What is Grief?

Grief is a natural response to loss. It is loss of someone or something, loss of a relationship (friends, relationships with our Spouse, Mom, Dad, siblings, children) loss of work, loss of an opportunity, infertility, or loss of a safe or secure environment. Loss comes in many ways. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. Often, the pain of loss can be overwhelming. It consumes energy and is hard work. We may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, profound and sometimes overwhelming sadness. C.S. Lewis said, “I didn’t know grief felt so much like pain.”

Love and grief are opposite sides of the same coin. The capacity to love requires the necessity to mourn. A child that is old enough to love, is old enough to grieve.

Following are just a few definitions of words that we think of and use in relation to grief:

• bereaved – to be torn apart
• grief – inward suffering or pain, it is not a disease
• mourning – our expression of grief, grief gone public, verbalized, expressed
• sympathy – a concern for someone else without getting involved (I feel sorry for you)
• empathy – I can only help people when I allow them to teach me about their unique journey into grief. The mourner is one who feels their pain.
• hospitality – shared space where the stranger can enter and become a friend
• companion – from the Latin com meaning together with + pan for bread, literally one who breaks bread with another; for our purposes to walk with and share
• treat – as in the medical sense is from the Latin word tracture (to drag) Companion is to listen without judgment and maybe not say anything vs treat which would have a suggested treatment or prescription
• reconciliation – when grievers have integrated grief into their lives and are able to again fully live and love, realizing that their grief will never completely end

There are many factors that affect the way we do things, our approach to life, the way we solve problems and make decisions, and for our purposes here the way we reconcile death and loss.

Some of the factors that influence the way we deal with loss are:

• our character – referring to moral qualities, ethical standards, principles; taught and shaped by others and by self-discipline, traits that are hidden from sight. Good character sets an example for everyone.
• our personality – the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique, perceived as permanent but may change with time. It is the outer appearance and behavior. Adult personality is a product of the socialization of the individual. Temperament interacts with social and cultural factors.
• motivations – the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors
• our upbringing – in particular open or closed family systems. An open family system is where a family can honestly and openly acknowledge a death, embrace the pain, and seek support both inside and outside the family. There is also the opportunity to discover how a death changes individuals and also the family as a unit. A closed family system on the other hand might deny, repress, and try to avoid the reality of the death, and have difficulty seeking and accepting support. This may lead to physical, emotional, and spiritual difficulty later.
• our culture – the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time. Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, etc.
• our community
• traditions – that we’ve been taught or adopted – e.g. Tuesday night is pizza night at our house
• support – from our family and friends

Everyone gives and receives love differently. Every person has his or her unique way of processing, problem solving, experiencing life, and how we react and respond to difficulty. Research shows about half of the variation of these differences comes from genetics and half from our environment. It is also this way when it comes to reconciling grief with death loss. It is the mourner who is the expert, the one who knows his or her circumstance. It is not me looking on.

The lenses that I look through at others, and especially those who are in pain, are also colored by these factors. It is unfair to say “I know how you feel” because even if I have had a similar experience, it is not the same. To effectively listen and be an encouragement we need to shift judgement to curiosity. We need listening skills that are non-judgmental. We too often judge a person by the way they walk without considering their shoes. We do well to assume the best about the other person.

“While grief is always unique to the individual, all grievers have six central needs that they must engage with and continue to meet as the needs arise and re-arise over time. These six needs are both the path and the fuel for the journey toward integrating loss into one’s life.”

1. Acknowledge the reality of the death
2. Embrace the pain of the loss
3. Remember the person who died
4. Develop a new self-identity
5. Search for meaning
6. Let others help you – now and always

Dr. Alan Wolfelt – Center for Loss and Life Transition

This may seem so deep, what can I do? . . . I can listen.

As a mourner, I need to find a listening ear. Someone who will listen without judgement. As a listener I need to make the opportunity to be present to someone else’s pain. Just to be fully present and genuinely listen with a non-judgmental attitude. Maybe the mourner just wants and needs to scream because the pain is so intense. Am I ready to listen? Remember the 3 H’s. Hush, Hug, and Hang around. There is also the rule of thirds that says 1/3 of people are supportive, 1/3 are neutral, and 1/3 tend to discouragement. Let’s be of that supportive 1/3.

There is a tendency for us to forget timelines. We carry on with life and forget someone else’s reality. We think about the parents who maybe lost a child in infancy, and we forget to keep pace with time. Then 15 years later a parent says, “Sometimes I wonder what I would do with a teenager?” We do not get over or forget. Those same parents will take note when other children of the similar age grow and get to adulthood. They will note significant events like the age of accountability, youth activities, career choice, getting married, having children etc. We reconcile and transition. Everyone with loss is changed and transformed by that loss. That transformation may be slow in happening. There are no rewards for speed. We also need to guard against getting stuck. Let’s be ready to be open to each other. We need to mourn well so we can live well and go on to love well.

There are some different and specific aspects of the grief process that come at different ages:

Children, adolescents, and teens:

• remember a child old enough to love is old enough to grieve
• children are sometimes the forgotten mourner
• may have grief bursts – bursts of short duration
• may appear to lack feelings
• children mourn in doses
• change in family structure – with the loss of a younger sibling, a child may ask
  – Am I still a big brother/sister?
• accelerated and possibly premature maturity – i.e., with the loss of a parent the oldest child is positioned to the role of patriarch/matriarch
  children need safe space
• not only do bereaved children mourn the loss of the one who died, but also the loss of self, security, and loss of meaning

Adults:

• there are differences in gender grief – it is said that women mourn, men replace
• it seems easier for men to get absorbed in work, and be distracted from present pain
• good and bad days will not necessarily occur the same time for couples and so it creates challenges in relationships – why are you having a bad day (when I am not)
• we live in a Noah’s Ark culture where so much is 2 X 2 (couple oriented)
• the loss of a spouse will tend to loss of former friends (friends we shared a couple)

The very essence of the gospel teaches us to have caring hearts. We are to be kind and tenderhearted. The good Samaritan showed us by example to reach out and show compassion. There is no suggestion that the Samaritan considered race, status, or religion before he reached out to help. We can do that too, be swift to hear, slow to speak and above all be compassionate.

Rod Wiebe

Though I Walk Through the Valley

I have observed grief from a distance a few times. Somehow it’s a subject we simply hope to ignore. It happens all around us, but usually to someone else… but then grief hits you head-on and you are forced to pay tribute to its demands.

I honestly feel that grief is one of the least understood of a Christian’s emotions. I think most of us instantly feel so totally out of control and our emotions are all over the board and we are flailing about trying to grasp hold of something and we start to sink and we tell ourselves, “This is no way for a Christian to feel.” So com pound guilt with the wound of grief. Into that mix add the comments of others looking on. (They honestly do not mean to harm, they are just ignorant.) Comments about how God only gives those that can handle it these trials, that anger should never be one of a Christian’s feelings (is it anger or frustration or are they the same?), that someone else has it way worse, even to being told you are just feeling sorry for yourself. Comments about being over the first year now, so it must be a lot easier, or maybe you just haven’t accepted it yet so that’s why it’s so hard. There is maybe a small amount of truth in all that is said, but often it leaves the wound rubbed raw again for a little as we ponder if it’s really that way or am I really healing from a very deep wound?

I honestly have had a very hard time to concentrate. Reading my Bible, listening in church, or grocery shopping. Some of you are trying to raise small children and you wonder why you can’t even concentrate on what they really are needing. For some of you, you become extremely busy, burying yourself in your work. Others look like they are cool as a cucumber on the outside, but the internal fuse has become extremely short. Am I wrong in saying it is all because of our deep wound? For fear that some of you will quit reading and give me up as a lost cause, I want to say… “There is little I can do to explain my deep pain, but there are not enough words to tell of the comfort and the feeling of being carried.” The waves of grief hit hard and unexpectedly. I have panic attacks, I am tired to my very bones after I have had a full night’s sleep, and yet somehow, somewhere, someone says a little prayer for me and I feel my body relax a little and I go through the motions of the day. Gethsemane has become so much more real: the agony of spirit, the prayers for release, the reality of getting up and facing what we most fear and dread. Time is softening some of the sharpness, and yet I believe the scar will always be tender. I really want it to remain tender. I want to remember to a certain degree the pain, I want to be able to feel those mighty arms of comfort, and I want to pass on to others, that no matter what, God is still good.

Search the scripture, grieving one. There are others before you who have cried in great distress and not once have I read that God said, “Get over it.” I read that the house of mourning teaches us truths we cannot learn otherwise. I see beauty in those who have survived what we call the unimaginable.

To those looking on wondering how to help, keep praying, squeeze my arm as I walk by, say I’m still thinking of you, silently hug me, and mention my loved one’s name. There is nothing you can do to fix it, but much of what you do gives me the strength to power through. Just feeling understood and loved helps carry me. Most of us grievers hate our pain, and we so badly want the normal we will never have again. In this frame of mind the evil one injects all his falsehoods: You are alone, No one understands, No one has it as bad as you, Their life goes on and yours has come to a screeching halt. And yes, we actually know we have much to give thanks for, we actually can see the many positives in our situation, we actually know there are worse things than death, but the pain
is real, our arm or leg has been amputated, we will limp but we will learn to live with our handicap. And hopefully with time and patience we will come forth as Gold, His Gold, tried in the fire and meet for His use. With that blessed promise, and with the assurance that Heaven is my goal, I grieve and I grieve deeply some days. It’s okay to grieve. Death is our last enemy; we will fight it. We may even ask why (King David did), but I am not without hope. My tears will not only teach me things, but I am promised that He will someday wipe those tears away forever.

Kandee Koehn, Scott City, Kansas