"When a person is born, we celebrate; when they marry we jubilate; but when they die, we act as if nothing happened." — Margaret Mead
There’s no way to prepare fully for the tragic and unexpected death of a loved one.
No parents could ever adequately prepare themselves for the news that their twenty-year-old son took his own life by laying himself on the tracks of a train early one May morning. No son approaching a police officer at the scene of a car crash ever could have prepped himself to learn that it was his mother’s car and that she was dead.
But even when it’s somewhat expected — a terminally ill relative or an elderly brother takes his last breath — the shock, the disbelief, the anger, and the sadness of a huge loss often form a whirlwind of chaos and despair.
And if you’re a friend or relative of the bereaved? No magical incantation can bring automatic healing or absolute clarity of thought or the ability to say just the right thing at just the right time. The very qualities that make each of us unique present distinctive challenges in how we grieve and how we mend. But there are strategies that can help you brave the healing path, whether you grieve yourself or seek wisdom in helping a bereaved friend or relative.
For Bereaved Hearts
This year Bailey and Dennis Stenson of Fort Collins, Colorado, received the worst news any parent could ever get: one of their kids died tragically. The oldest of three, Tobias committed suicide just a few days before he was due to return home from the small college he attended in Nebraska.
"When my husband told me the news, I felt like my skin was literally being ripped off," says Bailey. "When something like this happens, it’s like a huge bomb goes off in your life and everything is scattered. I could not be in the presence of a lot of people because I was completely overstimulated, the shock was that intense," she says. "The only thing that holds you together is the love that you have from your family, your friends, and your connection to spirit. Those are the only things left floating after something like that."
Despite the chaos that such news brings, Bailey and Dennis had one thing very clear. "One of our first statements to each other was that we weren’t going to blame each other at all and that our love and our strong spiritual commitment was so strong that even such a tragedy wouldn’t tear us apart," says Bailey. She emphasizes that this level of love and understanding is crucial. In cases of suicide, says Bailey, 70 percent of people divorce within the first year because they blame the other person for the loss of the child. "Barbara Rosof, in her book The Worst Loss: Surviving a Death of a Loved One, offers great advice: "’If you withdraw from each other in your pain, it will be harder to find each other in your healing.’"
Bailey shares a number of suggestions for those who have lost a loved one, regardless of whether the death was tragic or not, expected or not. First things first, says Bailey. Take care of yourself. Listen to yourself and how you’re feeling. Rest is very important. Your body, mind, and spirit become exhausted from such an experience, adds Bailey; you need to regenerate and recuperate.
Many people need to learn how to ask for emotional help, as well as help with all the details of daily life. "It’s as if you’re in intensive care and that support is your intensive care unit," says Bailey. If you don’t have immediate family in the area, Bailey suggests contacting a few close friends who will become the coordinators for everyone else. If no family or friends are about, she suggests contacting a local hospice; hospice professionals often assist with setting up such networks.
It’s important to keep in mind that there are some inherent contradictions taking place in the process of grieving, says Bailey. On the one hand, your adrenaline is pumping off the charts because of the shock and chaos. At the same time, you’re in a kick back/cry/grieve mode. "The real tough part is that when you’re grieving, you really want to shut down and close yourself off. But at the same time, there’s this waterfall, this tidal wave of love coming your way from friends, family, and community. You want to be open to all that love coming to you.... It can be overwhelming." Bailey notes that it’s normal to feel as if you’re walking a tightrope between extremes.
She suggests, however, that the bereaved share information with the family as much as possible, experience sadness as a family unit, and reaffirm the love that will pull the family forward. It might help, for example, to get the whole family involved in the memorial service and in the rituals to honor your loved one’s life. "It has been proven that if you can be together during this process, the family bonds will be much more strengthened. And along the way you’re providing a lesson for your children for tragedies they will handle when they grow up."
Bailey also emphasizes that it’s crucial to adjust your schedule so you have time with family. Everyone grieves differently, but it’s important not to rush yourself. It’s easy to get caught up in the cultural bias that says "it’s over so move on and get busy," she says, but "life isn’t [yet] normal, and it’s not what it used to be. We need to have time to figure out what the new life is about and how we’re to be with each other in a different way." Bailey says that if she could write a program for people recovering from grief, there would be centers where people could spend months, if not a year, after something like this happens so they could have the rest, the quiet, and the spiritual focus needed for recuperation.
Grief, says Bailey, is "a core level experience" after which "we need to strengthen and go ever deeper in whatever form of spirituality we have — whether that’s prayer, meditation, or some form of group experience."
Since undergoing her own experience with grief, Bailey says that her awareness goes much beyond the physical here on earth. "My son is somewhere else, [but] I am still connected with him just as much as if he was sitting right here by me." She adds, "We don’t need tragic experiences to come to such awarenesses, but they do take us to our edge. And any experience that takes us to our edge helps wake us up."
Fullness of Heart
Tom Golden is a Maryland-based psychotherapist, author, and speaker who specializes in helping the bereaved. His work has appeared in U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. CNN called on Golden to offer thoughts on the international grief that occurred after Princess Diana’s death. Golden thinks it’s odd and wrong-headed that our culture avoids, even disdains grief. He notes that in Old English, the root of sad means "satisfy." "In Chaucer’s time," explains Golden, "sadness meant‘fullness of heart’ — that moment of deep emotion you feel just before tears roll out. Now, we consider sadness and grieving toxic. That’s crazy. Sadness won’t hurt us, but avoiding it can."
Golden says that grieving people need to feel safe and taken care of. It’s one of the reasons taking food to them is so appropriate. Grieving people also need to sort meaning from the chaos that ensues after a deep loss. By telling their story over and over again, they begin the process by which, eventually, they can make sense out of their loss. Golden speaks about a woman who approached him nine or ten years after her child’s death. She told him that in the beginning, her grief was like a shard of glass; touching it made her bleed. Over time, the sharp edges on the glass eroded, as if tossed in ocean waves. The shard was still there, but the pain was not as sharp.
Loss — especially the loss of a child — doesn’t go away, says Golden. "Grieving...is like learning how to live without a part of your body." Part of the goal of grieving, he explains, is learning how to live with the loss — to define anew one’s relationship with the person who has died.
Hope
Cheryl Muller is director of Bereavement & Volunteer Services for Seasons Hospice, in Park Ridge, Illinois. She and her staff assist people who learn that they have six months or less to live. Still, she says, "we’re not about death but about life." What they offer is hope — that the rest of one’s life is lived fully. Hospice teams consist of a doctor, a nurse, a certified nurse’s assistant, a social worker, a chaplain, and, at least in the case of Seasons Hospice, a music therapist. Thus, they’re experts in both physical and emotional pain management. Most patients, say Muller, have been living with doctors and nurses telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. "’Now,’ we tell the patient,‘you call the shots.’"
Friends & Relatives
As a Police Officer First Class in Maryland, my brother Gabriel Arias is sometimes called to investigate the scene of fatal accidents, suicides, murders, and other deaths. He’s seen the dismembered body of a motorcyclist. He’s discovered the unrecognizable, decomposing liquid that was once a man who died alone in his apartment. He had to tell the young man who asked that the smashed car did, indeed, hold his mother, who lay dead. My brother was present, too, when a young mother of a beautiful eight-month-old toddler had to be told that her baby had died of SIDS while at day care. He says that in his experience, "the best thing to do is to be there and share that awful time with the survivors."
"Do little things," he says. "Prepare food, make phone calls for them, assist with funeral arrangements and notifications to insurance companies and relatives out of town. Make sure they don’t neglect themselves — feed them, make sure their doctor is notified, and be careful what you say to them. There’s nothing you can say to make things better, except‘I’m here to help you.’"
Bailey says that more often than not, people have refrained from asking how she is feeling because they’re concerned about stirring up feelings of sadness. So she’s learned how to ask for help when she needs it. But she encourages the friends and relatives of the bereaved to conquer their diffidence. "Words aren’t even necessary," she explains. "Just being in somebody else’s presence is so healing to people going through this process. To feel that there’s another human being who cares enough to spend time with me...is very comforting."
Golden says there are two things you can always do to help your bereaved friend or relative: listen and love. "When you listen and you love, you’re not making judgments," says Golden. With judgments out of the way, you can help the bereaved feel safe. "Once they feel safe, they can touch their pain. And once they touch their pain, they can heal."Above all, says Golden, be yourself. And if you really don’t know what to say or how to help them, tell them that.
Muller emphasizes Golden’s advice. Listen to your friend, she says. Reflect back what they say rather than trying to come up with answers. Consider journaling what you’re going through with your loved one. Often, says Muller, we don’t complete thoughts until we write them down.
Theories, tips, and expert advice can only go so far in helping those who have lost a loved one. Grief, like the rest of life, is not neatly packaged between straight lines. And so, after all of us have done our best, the only thing to do is to dig into the bag of human blessings and count them, use them, together or one at a time. If we give ourselves permission to do that — if we can sit with pain, soothe it, and allow others to help — we can go a long way toward healing the bereaved heart.
More on bereavement...
Resources
If you’ve recently experienced the loss of a loved one, or if you have a friend or relative who has lost a family member, here are some excellent resources. Bailey Stenson recommends the first set of books, particularly for those going through the bereavement process.
Books
The Worst Loss: How Families Heal from the Death of a Child by Barbara Rosof (Henry Holt, 1995)
Grief’s Courageous Journey: A Workbook by Sandi Caplan & Gordon Lang (New Harbinger, 1995)
No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One by Carla Fine (Main Street Books, 1995)
Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Kay Redfield Jamison (Vintage Books, 2000)
Time Shifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life by Stephan Rechtschaffen, M.D. (Doubleday, 1997)
My Son...My Son: A Guide to Healing After Death, Loss, or Suicide by Iris Bolton (Bolton Press, 1983)
Healing Myths, Healing Magic: Breaking the Spell of Old Illusions; Reclaiming Our Power to Heal by Daniel Epstein (Amber-Allen, 2000)
The Pummeled Heart: Finding Peace Through Pain by Antoinette Bosco (Twenty Third Publications, 1994)
Depression: What Your Body’s Trying to Tell You by Susan Skog (Wholecare, 1999)
Lessons from the Light by George Anderson and Andrew Barone (Putman, 1999)
How Can I Help: Stories and Reflections on Service by Ram Dass & Paul Gorman (Knopf, 1985)
Books Especially for Men
Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing by Thomas R. Golden (McDonald & Woodward, 2000)
A Man You Know is Grieving: Twelve Ideas for Helping Him Heal from Loss by Thomas R. Golden and Jim Miller.
Web Sites
Death & Dying Grief Support
Filled with sound information from volunteer experts, this site contains highly helpful links and a great deal to offer. Aimed especially for those who have experienced a loss, anticipate one, or are expecting their own in the short term.
Crisis, Grief & Healing
Psychotherapist, author, & speaker Tom Golden offers extensive resources for the bereaved and those who wish to help. From discussions and articles to an honoring page and advise for bereaved men, Golden’s site has excellent resources for all. His suggestions page includes ideas posted by folks from the alt.support.grief newsgroup, who list specific ways in which to help the bereaved.
Seasons Hospice
Offers hospice assistance for Chicago and counties of Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, LaSalle, McHenry, and Will. The site includes great tips on how to help loved ones who are dying.
The Layman’s Guide to Death and Dying
The Reverend Howard Gorle, Bereavement Education and Counselling Center, offers excellent information for many, including men. His “electronic book” aims to assist the bereaved and those who offer them support.
Suicide Prevention Services
Based in Batavia, IL, this organization offers information aimed at reducing suicides through prevention, intervention, and postvention.
The Grief Center
Offers practical information on grief (and myths), funerals, cremation, planning the service, and more.
The Compassionate Friends
Offers extensive online support for grieving parents.
Fernside: A Center for Grieving Children
Aimed at helping bereaved kids, this non-profit, non-denominational organization provides real-time assistance.
Raindrop
Looking for help on explaining death to kids? Check out this site.
Transformations
Focusing on self-help and recovery, this site offers a chat area, a survivor’s gallery of stories, art, and poetry, message boards, calendar of events, a web zine on health and recovery topics, and additional resources.
Growth House
A thorough search directory on life-threatening illnesses and grieving resources.
On Our Own Terms
Based on the TV series “On Our Own Terms: Bill Moyers on Dying,” the material found here supports two years’ worth of research on terminally ill folks, their families, and those who care for them. The site includes guides, photos and art, bibliographies, and other links online.
Bill (Zoom) Chadwick
A father who has dedicated this resource-filled site in the memory of his son Michael. It includes tips for the holidays, what can be done for others who grieve, resources for men and children, and much more.
Usenet News Group, alt.support.grief
Many bereaved individuals hail this grief support group as a tremendous resource.