Tuesday, November 10, 2009

 

Silence Explained

    Sometime shortly after publishing the last post, I joined a grief support group sponsored by the hospice organization that tended to my mother and me during the last months of her life. As I am about to mention in a post over at The Mom & Me Journals dot Net, although regular readers of these journals know that I'm not a Support Group Person, turns out I am a grief support group person. I've learned since there are a variety of ways that grief support groups are handled. One in my area is more focused on counseling than the one I'm in. Another is a formal, time limited group that is highly structured, featuring exercises designed to move the aggrieved along more quickly than if left on their own. Mine is low key. It focuses on expression and validation of grief. I've also discovered that attending a grief support group seems to soothe the need to write about the experience of grief, at least for awhile. At this point, though, I'm thinking that those of you who might be considering such a group after becoming a survivor of a death of harrowing consequence (not all deaths are like this, you know...I've endured other deaths that aren't, including my father's) might enjoy some inside information on grief support groups.
    I'd been considering joining since soon after my mother's death and had talked about it with the hospice grief support counselor who began monthly check up calls to me (as all survivors of those dying under the auspices of her hospice organization receive) in January. As I'd mention this possibility, my counselor would say, "Take it as it comes. You'll know if and when you're ready." At the end of May I was either ready or curious, I'm still not sure which. My group meets once a week for one and a half to two hours. So far, there's been only one session I didn't feel like attending. When I explained myself at the next meeting, there were nods all around. Everyone seemed to understand that, occasionally, you just have to to it alone.
    One of the reasons I put off attending was fear that all I'd be able to do was sob. I felt it would be more comfortable for me to do that alone. At my first meeting I did, indeed, sob. A lot. So, though, did many other members. One member, in particular, habitually seethed with grief throughout my first four meetings. She'd curl into a pseudo-fetal position in her chair, refuse to remove her sunglasses and just, well, grieve...sometimes audibly, sometimes silently. To my surprise, I much appreciated her reaction. I realized she was doing exactly what I wished I had the courage to do. Her public trial gave me a curious confidence about grieving and helped me break through the social barriers of which we're all aware in this society that dictate The Rules of Polite and Non-Intrusive Grieving. That break through opened the gates to relief.
    Timing attendance in a support group is tricky. A few of our members have been comfortable beginning soon after the death but most delay joining for some months, as did I. An incident at our last meeting illustrates what can happen when someone attends who isn't ready. A woman who had just lost her husband within the last few weeks attended with a woman who had become a companion to the couple and continues as the woman's companion. It was obvious, during introductions, that the widow was still stunned by her loss. She looked it. The rest of us could feel it and kept a concerned eye on her as the meeting proceeded. She offered the barest details of the reason for her presence then shut down. About a half hour into the meeting she announced that she didn't feel the group was for her and she'd decided to leave. Now. All of us understood. A few assured her that although our group is, ultimately, a safe place, she should follow her instincts. Her companion didn't argue. Although we only barely discussed the woman's departure, it was obvious that we all knew that she was confounded by the camaraderie and the breadth of emotions that exhibits itself spontaneously in such groups: The knowing laughter; the spontaneous tears; the relief; the joy that, in some mysterious way, comes from confessions of grief, confusion, guilt and anger. I wasn't ready for that for some months. Some are. Most aren't. This woman wasn't. We saluted her courage for realizing this and acknowledging it to the group.
    I've always known that expressing my troubled feelings helps me come to grips with them. I am still surprised, though, that the process (which I think is fairly universal) is mostly infallible, especially in regard to grief. At one meeting I felt driven to mention that I found myself marking time until my own death and fairly often looked forward to its approach. No one had mentioned feeling anything similar during my previous visits so I announced this with trepidation, concerned that members would jump in and try to "change my mind". Instead, member after member solemnly nodded their recognition. Since then, although the feeling hasn't diminished much, it's significantly easier to bear. Grief is definitely an exercise in endurance...long distance endurance. Having this confirmed by a community of active grievers is helpful.
    My group has the following guidelines:
  1. Although it is fine to talk about one's group experiences outside of the group, using names and obviously identifying specifics are forbidden when describing to others what took place within the group.
  2. Listening is important. Interrupting and aside conversations are discouraged.
  3. Advice is discouraged. Grief, in my group, is recognized as a highly individuated process. It is fine to mention strategies and resources that have helped one in one's own grief journey, but it is not fine to dictate to others what they should do; nor even suggest that anything "should" be done or "should" be experienced. Recognizing common ground is different than insisting that everyone be on common ground. Curiously, one of the men in our group has traveled through his grief over his wife's death to the point where he feels called to prescribe strategy and technique. He is much loved and accepted by the group. At one meeting, while he was pedagogically instructing the rest of us on how to get through difficult experiences, our facilitator reminded him that he was "pretty messed up" for some time after his wife's death and he needed to be careful about "becoming impatient" with others in regard to how they are handling their grief. This incident has caused me to wonder if this is a common grief landmark, especially while basking in the elation of having passed an especially challenging stretch: I wonder, for instance, during a period when the pallor of grief is fading and life appears more promising, when people look back in impatience with the time and energy they've expended, the pitfalls they didn't avoid, if it is natural to be convicted with the intention of alleviating, for others, their own difficulties. I wonder if and when that will happen for me.
    Some grief group experiences and observations I've collected:    Other grief observations, not necessarily group related:Two of the Three Reading Selections I Brought to My Support Group:
  1. Excerpt from the screenplay for the movie Yes
    If and when I die,
    I want to see you cry.
    I want to see you tear your hair,
    your howls of anguish fill the air.
    I want to see you beat your breast
    and rend your clothes and all the rest
    and, sobbing, fall upon my bed.
    I want to know that I am dead.
    I want to know I'm part of you
    and that you cannot bear me being torn away.
    I want to see you dressed in black
    with red-rimmed eyes from sleepless nights of grieving.
    I want to hear you protest at my leaving.
    I want to see you in each other's arms and wailing,
    see you kick a chair and punch the wall
    and see you moan and fall upon the ground and scream.
    I want to know this isn't just a dream.
    I want my death to be just like my life.
    I want the mess, the struggle and the strife.
    I want to fight, and see you fight for me.
    I want to hear your last regrets, the things you wish you'd done and said.
    In fact, I'd like that just before I'm dead.
    Don't let them put you off or make you go,
    or say it's bad for me or makes it hard for me to leave.
    It won't be true.
    I want to see you grieve.
    Don't let me drown in silence, so pious, so polite.
    Let's make a lot of noise.
    A different kind of light will fill the room.
    I want my death to wake you up and clean you out.
    And, as I end, I'll hear you shout, "No, no, no."
    But I will go.
         --Written by Sally Potter; copyright 2005
    This excerpt ushered in a discussion about how we like to imagine that as death approaches (and, after death, assuming we believe in an afterlife) we will not want our remaining loved ones to grieve for us, nor do our dead loved ones want us to grieve. I've always questioned this. Many of the members of my group also question this, now that they're in the thick of grief. Why shouldn't we want our loved ones to grieve for us? Why, in the world, would we want our life to have so little discernible impact on others that they are able to pick up and carry on as though nothing has happened? Many of the members of my group agreed that this attitude has much to do with triggering feelings of personal guilt for the aggrieved over how long and how hard grieving is and how much of an impact it has on "the rest" of one's life.

  2. Should There Be a Day
    [My sister sent this to me a few months ago telling me that she thought this might express much of what I was feeling. She was right, and I responded that I was still waiting to see the core of the rose. I continue to wait for this.]

    Should there be a day
    when you are not
    and I am yet with breath,
    what shall I say?
    What shall I ask of death?
    Come get the rest -
    the half of me that stays
    shallow of heart, hollow as a bone?
    Or shall I determine to forget
    delight entombed, alone,
    follow the foggy way
    of self-deceit and let
    the sun of truth go out?
    I do not know. I must pass
    the answer by. But if one tree
    allows itself to rise,
    one spear of grass to spike,
    one rose to show its core
    then surely what of me is you
    must grow beyond your night,
    keep faith with what you were
    and, more, be constant, whole and move
    within the light that was your gift of love.
         --by Julia Cunningham from The Shadow Heart
    Later, I suspect.

All material copyright at time of posting by Gail Rae Hudson

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