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THE UNFOLDING NEW YEAR AND THE PASSAGE OF TIME
The festivities are over and a new year emerges from the seeds of yesterday. We are acutely aware of the passage of time as we usher in yet another year. The new year is one of those times in our lives when we reflect more profoundly on the mysteries of living: we reflect on the nature of connections, especially relationships with people, animals and things.
The unfolding of this common reflective stance toward a new year also calls us to more deeply reflect on issues of loss--not only the recent one but previous ones as well. In our grief, we review especially how we participated in living those connections. And we wonder how the shifting sands of our lives will continue to change the rhythm of our connections.
We continue to seek answers to the eternal "why" and learn the many lessons as they are slowly revealed to us in our solitude and in companionship. We release what is over and embrace opportunities to stretch toward the new and gradually, we shift from seeking answers to finding peace and solace in what connects us all: the fragile nature of the human condition. This is an important aspect of our work-of-grief for it is in contemplating the fragile nature of the human condition that we reflect on who and what has been lost as well as who and what has been gained in light of the loss.
THE DOUBLE PATH OF LOSS AND GAIN
It is one of those mysteries of living that we inevitably find ourselves on that double path of loss and gain. Sometimes we feel shame or guilt at what or who has been gained because of a loss; often this is related to thinking that if we acknowledge that we have gained in light of the loss, we somehow "wanted or wished" the death. This is not about wanting or wishing the death.
It is an absolute that people, animals, and things with whom we are connected die and we are left to mourn our loss and to discover and create different rhythms within the context of our changing connections. Inevitably, the changing rhythms following a death leave us not only the loss but also gain. The gain could be: relief from bearing witness to the suffering, time from the endless chaos associated with care-giving or perhaps, an opportunity to do something we "always wanted to do"...and always, we gain perspectives and insights into ourselves and our relationships. It is important to acknowledge the double path of loss and gain so that as we engage the work-of-grief, we thus place ourselves "that knowledge may grow".
Hemingway, in A Farewell to Arms, tells us that "the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places". It is from the strength at those "broken places" that we grow...from the loss and the gain....and we create different ways to be happy.
Susan's Story
Note: the name is fictional and some elements of the story are changed....but Susan represents one of many with a similar story.
Susan was 39 when her husband of 20 years died while having a "minor procedure". When she came to see me, she just knew that her "life was over". I assured her that it both was and was not: the rhythm of the life she lived with her husband was over; a new rhythm of her life was emerging. We explored the changing dimensions of her life as she reluctantly but intensely engaged the work-of-grief. (Elements are fully explored in my book, pp.125--142)
Susan met her husband in her first year of college and they were married a year later; she left college and "never looked back". They had no children, but they enjoyed being together, with each other and with family and friends. At times she felt some guilt that she "wasn't working", but she did not dwell on that and enjoyed her life as it was.
In her grief, she reflected on her life and began to wonder how things might have been different now had she finished college, perhaps worked at a job/career--she explored this as she struggled for different purpose, direction and meaning in her changing life.
Slowly, we explored that "double path of loss and gain": she could not even begin to conceive the notion that there was anything to gain from the death of her husband. The work-of-grief continued toward resolution and she came to acknowledge the end of her grief story; she came to a quiet peace with the new form of her relationship with her husband:from dreams of the future to memories of the past....memories that would sustain her in what was yet to be for her......
Fast Forward:
Approximately 10 years after her husband's death, Susan has finished college and is exploring options for graduate study. I hear from her periodically and, among other things, we reflect on that difficult idea of the double path of loss and gain. She marvels at how a seemingly simple idea can be so difficult to grasp as she continues to contemplate what she gained in light of her husband's death. She still reminds herself that this did not mean that she "wanted her husband to die", but with his death, she "gained the opportunity to go back to school", and she gained considerable insight into who she was and who she was becoming.
Indeed, acknowledging this double path does not mean you want the person dead; it means that the inevitability of the process of living sometimes takes from us people with whom we are connected. When that happens, we must shift our relationship with the dead: we are now connected with the essence or spirit of the person and the rhythm of our life changes and in the loss is also the gain. And we discover and create happiness again....in a different way.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
Wrap yourself in the warmth of your memories as you tolerate the harsh beauty of the cold and snow...and look toward the promise of spring. Dwell with the wisdom of that double path of gain and loss, learn from the pain of it and embrace the strength "at the broken places".
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