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Grieving While Knowing About Grief

(this post was originally published on The Long Grief Journey website)

This year is off to a very raucous and rather painful start. I know I am not alone in feeling this way, but I wanted to share with you what has been happening because it is so relevant to the topic of this site, which is in a word, grief.

Just over three weeks ago, my father died. Six weeks to the day prior to his death, my grandmother died. In a matter of six weeks, my family lost two elders, and the reality of this is continuing to seep into my mind, heart, and bones.

Several people have asked me if the book I wrote with Pamela Blair has helped me deal with my grief. It’s been an interesting thing to think about. Going through the process of losing my dad with my family, I often thought to myself, “my god, I cannot believe how much this hurts.” There were times in the hospital as well as at my dad’s wake when I didn’t feel my feet on the ground. There were times sobs erupted from my body without warning. There was a lot of sleeplessness and anxiety.  What I realized was that knowing about grief doesn’t alter the pain of grief. But what it has done for me is to normalize my experience of it and not judge myself for anything. Steeping myself in research on grief and talking with so many people about their experience of it, I see that when we go through grief, we know it. When we listen to people who are suffering without trying to rush them to feel better, we absorb and open our hearts to humanity. We become part of the fabric of our shared experience, and it is textured, layered, real.

Our “culture” is often accused of not doing death and grief right. Collectively, we don’t talk about it enough, we keep it away from us and fear it. We try to outlive death and deny its existence. There is evidence of all of that, for sure. But I can say that going through these last couple of months, I’ve witnessed far more people getting grief than not. At my father’s wake, tons of people came and not one person said anything that made me bristle or think, “wow, they just don’t get it.” Mine and my family’s pain was held, responded to tenderly, and with deep interest and compassion. I wasn’t able to attend my grandmother’s services due to having COVID-19 but I feel sure the same energy was present for my family then.

What I do see in our culture is that capitalism and our bowing at the altar of work is a huge problem. One family member of mine had two unpaid days of bereavement for the death of a close family member. Two unpaid days. What? Is that a joke? Several others’ jobs had policies that were a little better than that and their management was very accommodating given the unbelievable losses affecting our family. But it’s important to know this: federal law does not require organizations or companies to include bereavement leave in their benefits packages. As of April 2023, only five states in the US had bereavement leave laws; three additional states had bereavement legislation efforts in the works. “As the Family and Medical Leave Act stands, bereavement is not an acceptable condition for taking unpaid leave from work.” Time minimums for bereavement leave as well as payment structures vary from state to state (or those five states that have actual bereavement laws). citation

For the rest of the country, it is up to the company or organization to determine their own bereavement policies including whether to have them at all. The typical scenario is three- to five-days leave. Sometimes these days are paid, sometimes not, sometimes a hybrid of the two. The size and financial constraints of companies obviously affect this to some degree. Also important to note, only 56% of the population works for places that even have benefit packages. What do hourly workers or those that are self-employed do when they suffer a loss or a family tragedy?

With this kind of pressure to get back to work, there is an underlying communication which is basically, “get yourself together enough to get back out there”, which for many people following the death of a loved one requires faking it. Big time. Feeling distracted, depressed, exhausted, confused, and vulnerable are very common emotional experiences following a loved one’s death, and having to fake it can make things more difficult for people. In fact, for some this is an added layer of trauma that complicates grief in the years to come.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been in a position where I could take the time I needed to gather myself back into a place that was fit for work. I continue to be in a place where I can do what I need to do to take care of myself. But I am aware that this is not the case for many people, and that is unacceptable. I think this cultural problem of not “doing grief right” is less a human problem and more a political and economic problem.

In sharing these thoughts with you, I am channeling the energy of my dad. He had strong opinions about politics and policy. I loved talking to him about these kinds of things and often called him to get his opinion on something or his long-view perspective on issues I didn’t fully understand. I’ve gone to call him numerous times in the last couple of weeks, looking to catch up and shoot-the-breeze. I’ll miss doing that so much but hopefully he knows (and I believe he does) that I’ll keep at it and continue to advocate for what I believe in.

And if you’re reading this because you are grieving, you are not alone. I hope you are taking all the chances you can to be tender to yourself and that you hold yourself with all the compassion you would afford another person. ~ Bradie


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Thoughts On Grief

I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about grief. It’s part of my job as a therapist. I co-wrote a book about it. And I incorporate working through grief into certain of my weaving classes, both with groups and individuals. It’s a subject that is always relevant because all of us, at some point in our lives, barring few exceptions, lose loved ones or experience losses of other kinds, like endings of relationships, job loss, or significant life changes due to chronic illness, bankruptcy, natural disaster, war. The list is long. The news of late has been devastating and heart crushing when viewing what is happening in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. So many of us are grieving locally as well as globally. So many of us have been doing this for a long time.

There’s nothing to say about it that can take away the reality of the pain, anguish, trauma, and truth of the matter, which is that human beings can be so utterly monstrous to each other. It’s shocking, and then we must think on the reality that we have choices to make every day about how we are going to be in the world. And sometimes even the most peaceful of us disappoint ourselves. I guess that’s where the truth is, too. It’s always a choice, and always it is true that how we are to others impacts our experience of our lives and our relationships.

I’ve noticed a few things lately that might seem obvious, but that have been moving me and making me look above and beyond the chatter. These observations help me connect with my choices in a way that mitigates feelings of helplessness and despair. I’ll share them with you here.

~ There’s a lot of dialogue about how much our culture gets grief wrong and how there is this pressure on people to “get over” grief quickly. I don’t disagree with that, but I have been noticing how many individuals and organizations are out there, all over the world, talking about how grief really is, and how much it changes a person and a life. As I’ve looked more deeply into remembrance and awareness days to do with grief, I’ve seen a lot of realistic information about what grief is really like as well as how we can support others when they are struggling. I’ll write soon about an upcoming awareness day to do with grieving children. I wonder what is getting in the way of the honest messages to do with grief from landing and changing the experiences people have when they are suffering. How can we release the pressure we put on ourselves to stay the same, no matter what?

~ Giving people the space and respect they deserve and are entitled to when processing life events and grief is a wonderful thing to do. When we can get out of the mindset of having to make someone “feel better” and instead hold space for them to simply be where they are, a sort of alchemy takes place. A bridge of trust grows, and often it looks like recognition. Almost like a version of namaste, it is as though the spirit says, the grief in me sees the grief in you.

~ As I talk with and listen to people, something is becoming crystal clear: long-term grief is not always solely about the loved one lost, but sometimes is a result of the anguish of trying to get back to normal too fast, whether this is a self-imposed pressure or felt as pressure from others. As a result of that anguish, there are multiple layers of complexity piled on and on and on. As people try to find their balance and figure out a new normal after any kind of grief, part of that often entails facing the pain of how their grief was received and responded to. This is tough stuff, but it seems important to me.

~ There is something incredible that happens when people let themselves process life events through the practice of making. We do so much thinking about so many things. And I’m a fan of thinking! Thinking helps us make choices that are less reactive, more informed, and ideally lead to better outcomes than when we fly by the seat of our emotions. But… sometimes we get lost in the weeds of words and self-analyzing. Creating spaces where people can translate lived experience into artistic form works, and what we get from that is insight and healing from angles that might not have been approached if the senses weren’t involved.

~ Listening… the most wonderful kind of listening… is medicine. The kind where you’re not waiting to say the next thing, or thinking about your words as the other person is still talking. Slowing down and absorbing what someone is saying and letting it affect you or work on you in some way- this is true relating. And it doesn’t require hours, or even many minutes. It just requires deciding that the person you are engaged with is worth your time and attention. Can you imagine if we all treated everyone like that? And were treated like that all the time?

What helps us meet the people around us where they are, not where we want them to be? How do we maintain compassion, patience, love, and curiosity? The first thing that comes to mind and is the only one I want to focus on at the moment is self-compassion. Sometimes it’s just the truth that our cups will not be full before we give to others, and we can sustain that for a while. Sometimes we are tired and grieving ourselves, when we are at the same time showing up for others. And sometimes, we can’t give in the ways others want us to give or we wish we could, and we need to pull back and refocus that energy. That’s okay. It helps to remember and keep remembering that it’s not anyone’s job to take grief away from others or somehow fix the pain of it. And sometimes energy needs to go back into the self for a while before it can go out again. It’s just the way it is, and there’s nothing selfish about it. It’s okay to think about how you can show up for people at any given time, and be honest about.

How do you tend to yourself and nourish yourself as you go about life and relationships? Do you have ways you tune in and respond to your heart and body? Do you take the importance of this as seriously as you do your love for and support of others? And, when you can’t be there in the way you always have and feel worried about that, or stressed or resentful, do you have ideas about alternatives? Can you imagine communicating them?

Until next time,

Bradie