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Permission to Grieve
My Grandmother died when I was a teen, and there was a family debate about whether us grandkids should or shouldn’t attend her funeral service. My aunt made strong points, urging our parents to consider that we had lost a family member too and needed space to grieve. She also pointed out that death is part of life, and life skills are needed to deal with death – and adults have a responsibility to model and help children develop these life skills. She shared her own traumatic experience to support her point – the first funeral she attended was her own child’s, with no prior experience to help her plan the funeral or deal with her child’s death. Being permitted to be part of the collective of her funeral was a gift that allowed me to celebrate and grieve my Gran, and to develop life skills to deal with what was to come.
#Itscomplicated #Itscomplex #Itsmessy is the journey of loss and grief
At 21, my boy friend died in a car accident. Gone far too young, with so much life ahead of him. Unexpected. Tragic. Traumatic and oh, so painful. The memories are still vivid, as though it happened yesterday rather than many years ago. I remember the horrible moment of hearing the news, feeling absolutely sick to my stomach and unable to eat for days, and wanting to escape reality and my grief in sleep. Hard days followed and then the very final day of his viewing and memorial service, and my hot tears kept flowing beyond that as I still couldn’t believe he was gone.
We as his family and friends tried to support one another as we navigated our shared loss and grief, but we often found ourselves in different, even conflicting, ever changing emotional states as we battled to process and absorb the reality he was gone. Grief has a way of making one feel so isolated.
What if… If only… I wish…Why God? Wrestling with questions that had no answers, heart broken, faith shattered and battered by waves of emotion, I kept plodding on as the world seemed to expect me to do, but on the inside I was a mess, stuck in the mud of my grief.
What finally got me unstuck and moving towards restoration and living with meaning again was giving myself permission to grieve, and asking myself what would allow and help me grieve. Surrounding myself with supportive others who gave me permission and space to remember, feel and grieve was helpful too.
At the time I received a handout from Compassionate Friends, an organization that seeks to support parents who have lost children, advising grievers to give themselves at least 3 years to navigate significant loss and grief and begin constructing a reality that integrates the experienced loss. This normalized the complicated nature and impact of loss and helped me allow myself time to grieve and construct my new normal.
Grief cannot be thought about abstractly from a distance, it must be journeyed, experienced and felt deeply. Poetry and writings, and conversations with fellow loss and grief travelers, gave voice to and normalized the non-linear Kubler-Ross & Kessler and McCall stages and emotions of grief I was feeling. This gave me courage and permission to ride my rollercoaster of grief emotions that included shock and denial; numbness, depression and detachment; anger that showed up in many different forms and places; and the deep void of sadness. Although my grief rollercoaster differed to others, knowing others understood and had journeyed grief before created a space for connection, dialogue and healing tears which helped me accept and process the very real, complex multiple layers of my loss, and to begin adjusting and finding meaning in life again.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Benjamin Franklin said “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I have found this to be true as death and loss has continued to visit me in various traumatic forms. Infertility. Death and adoption loss of our second child. Retrenchment and loss of employment. Death of dreams and loss of my vision for the future. Loss of purpose, faith, community. The passing of my maternal Grandmother, Father-in-Law and older Aunts, Uncles and younger Cousins, best friend, friends and colleagues . COVID-19 pandemic. Emmigration of family and friends. Loss of pets. Some losses have given time to prepare, others have been sudden, unexpected, tragic. Some concrete, some more abstract. Often with layered multiple secondary losses linked to the primary loss. All messy, hard and painful to journey through.
Minister Brian Hutton challenged me with a Psalm 23 Bible verse at a memorial service a few years back. We cannot avoid the valley of the shadow of death and loss, and we cannot fast track or run through the valley – we have to walk it, slowly and intentionally.
Shelby Forsythia confirms time and space alone does not bring healing from loss, granting ourselves and others permission to grieve, acknowledging our loss and pain as valid, and deep inner work is required to process grief and construct a new way forward.
Exploring faith amidst the questions, courageous conversations, supportive relationships, breathing and grounding exercises, going for counselling, reading or participating in relevant courses specific to the loss like GriefShare or DivorceShare, joining a support group, journalling or letter/poetry/song writing, drawing or painting, creating memory books, making use of religious or meaningful rituals or ceremonies are helpful intentional steps we can take when walking through the valley of the shadow as these create space to process and grieve the reality and pain of our loss and can help us adjust and move towards a new reality or ‘normal’.
Giving ourselves and others permission to grieve is critical
Granting myself permission to grieve and exploring what would allow and help me to grieve my losses were critical steps to getting unstuck from the mud of my grief, so I could walk through the valley of the shadow towards healing and restoration, deeper faith, and new opportunities to love, be loved and live fully alive! If you find yourself in the valley of the shadow, consider the words of Julia Samuel, “It’s often not grief but the things done to avoid grief or to block pain which cause more harm and damage.” Please, give yourself permission to grieve, and ask yourself what will allow you to grieve and move towards healing and restoration.
Reflection questions:
Do you block or allow yourself and others to grieve?
Does your family, culture, religion or society support and encourage grieving?
What are your losses?
Consider each primary loss and the layers of secondary losses linked to this primary loss.
Consider if and how your loss and pain or other emotions are impacting your present?
Have you given yourself permission to grieve?
What will allow and help you to grieve?
Author: Mandy Hain
Reference List:
Compassionate Friends, South Africa
https://compassionatefriends.co.za/2020/online-articles-and-brochures/
Permission to grieve – allowing yourself the gift of grief
David Kessler: Finding Meaning (The 6th Stage of Grief)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCW9wAEG6ik and see https://grief.com/
Am I Grieving Right?
Shelby Forsythia on giving yourself permission to not be okay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zm_xen_oWg
‘Give young people permission to grieve’ – Tracey Boseley on grief education in schools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XajSDhiVbRg
Grieving vs. Moving On: Society’s Contradictory Judgments on Healing After Loss
Permission to Grieve? ‘‘What’s Up With That?’’
Permission to grieve, please: Exploring the concept of disenfranchised grief
https://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/stj/v9n2/10.pdf
The Shack, book or movie, by William P. young
Permission to Grieve book by Shelby Forsythia
Bereavement counselling: Pastoral care for complicated grieving by Junietta McCall
“Melancholy”, the emptiness that incapacitates us through grief
https://www.revshirleymurphy.co.uk/post/melancholy-the-emptiness-that-incapacitates-us-through-grief