LIVING WITH LOSS IN THE SEASON OF LIGHT
Sometimes our journey through life seems like an accumulation of losses. As we age, it seems as if loss is the payment extracted from us for our happiness and our accomplishments. We have enjoyed the love of friends, spouses, family - but loss stalks us there. We have excelled in our careers - learned, led, taught - but then we retire and it is over.
Village member Estelle Spector knows a lot about this because her most recent adventure is retirement. After 40 years of teaching, 23 spent as an associate professor of Theatre at Columbia, Spector gracefully choreographed her own exit.
"You find there are great losses but loss of identity-- that's the biggie-you find yourself saying, 'I use to be, I was,' words in your dialogue you never used before," warns the woman who helped take the musical theatre program at Columbia from just a class to a BA and BFA and whose husband retired after 48-years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. "You're going full force and it's this wonderful train and all of a sudden the door falls off and no matter how hard you're trying, some things just aren't there."
So Spector started rehearsing for a fresh passion. And being unapologetically compulsive, she wasted no time, scripting her exit, six months ahead of her retirement.
"I began doing things that would jump-start my life- activities that interested me," she says, of the art classes she took at Lill Street Gallery and the Art Institute of Chicago. "It was a way of moving forward."
But it wasn't an easy gig. Spector was again an ingénue. "It takes strengths to be a beginner- I felt dumb, I had no talent," says the artist, who started building techniques with pastels. "You're like a child again-- you're learning-seeing things in a way you never saw them before."
That feeling of being a beginner again is a form of loss of power, is quite real, and is one of six kinds of loss described by Joan Ente, Geriatric Care Manager at CJE SeniorLife. "As we age we experience loss of power - both real and perceived. We notice that authority figures like doctors and lawyers are all younger than we are." Loss of relationships is another form of loss described by Ms. Ente. Member Bob Rosen knows something about that.
A lifelong businessman, Robert "Bob" Rosen, 67, instinctively pictures loss in terms of a growth chart.
"I have this chart in my head of a life cycle- the first part is about gain," he says. "Then the lines begin to slope in the other direction and loss becomes an unavoidable part of the last cycle."
In fact, Rosen's learned a lot about the subject of loss in the past few months. Both of his parents died within about five weeks of each other, at the end of this past summer. And his reaction to their deaths broadsided him, arriving in unexpected forms.
Rosen had imagined he might feel relief after the many continuing issues connected with his parents' decline. Instead, he found them occupying his thoughts far more frequently than he'd anticipated.
"It didn't feel tragic or ill-timed- but the loss of that part of my life created unexpectedly strong feelings," says Rosen, oldest of four siblings. "It was a major change in the pattern in my life."
Left to manage and absorb this loss, Rosen, an avid reader, reflexively turned to books, seeking information and reassurance. "There's a virtual library full of books on loss- I found it helpful to hear other peoples' stories, to know that many feelings I had were universal," says, Rosen, who runs a foundation that funds medical research.
Other reactions surfaced too. Rosen felt a need to understand his complicated feelings and talk to people about what was happening. "I needed to share the experience - issues about their care - every part that was difficult-- it was important to talk about all of it," recalls Rosen, who fears he might have overwhelmed his friends and colleagues. "It was also comforting for people to ask me what was happening and how I was doing."
For some in this situation seeking professional help can make a real difference. It reduces the confusion of navigating the jagged terrain of grief alone.
Just such help is the specialty of Village member Mary Pappas, a grief, trauma and loss counselor. Ms. Pappas emphasizes that the process of loss is completely normal and natural. The process begins with attachment - to a person, a dream, a place. The breaking of that attachment through loss puts us in transition, where we are not in the past and not yet in the future. In working through the transition, we utilize our inherent ability to grow and develop and are transformed to where we can experience reattachment and fulfillment in other aspects of our lives and we go on.
A grief counselor or therapist who's seen people in grief many times, is able to confirm that your experiences and feelings are legitimate and natural - for example, concerns about difficulty sleeping and concentrating.
For Bob Rosen, there was comfort to be found in the rituals of religion "We observed Shivah, I say Kaddish, and go to Jewish Yizkor (memorial service)," says Rosen.
Loss has in some ways been a gain for Rosen. The passage of time has given him better perspective and taught him crucial lessons. "It's made me more understanding of others' losses." Rosen's loss is still raw; wisdom, he hopes, will build with time. In the meantime, he's learned that coping with loss is an ongoing process, that it reverberates. Or, as Saul Bellow put it, in a letter to a friend,
"Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces."
So how do we cope with loss? CJE SeniorLife's Joan Ente says, "Loss can give rise to loneliness and isolation which are the greatest enemies of healthy aging. The challenge is to find a way to come to terms with it, to grieve without feeling defeated or diminished."
Estelle Spector has done just that. Keeping active and never looking back, Spector continued on the Jeff Awards Committee, awarding excellence in theatre, joined water aerobics, taking literature classes, and belongs to a book club. But a certain sense of loss still lingers.
"Busy is not fulfilled- the give and take of teaching and directing, the collaboration-- it isn't there," says Spector, looking uncharacteristically pained. "Things in our lives are changing; you don't get that regular stimulation."
But Spector knows the show must go on. That she had to find a new stage to deliver her ideas. "You have to find other venues, throw ideas around in other places-that's why the Village has been fabulous," says the former actor, dancer and early Lincoln Park Village member. "When you get older, you don't meet people the same way you did when you were at the playground with your kids or, at work-those aren't available to you anymore-the Village allows you to meet some really lovely people."
"It's kinda corny but you have to take each day as it comes You can't just close the door and say that was my life." Now, finding her groove, Spector adds there's no real formula for dealing with loss. Even though she admits, there are identifiable shared feelings.
"Everyone deals with loss differently but if a bunch of us sat down and talked honestly, I can't believe there wouldn't be one retired person who said, "Oh, my God, there are some days I don't want to get out of bed, 'cause what am I going to do?
In fact, would this idea-generator suggest the Village have these little round table discussions? Spector is knocking out ideas. The outline of a Village seminar on retirement begins to form. In the end the theatre aficionado believes successful retirement has a lot to do with good dialogue. With other folks and yourself.
The professional view agrees with this. "The fact is, we are human - mortal, wounded, shaped by dysfunction - and loss is inherent in human life." says Mary Pappas "But, says Ms. Pappas, " as human beings we are programmed to grow and develop so that if the grief process is worked through, we can obtain transformation and ultimately re-attachment."
When asked what has surprised her most in working with aging people experiencing loss, Joan Ente said, "I had assumed there were only a few paths to aging - but I have learned that everyone is different. People find their own ways to manage loss in a way that make sense in their lives. I am constantly amazed by people's resilience - by people who should have been defeated but were not."
Resources:
In the Presence of Grief by Dorothy Becvar
Healing After Loss, Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman
A Time to Grieve: Loss As a Universal Human Experience by Bertha G. Simos
The Lincoln Park Village Member website is going to launch in January, loaded with content of special interest to our members. The Technology committee is looking for volunteers who can help us develop content for the site. Please join the team by writing a paragraph from time to time about something that is of special interest to you. It may be a restaurant review (good or bad), or a show you really liked (or hated) or tips on how to winterize your home - anything you want to share with your fellow members. Absolutely no technical experience or skill is needed! We will train you (and hold your hand if necessary) every inch of the way. We want to thank the following people who have already stepped up and volunteered to contribute to the website: Wally Shah, Lois Stack, Susan Hoeksema, Lois Stuckey, Michael Spock, Ed Rose, Walker Johnson, Estelle Spector, Debra Rosenberg, Judy Spock and Carol Rosofsky.
