.  Indeed, we may find a strange kind of comfort in this ethereal and and almost mystical relationship.  I remember thinking at the time that this was all I needed the rest of my life.

In fact, several months after Pauline had died, a friend suggested that it was time for me to consider dating again.  I took this comment as a total affront, as if they were asking me to break my marriage vows.

So having strange and unique rituals after death does not mean one is mentally ill.  But what if these rituals continue unabated?  Is it possible that we could become “stuck” in grief in such a way that what was natural and healthy becomes a new kind of sickness, a “sickness unto death,” in the words of Kierkegaard, used in a very different context.

A common cliche in our culture is that “time heals.”  This is absolutely not true when it comes to grief.  People can get so stuck in grief that ten years later they have made no progress in healing.  Time doesn’t heal; grieving is what heals us.  Every time we have the opportunity to be blessed by a listening ear who will let us tell our story of loss one more time, we find a touch of comfort and healing.  Every tear shed, ever kiss of a picture, every trip to the grave, every agonizing prayer or journal entry, brings us one more step closer to healing and, most importantly, to being able one day to move on.

I don’t remember how long it took me to realize it was no longer healthy to idolize Pauline.  She had told me before she died that she wanted me to move on, and even to get married again.  Somehow, through journaling and reflecting, it began to slowly dawn on me that God was calling me to something more than living in the past, and that moving into a new life in the future was not being unfaithful to Pauline.

In my next journal entry I will share how I came to that realization, that revelation.

A Graveyard in Las Cruces, New Mexico

How to Comfort Those Who Grieve, Part I: Some Things I Have Learned

[Brucefong.files.wordpress.com]

Since my blog of July 27 last year, “Being Held by God,” I have been writing primarily about my experiences of grief, and the love and support I experienced from family, friends, and community as I grieved.  These reflections have focused on these experiences as they happened.  They are “my story” of loss and grief.  I have long believed and experienced as I have preached sermons that the most personal is the most universal, and as we share our stories it helps other’s reflect on their own stories.

Now I want to take a step back, which is actually a step forward. From the perspective of all these years later, I will reflect in the next few posts on what I have learned about grief and loss.  I hope you will also share what you have experienced and learned in your own grief journey.

Two of the gifts God gives us in grief are shock (we become pretty much numb) to what is going on around us, and adrenaline, helping us function when we are not sleeping or eating well.  What the church gives us is a memorial or funeral service, hopefully not more than three to five days into the future. (To me, the growing practice of setting funerals weeks or even months into the future is a denial of grieving, and often delays the process of healing and renewal.)

One of the gifts of the shock is that we hopefully don’t really hear a lot of things being said to us.  People are so well meaning and don’t know what to say, which means, usually, that it is best to say nothing.  As I have mentioned before, the most important gift a person can give to a grieving person is their presence and love.  However, saying nothing is uncomfortable, and so we often blurt something out, which is usually a cliché, and often might be a theological perspective the grieving person doesn’t agree with.  I cringe when I hear people say that the one who has died is better off now, or God needed them more, or God has another angel, or this must all be “God’s will.”

Be especially careful about what you say on Facebook.  Unlike one’s mumbling words in the presence of the grieving person, it can’t just drift off into nowhere.

This is not meant to scare folks off.  Many people avoid visiting the bereaved because they don’t know what to say.  I find it best to simply talk about the one who has died: what that person meant to you, how glad you are that you had a chance to know her, how you will miss him also, and how his absence will be a real loss to you and the community.

I don’t know if I remember a single thing said to me in my experiences of grief.  What I do remember is presence, love and tears.  As I have mentioned before, what I remember so clearly after my Father’s death is his best friend, Ansel, coming to the door, standing there with tears in his eyes, saying nothing, and extending his hand (Norwegians don’t hug much) to my Mother.

When I was a pastor in California there was a fascinating, homebound couple I used to visit, and take Holy Communion.  He had been a producer of movies in Hollywood, and going into their house was like touring a motion picture museum.  He had great difficulty walking and was not able to make it into worship on Sunday mornings.

One day, as I was planning the funeral service for my first wife, Pauline, the doorbell rang.  I opened my door and to my unbelievable surprise, there stood this couple at my door, with tears in their eyes.  They handed me an envelope with a check, and all they said was:  “This is to help with the funeral expenses.”

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled;  ‘Where have you laid him?’  They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’  Jesus wept.  So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’”  [John 11:33-36; RSV]

A Dark and Stormy Night

Friendship is one of the great mysteries of life.  It is difficult to define, because every friendship is different.  Yes, we can try to find the common denominators, but they don’t always hold.  I might have a friend I turn to when I really need to talk or make a decision, because he listens well, and knows when and when not to give advice.  I might have another friend who is a terrible listener, but I go to him when I just want to have fun and forget the problems of life.

My parents, Edrei and Ruth Erickson, and the family who took my younger brother and me into their home when my parents died, Ansel and Dorothy Haukness, were friends (10/16/2015 Post). In fact, I would call them “best of friends.”  As I was growing up, they lived right across the street from each other.  They were friends as couples, getting together for whist parties or to play couples golf.  I even remember one time we vacationed together as families.  But most of the time, when I think of their friendship, I think of the friendship between Ruth and Dorothy, and Edrei and Ansel.

You could find Ruth and Dorothy dropping by each other’s houses for coffee, often with other friends they had in the neighborhood.  They were involved in various community organizations together.  But what I think of most often is their involvement in church, and their commitment to following Jesus.  Both of them loved the Bible, and led the Women’s Circle Bible Studies, as we called them at the time.  Dorothy was even trained to be a Bethel Bible Series teacher, and Mom and I actually took that series together.

During the months my Mother was dying from cancer (09/11/15 Post), Dorothy was there by her side, as a true friend would be.  I have no idea how their conversations went.  No doubt they included Mom’s worries about what would happen to Alan and me when she died

Ansel and Edrei were twins; twins by different parents.  They were both born on August 19, 1911, Dad in Canada, Ansel in North Dakota.  Dad became a U.S. citizen on September 15, 1925.  Fate would bring them both to Maddock, North Dakota, a farming community of just over 700 people. 

Both Dad and Ansel were great storytellers, and they referred to the night of their births as having been a “dark and stormy night.”

Ansel ran the dry goods store in town.  Dad moved to Maddock to take over a furniture store. He was a schoolteacher by training, and would eventually return to that profession, but decided to try his hand at business.

I think of Edrei and Ansel as buddies.  Oh, what fun they had together!  Every mid-morning and mid-afternoon they headed to Hunter’s Barber Shop for coffee and, as they would put it, “to solve the world's problems.”  They hunted together in the fall, and argued over who shot the biggest and most pheasants.  But their greatest joy was playing golf together.  That meant every Thursday at the Maddock Country Club, a nine-hole, sand-green course, with no water system, which meant, most of the time, playing golf in a pasture (without the cows --they were just over the fence, which was the out-of-bounds line on holes 5 and 6).  Part of growing up, I remember well, was checking to make sure the Foss bull was not in the pasture when you crawled the fence to retrieve your wayward drive.  And the highlight of the year, each August, was going to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, to stay at the Haukness cabin and play in the Pine to Palm Golf Tournament.

Like buddies often do, Ansel and Dad never tired of teasing each other.  Dad was much bigger than Ansel and could hit the golf ball a lot further.  He loved to hit a big drive, and then, when Ansel moved to the tee box, say to him, “Ok, Ansel, show us what you can do.”  On the other hand, Ansel was a much better chipper, and loved to outmatch Dad in that part of the game.

One time while hunting geese one of them happened to end up lying in an area where a flock of greater Canada geese flew over, and knocked down four of them with three shots.  To this day I am not sure which one it was—I think Ansel—but they sure liked to rib the other.

One day my Mom backed our car out of our driveway and hit Ansel’s pickup parked in his driveway.  Dad went over to Ansel and chastised him, saying, “You know Ruth needs lots of room.  What were you doing parking in your own driveway?  She needs that space also.”

One day Dorothy asked Ansel to plant a tree, and Ansel asked Dad to help.  They raced to get it done before going out golfing.  Dorothy eventually went out to see how they had done. She found that they had planted the dead tree trunk used to keep the live tree straight, which was, in turn, still leaning against the wall in the garage.

Dad’s battle with cancer lasted almost a year (08/12/15 Post).  Ansel was always there, to stop by and visit at home, or to drive Dad to Bismarck for radiation treatments.

The day Dad died, I still remember the sound of the doorbell ringing around noon.  Mom opened the door, and there stood Ansel, tears streaming down his face.  He didn’t say a word; he just held out his hand to Mom.

I don’t know what kind of conversations went on between Ansel and Dad during that last year, or between Dorothy and Mom as she was dying.  What I do know is that the friendships these four neighbors had helped my parents in both life and death, and that Ansel and Dorothy gave my parents the best gift any friend could: volunteering to take us two boys into their home and family.

Dorothy died in 2004, at the age of 87.  Ansel died in July of 2008, a month short of his 97^th birthday.  To the very end I was able to visit with Ansel, never hearing enough of the stories he had to tell, especially of his adventures with his friend, Edrei.  As with all stories, history makes its sure move towards legend, and the factual truth may get lost in the translation.  But, as Ansel loved to remind us, “Do you want the truth, or do you want it interesting?”  To which I would add, “Do you want the exact details, or to be touched by meaning?”  And one of the most meaningful things we experience in this life is the gift of friendship.

(Ansel and Me, Age 96)