Dear Grieving Gracie

Dear Grieving Gracie,

As I read through yesterday's comments, I heard a lot about feeling shunned by someone's behavior toward them. Is it possible that awkwardness, sadness and not knowing what to say to someone who has lost a loved one, silence even, may be mistaken as shunning? -Betty

Dear Betty,

You bring up an excellent thought. I do believe that many people feel deep sadness for our loss, and don't know what to say or do, causing them to stay silent or hold back. This is easily mistaken for shunning. The problem lies in that bereaved people can't tell the difference. The wound of an emotional heartbreak isn't visible and has nowhere to go, so it just stays there as an indescribable rawness with no mobility.

As an analogy, a broken leg is a visible wound. Although immobilized by a cast, when it hurts the patient can move about in an effort to find a comfortable position. With a broken heart, there are no muscles or surrounding joints to flex that will bring relief.

Further, visible wounds trigger instant compassion, but invisible wounds do not. We don't know what we don't know, right? If I can't see your pain, how do I know you're not just seeking sympathy (says Pastor Osteen)?

Some people in society play the victim card because it's a manipulation tactic they were taught as a child. But that victim card has nothing to do with grief. It isn't a light switch we use to manipulate those around us. We have no control over our profound sadness, nor do we have a date to look forward to when the cast is removed and life returns to normal.

Going back to the bereaved's inability to tell the difference between shunning or someone who shares our deep sadness but doesn't know what to say, my recommendation is to hug. Give a hug. Receive a hug. No words are necessary. If the recipient recoils from the hug, shrug it off and find a hug somewhere else. Hugs are a sign of true friendship. 

Warm regards and big hugs,

Grieving Gracie XOXO

Dear Grieving Gracie

Dear Grieving Gracie,

Do you ever have trouble with people once you tell them you have a child who died? I don't know if it is the way I say it, but it has happened enough where people I meet start talking with me and I tell them about me and my family. At some point I tell them I had a son who passed and almost immediately they walk away or lose interest in getting to know me any further. I am hurt and angered at the fact that most people push us away because they don't want to know what it is like to lose a child. I understand that what we are going through is inconceivable by people who have never experienced losing a child but shunning us is like pouring salt in my wound. Please help me understand this? -Kim, bereaved mother

Dear Kim,

Being shunned is a common problem all bereaved mothers face, no matter how long it's been. It really hurts to be shunned but it comes from a place of people simply not knowing what to say coupled with deep fear.

They don't mean to hurt us, I truly believe that. But the pendulum has swung so far the other way that those of us who mourn the loss of someone we love are accused of indulging in self pity. This notion is far from truth, and why we're working so hard to bring the pendulum back to a level of compassion where it belongs. It's an uphill battle, but I refuse to allow this way of thinking to be passed along to future generations.

My honest opinion is that you should never deny your loved one’s existence at the expense of someone else's comfort. That would be denying who you are, because your loved one is part of you. No matter how lovely someone is, if he or she doesn't want to get to know the whole you, that is a flaw in their character you can't fix. Sad, but true.

Our circles of friends are determined by how accepting they are of us as a bereaved mother. Our inner circle is comprised of those who are capable of holding that sacred space when we are experiencing a sad moment. They love us in spite of our fetal position on the floor.

The second circle sits outside the inner circle, and is comprised of dear friends who love us, and we love them, but they aren't capable of holding that sacred space in our time of need. They're the ones who suddenly need to get home to water the flowers when we mention our child. They love every part about us, except our grief.

The third circle are those friends who know and like us, interact with us and our families, but aren't comfortable being alone with us out of fear that we might mention our child.

The outer circle is everyone else we engage with, and are gracious to, but aren't part of our intimate lives and likely don't know our story.

Shunning happens in every circle except our sacred inner circle. Only there will we find true compassion and comfort in our time of need. For those in the other circles, they'll learn soon enough when their time comes, and although they weren't capable of being there for us, we'll be there for them. We lead by example.

This is a problem faced by many, and isn't limited to bereaved mothers or spouses. My belief is that you don't have to understand something to have compassion. I truly hope that through our collective efforts to bring that pendulum back down where it belongs, future generations will find better support.

Warm regards and big hugs,

Grieving Gracie XOXO

Why we need National Grief Awareness Day

Recently while doing some research, I came across the term “Complicated Grief.”  Of course this prompted me to wonder whether I suffered from “complicated grief,” after all it’s been almost five years since Aly, our teenage daughter died, and many days I still certainly suffer profound grief.  But what is “complicated grief” and did I have it?  Why was that term created, and how do they define it?

It’s true that not all grief is alike.  When your beloved cat dies, you experience sadness, loss and, well, grief.  When you suddenly or unexpectedly lose a job, you may experience grief feelings too.  But both of these examples are clearly a different grief from when we lose a child, or a partner, sibling or parent before their time. 

So who, exactly, experiences “complicated grief”?  I plugged the term into my search browser and was rewarded with a plethora of answers….nearly 11 million answers in less than three seconds, to be exact.  I scanned the search results and selected one near the top by Harvard Health Publications.  According to The Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, “During the first few months after a loss, many signs and symptoms of normal grief are the same as those of complicated grief.  However, while normal grief symptoms gradually start to fade over a few months, those of complicated grief linger or get worse.”  Harvard went on to say “….it can take intense forms that surprise a bereaved person, including forms that in other circumstances would be called a psychiatric disorder.”  And, “But if it's been several months or more since your loss and your emotions remain so intense or debilitating that you have trouble going about your normal routine, talk to your health care provider.”

As a parent who has experienced what I call profound grief, I respectfully question the term “complicated grief.”  And here is why.

When Aly died, I found myself in a fog of shock and horror so thick, I was completely blinded by it for the first three years.  I cried daily, and wailed most nights.  And only now, nearly five years later….not months, but years….has the fog of pain began to lift enough to allow me to start to assemble the jagged pieces of my life that is left in the wake of my broken heart.  Was this abnormal?  It didn’t seem so.  After all, I was a mother who lost my child, not my goldfish.  Yet the signs and symptoms listed by Harvard’s article clearly define me as having “complicated” grief.

I think back to my beloved maternal grandmother, a short, white-haired, bespectacled lady who had an ample bosom always ready for a warm hug.  As a young mother, she not only lost an 8 month-old daughter but a short time later, while pregnant with her fifth child, she lost her young husband.  Despite the agony of her sorrow in the face of widowhood with five small children, my dear sweet grandmother forged on.  It would be terribly shallow to assume she did so unaffected, yet because of how we still view grief in today’s world, I’m almost certain my grandmother experienced the overwhelming anguish in near total silence, the shatter-my-world anguish that only another griever can understand.  Yes, most likely in total silence.  And most probably with a seemingly heartless smile on her trembling lips.  And, I imagine, it was because true grief, noisy grief, was likely viewed as a “nervous breakdown,” a psychiatric disorder….a label that carried with it the threat of removing children from the home.  She had to suffer in silence, for their very existence depended upon it.

Fast forward seventy years later, and people now openly discuss once-taboo subjects with so much more understanding and acceptance than ever.  Except grief.  Grief is still unspoken, it’s deep impact still in the dark ages.  And, with any grief lasting longer than a few months being deemed a possible psychiatric issue, it’s no wonder why.

Friends, my grief is not complicated.  It is profound and raw, but not complicated.  My grief carriers with it signs and symptoms mirroring that of most people who have found themselves in the grips of profound loss.  There is nothing complicated about it.  Misunderstood?  Yes.  But complicated?  In my mind it is painfully simple.  My loved one isn’t here any longer.  And for the rest of my days, I shall painfully miss her.

Honorable Badge of Grief

Profound grief….noisy grief….”complicated” grief is exactly why we are asking National Grief Awareness Day to be legally declared.  Why we have created not our own awareness ribbon but an awareness badge….the Honorable Badge of Grief.  Why we have created a radio talk show about grief.  It’s simple and clear:  the time has come to bring grief out of the dark.  To help us all better understand it.  To honor it instead of shunning it.  Why?  So the path of all future grievers will be better understood.  So their emotions will be honored and handled with tender loving care and dignity, not shame of weakness.  Or a psychiatric label for those grieving longer than three months. 

Thanks to generations of misunderstandings about grief, and new labels applied to the old misunderstandings, the time for grief to come out of the dark ages…to be better understood and maybe even embraced….has finally arrived.