From Davidsrefuge.org
Copyright 2019
by Ralph F. Couey
Written content only
For all of us there will come a time when we lose someone very close to us, someone who has been one of the pillars that always seemed to be there to prop us up when we needed it. They were loved, deeply and unconditionally, and their passing leaves an open wound. Unlike physical ailments, the wound of grief may eventually close, but the scar will always remain.
There are several undeniable truths about grief, the most important being that it is a journey, one that must be taken, unfortunately, by the grieving individual alone. Friends and love ones will offer empathy and solace, but this is a path that can only be walked alone. There are no shortcuts, no easy stretches. The path of grief must be walked to its completion.
In 1969, the Swiss-American Psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book entitled, "On Death and Dying" in which she introduced the five stages of grief, a model which is widely used today by professionals and lay people as a way of navigating the grieving process. There are some psychiatric professionals who say that the existence of these stages hasn't really been demonstrated fully. But Dr. Kubler-Ross's model still survives to this day.
The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Denial -- One might call this the "shock and awe" stage. When first hearing of the death of a dear loved one, usually the first word spoken is "NO! It can't be! I just talked to them!" For many, it is a time when the mind and body go numb. It becomes difficult, if not impossible to function. There is a question of how in the world do we go on, get through the day. But the stage of denial and shock is helpful in that it allows a person to pace feelings of loss. In a way, it is the mind's way of allowing in only that which a person can handle.
Anger -- I knew an elderly woman who lost her husband suddenly in an accident. He was cremated, and his ashes placed in an urn. She told me that at times she would rage at the urn, asking why he left her alone. Anger is the crop that springs from the underlying soil of pain. Its not just directed at the deceased, but can envelop friends, family, coworkers, even complete strangers. In the movie, "Sleepless in Seattle" Tom Hanks' character reacts in anger to a coworker who offers him contact to a support group. After he winds down, he heaves a sigh and says, "Never mind him. He's just the guy who lost his wife." In the vacuum that follows loss, anger can be a structure, something to which to cling, like a life preserver in a stormy sea.
Bargaining -- At some point, questions or statements of regret begin to surface. These are statements that usually start "If only..." or "What if..." We want this person back in our lives, and through these kinds of self-examinations is expressed the desire to return to what was. Guilt walks hand-in-hand with bargaining. We castigate ourselves because we should have seen this coming. There had to have been something we could have done to prevent this. In the anger stage, a person can assign guilt to the always convenient "they." In the bargaining stage, it is the griever who bears the self-assigned burden of blame.
Depression -- After the energy of anger, and the baseless self-blame of bargaining, people can be emptied. They can withdraw from life, stop doing what had been enjoyable activities. Sometimes, if the loss involved a spouse or a parent, one can wonder if there is any reason to go on living. At this point, people are overcome by the loss, and can surrender to life itself. Clinical depression is a diagnosable and treatable mental illness. But post-loss depression is not a mental disorder, but a normal response to a great loss.
Acceptance -- As I indicated earlier, the loss of a loved one creates a wound, that eventually becomes a scar. We may never be able to get over the loss, but eventually we will get past it. A big part of this stage is accepting the new reality. We have lost someone and they won't be coming back. Our life must go on, but the paradigm is forever altered. For a spouse, learning how to stand alone when before there was always someone to lean on is a central part of this process. Life cannot go on the way it did before. It must change, and so must we. Leaving the house, opening the door and taking part in life again is very important. Out there, new relationships await, new experiences can be found. But even when happiness is rediscovered, there will always be those moments when we will gently touch that scar and remember.
These stages have been commonly accepted, and even though not officially recognized, they nonetheless have provided a path to follow in what for so long was and empty, dark abyss. We learned that it was okay to feel these feelings, to find affirmation in the steps, knowing at last that like every journey, this, too, shall end.
Just a few days ago, David Kessler, another expert on grief, published a book entitled, "Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief." I haven't read this yet, but listened to a radio program where Dr. Kessler was interviewed. From that program, I gleaned some insight.
When someone is elderly, or afflicted with an incurable disease, there is, accompanying the grief, a sense of inevitability. We knew this was coming, that there was a definable end. We understood why that a person in their 90's can leave us. We know that the person we saw suffer with the illness has been liberated from pain and suffering. But sudden loss, through an accident, crime, the rapid onset of some undiagnosed medical condition, or, too often these days, a consequence of war can leave us gasping for air, and demanding explanations. This new stage, meaning, seems almost easily inevitable.
I was an Intelligence Analyst for many years. That process, when boiled down to its essence, meant identifying a "what" and gleaning the "why." "Why" explains motivation and purpose, and also may provide a useful crystal ball of sorts for the occurence of future "whats." In relation to grief, this goes much deeper.
I lost my mother to cancer when she was only 52. She was a completely unselfish person, full of love for all. She was a person in which her children could find solace and protection from the ills of life. I remember being in the car when she was driving. When another driver did something dumb like cutting her off, her response was, "Bless his/her heart!" Admittedly, sometimes delivered with a less than charitable tone of voice, this was her trademark; her refusal to think bad thoughts about anyone. That anyone and anything could be fixed with a proper application of love. Even given the built-in bias of being her son, clearly the world needs more people like this. That she was taken from a world so in need of her gifts was incomprehensible. In my professional life, I have studied many people who could only be described as "evil." Drug traffickers and terrorists represent the most reprehensible examples of humanity that I can think of. But for some inexplicable reason, it is never they who contract the terrible diseases, or die horribly in car accidents. They go on, their life unperturbed while good people like my mother do not. When I leave this life and present myself before God, I promise you that will be my first question to Him.
Five years before, she had been initially diagnosed and underwent apparently successful surgery. She was cancer-free. But then she had to have one of those surgeries that ladies need, and the resulting trauma woke the dormant cancer cells. In a matter of months, her body was overcome. I was in the Navy and found myself literally on the other side of the world when I received the Red Cross message no deployed sailor ever wants to get. I got back in time for the funeral, barely. The bustle and energy of the events of the funeral and wake got me through those days, but when my bereavement leave ended and I had to take that very long plane ride back to my ship, I was finally left with time and space to grieve. And ask why. I discovered that there really is no answer to that question, although one can find a host of rationalizations along the way.
A human life is finite, with a beginning and an end. What happens afterwards is open to debate. My near-death experience has provided me with a valuable and comforting insight, but in the end, no one really knows for sure. Birth is celebrated. Death is commemorated. But through it all, we know that life goes on, with or without us.
In a recent episode of the rebooted Hawaii Five-O, Steve McGarrett tries to explain his feelings about the violent death of his mother, a CIA operative. He says that he now understands that "none of this is on our terms. It's life on life's terms or not at all." In the search for meaning in the painful vacuum of loss, this sounds terribly empty. But it feels right. We can try to control or manipulate life, as a collection of events, but the truth is that because of the infinite number of variables of what and who can happen to us, life is definably unpredictable. Any attempt to attach a rudder to it will eventually fail in the long run. There will be good times, boring times, and unbearably sad times. What constitutes a "good" or "bad" life is how we face those moments, and how we react.
Whatever meaning life has for us, we must create. Whatever meaning death has...well...is situational. Death as the end of a declining process is comprehensible. Death as a sudden and catastrophic end is not, and perhaps never will be.
We are all on a journey, one that is necessarily unique to each individual. There are those who walk alongside us for a large and important part of that trek, and those who one day, out of the clear blue, simply vanish. Death is, in the end, the greatest mystery, the ultimate unanswerable question. But one thing I feel is certain. Those who leave us before we are ready for them to go will have only one wish for us. That life will go on.
And we must as well.
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