by Lucy Hone
In the first chapter I referred to long-term studies showing that most people manage to recover from traumatic experiences without any kind of medical or therapeutic intervention. As George Bonanno suggests, ‘What is perhaps most intriguing about resilience is not how prevalent is it; rather, it is that we are consistently surprised by it. I have to admit that sometimes even I am amazed by how resilient humans are, and I have been working with loss and trauma survivors for years. As I learned more about how people manage to withstand extremely aversive events, it became all the more apparent to me that humans are wired to survive. Not everybody manages well, but most of us do.’7
Accept that you can (and will) adapt to this loss; that although it may require intentional effort on your behalf, it is utterly possible. Above all, you are not alone.
THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUR GRIEF REACTIONS AND GRIEF RESPONSE
I came across Thomas Attig’s work on bereavement quite late in my grieving. I wish I’d stumbled upon him and his insights earlier, because his work offers a fundamental distinction between two different aspects of grief that were missing pieces from my jigsaw puzzle.
After more than three decades of listening to stories of grief, Attig suggests that bereavement causes a grief reaction, by which he means the full range of emotional, psychological, physical, behavioural, social, cognitive and spiritual impacts of bereavement. This reaction is our immediate experience with grief. But, says Attig, there is much more to grief than just grief reaction.
‘Many writings on grief stop short with discussions of bereavement and grief reactions, as if stories about them captured the whole of experiences of loss and grief. But . . . grieving is not merely what happens to us as death, bereavement, and grief reactions come into our lives. Grieving is also what we do with what happens to us. Where grief reaction is passive and choiceless, the doing in grieving is active and pervaded with choice. I now prefer to use the term grieving response to refer to how we, again as whole persons, actively engage with bereavement and grief reaction emotionally, psychologically, cognitively, behaviourally, socially, and spiritually,’ he writes.8 Accordingly, Attig views the grieving response as a process of relearning the world as we adapt and come to terms with our grief reactions and a world transformed by loss.
I find this distinction really helpful. Grief reactions are what happen to us (how we experience loss) and grief responses are how we choose to respond to that loss. ‘When we are ready to break away from whatever may be holding us in grief reaction, grieving continues as we actively engage with the realities of what has happened to us and we begin addressing challenges of relearning the world of our experience,’ he says, going on to emphasise that the grief response involves active engagement with our grief reactions as much as re-engagement with the world around us.9
Grief reactions typically include loneliness, sadness, helplessness, longing, and loss of courage, hope and faith, unsettling questions and intrusive thoughts, homesickness for the familiar, and a range of accompanying physical symptoms. These reactions happen within us, just as the loss happens to us.
However, grieving is also an active response to both the deprivation of bereavement and the numerous grief reactions we are consumed with. Attig writes, ‘We engage with the death and the deprivation and changes in the world of our experience, come to terms with and even learn from our reactions to it, reshape our daily life patterns, and redirect our life stories in the light of what has happened. We respond as the multi-dimensional beings we are: We exert physical energy. We work through and express emotion. We change motivations, habits, and behaviour patterns. We modify relationships. We return home to familiar meanings in life. We reach for inevitably new meanings. And we change ourselves in the process. Death, bereavement, and our grief reactions are not matters of choice. But grieving in the quite contrasting second sense of the term as an active response to them is pervaded with choice. When ready, we must choose our own path in transforming the course of our lives following bereavement.’10
Chapter 6
Secondary losses
IT’S NOT JUST THE LOSS of the loved one that has to be accepted. A raft of what psychologists call ‘secondary losses’ also require adjusting to. Secondary losses are all the dreams, ambitions, opportunities, future life events and relationships that vanish from your life along with your loved one. The term also relates to the myriad specific roles and functions that person played in your life—the breadwinner, the hairdresser, the novel-finder, the handyman, bridge/golf/tennis partner, chief recycler, meal maker, wood chopper and fire lighter, homework adviser, towel folder, car cleaner, map reader, lunchbox maker, ironer, sober driver, Christmas wrapping expert, dog walker . . . and so the list goes on. Secondary losses may also be financial, or involve the loss of friends, a job, or a home. They can include the loss of the family unit and former stability, loss of faith, and even the loss of confidence in the security and safety of this world (particularly after sudden or violent deaths).
Who are you now that you’ve lost this important person? Where will all the love you gave them get channelled? What do you do with your future hopes and dreams? What do you need to learn to do, however begrudgingly, now that they are no longer in your life?
In losing Abi, I lost my personal identity and seem to have experienced a personality change. This, apparently, is very common. Where once I was extroverted, upbeat and predominantly happy, I became consumed with sadness and loss. This was all new territory for me. Coming to terms with it required adjustment and acceptance of another secondary loss: I was no longer the person I used to be. I can find myself standing at a party and realise the fun has ebbed away; all I want to do is go home and curl up in bed, the sanctuary of my grief. I’m reminded of the lamentation, ‘Happiness has gone out of our lives; grief has taken the place of our dances’ (Lamentations 5:15).
‘Another loss is the old “you”, the person you were before this loss occurred, the person you will never be again. Up till now, you didn’t know this kind of sadness. You couldn’t even have imagined anything could feel this bad. Now that you are inconsolable, it feels like the new “you” is forever changed, crushed, broken, and irreparable. These temporary feelings will pass, but you will never be restored to that old person. What is left is a new you, a different you, one who will never be the same again or see the world as you once did,’ write Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler, summing up my feelings adroitly.1
Charged with their protection and as promoters of their opportunities, hopes and dreams, our daily interactions with our children in many ways define our sense of self. The day before Abi died I knew, with certainty, who I was and what my life’s work entailed. Suddenly all that changed. I remember in the first week following her death saying to one of her favourite school teachers, who was also a family friend, that I no longer knew who I was. ‘Last week I was a mother of three, close to finishing my PhD. Now I don’t recognise myself,’ I told Bridget as we walked on the beach at dusk. ‘You’ll always be a mother of three,’ she replied, and I cried. I will always be a mother of three. Of course I will. She will always be my little girl. Of course she will. But still I needed to be told.
Part of my grieving process has therefore involved me finding ways to honour the fact that we had three children. The easiest is that I intentionally and consistently refer to Paddy as our middle child. It makes me feel good inside every time I say the words. Early on, I’d find myself referring to ‘the boys’ (‘I must go home and check that the boys are eating/getting up/ gone to bed/not having a party’ and so on), but I modified this to, ‘I must go home and check on the kids.’ One word changed and Abi was not written out of our lives. Over time I dropped this distinction, but it served me well for a few months by acknowledging her presence in our family.
We’ve also struggled being a family of four. No offence to families of four, or three, or two, but after twelve years of being a family of five, there was something familiar and complete and ‘
right’ about that odd number. Being a family of four is just too symmetrical, too square, and mainly too small to feel right. I hate being a family of four. It’s all wrong. But, over time, we are slowly learning to occupy our new family shape. I distinctly recall taking a photo of the four of us before we headed off tramping last Easter holidays and noticing that I felt okay about the way we were. We look happy in this new family, we were happy in it: just the four of us, learning to be less.
Equally painful was our loss of all things girlie. Not only were we grieving the loss of Abi’s specific personality, but also her contribution to our family. As a 12-year-old girl she brought the fun and laughter, the singing and dancing, the giggles and occasional shrill screams. She brought pink and sequins and ballet into our home; she brought friends with bikinis, discarded bracelets, apricot-scented body lotions, fluffy cream dressing gowns, a multitude of ribbons and hairgrips festooned with anything from butterflies to polka dots, an endless desire to bake and decorate cupcakes and to chat over dinner preparations. Planning birthdays and Christmases without her boundless enthusiasm will never be the same.
Since she’s gone, we’ve hankered after her girliness, both in these superficial ways and of course more fundamentally. All of our future hopes and dreams for our dear, beautiful daughter died with her. No walking her down the aisle for Trevor one day; no watching her career with interest and pride (no doubt anxiety and frustration too); no unsuitable boyfriends to fight off or front up to for Ed, Paddy and Trevor; no sitting bikini-clad on strong shoulders at summer festivals; no graduation day, 21sts, bridal shopping trips, or cuddles on Christmas morning. This additional loss hit me hard. I am severed from the Sisterhood. And while I hope there will be girls back with us in due course, in the meantime I profoundly miss their presence in our home and lives.
The loss of my sense of security
The experience of trauma has consequences, chief of which is a heightened sense of physical and emotional vulnerability. On holiday recently, Trevor had a sore throat, which became sufficiently bad to prompt him to get into a taxi and head across an unknown Asian city in search of a late-night doctor. He headed out the door without me giving it a second thought, until, ten minutes later, he sent me pictures of the massive street riot his cab had become embroiled in. Out of nowhere, and out of all proportion to what my brain knew was minimal threat, the familiar anxiety came rushing in. Until I knew he was at the doctor’s and had been seen, I felt (very suddenly and acutely) aware of how vulnerable we were. How stupid it was to take anything for granted in this world.
THE EXPERIENCE OF TRAUMA HAS CONSEQUENCES, CHIEF OF WHICH IS A HEIGHTENED SENSE OF PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY.
Once you’ve lived with continued aftershocks from earthquakes (which come without warning to shake your world) and received that call from the policeman (saying he’s on his way to see you), there is no longer any sense of certainty. Anything is possible, everything is possible, at any time.
How are we supposed to go on living normally, letting our remaining precious children walk out our front door every day, when we have been made so acutely aware of the randomness and fragility of life? Vulnerability is a particularly challenging aspect of bereavement, especially following the loss of a child or anyone deemed ‘too young’ to die.
Social anthropologist Wednesday Martin sums this up beautifully, when she writes of that ‘crazed but logical, urgent-feeling’ of the need to hide other children away, to protect them from danger, and the ‘obsessive fear that now he or she will be hit by a car or walk into the pool or somehow, anyhow, be extinguished’.2 But, learning to live with fear and vulnerability is an essential skill of resilience. It’s easy to view courage as the absence of fear, but there’s plenty of evidence to show (and my experience backs this up) that courage is the ability to experience fear but not become overwhelmed or paralysed by it.
VULNERABILITY IS A PARTICULARLY CHALLENGING ASPECT OF BEREAVEMENT.
I’ve read a great deal since Abi died, searching for clues to promote acceptance, for contemporary sound bites and ancient wisdoms that add to the jumble of jigsaw pieces that help make sense of my new world. Reading Pema Chödrön first introduced me to two key pieces of the puzzle of life and death. As if they were signposts pointing my energies in the right direction, I very quickly attached myself to the two Buddhist principles of ‘Life is Suffering’ and what I like to think of as ‘The Universal Law of Impermanence’. I’m not a practising Buddhist, but adopting some of Buddhist philosophy has substantially helped me overcome the secondary loss of my trust in the world and my fear of life’s random nature. After all, given that Buddha declared, ‘I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path’ 2500 years ago, his teachings must be relevant to grieving. Understanding that life is suffering, and that much of that suffering comes from clinging to the illusion of permanence, helps. Approaching life knowing that suffering is a non-negotiable part of it, and that nothing lasts forever, has enabled me to get through the days, focused on the here and now, refusing to worry about what will happen in the future, how long my boys will continue to live healthily for, how long Trevor will stay alive. I am learning to accept that anxieties such as these cause me greater pain and to acknowledge that I have absolutely no control over the impermanence of life. As the Dalai Lama has said: ‘The reality of death has always been a major spur to virtuous and intelligent action in all Buddhist societies. It is not considered morbid to contemplate it, but rather liberating from fear.’3
Bonanno’s longitudinal research following bereaved spouses also reveals the strong relationship between people’s views on death and how they cope with bereavement.4 Having interviewed a probability sample of 1532 married men and women from the Detroit area in 1987–1988 on a wide range of variables, including their world views, social support, family, wellbeing and depression diagnosis (prior to bereavement), Bonanno and his team then followed bereaved participants over three subsequent waves of assessment, evaluating their psychosocial adjustment and resilience specifically over the next five years. Participants’ responses to statements like ‘Death is simply part of the process of life’ and ‘I don’t see any point in worrying about death’ predicted how well they coped with grief. ‘People who years earlier said they didn’t worry about death or who generally accepted that death happens were the same people who tended to cope best with the pain of grief when their spouse died,’ Bonanno explains.5
Feeling a heightened sense of vulnerability (worrying about all the things that might happen), and having the girly future I had eagerly anticipated wrenched away from me, have been two of the toughest aspects of Abi’s death to handle. Understanding that secondary losses are real and warrant my attention has helped. Being aware of them has made me realise how multi-dimensional our loss is and helped me to understand the many different aspects and scope of my grief. Writing about these losses has also helped, forcing me to acknowledge them and consider their impact. And because I like my writings to wrap up in some kind of conclusion, the process encouraged me to make plans regarding ways to cope with them. Secondary losses have a nasty habit of revealing themselves over time, however. Some can be dealt with practically; others are excruciating and have to be endured. They are a work in progress for me.
Exercise in identifying secondary losses
When someone we love dies, we also have to come to terms with other ‘secondary losses’ that occur as a result of the death (the primary loss).
What secondary losses have you got to cope with? Consider which of the following are secondary losses for you. Financial losses or changes in income? Emotional support? A loss of routine? Have you lost specific friendships? What practical things? Your faith? Are there communities or groups you will no longer see as a result of the primary loss? Have you lost your self-confidence? Your identity? Life purpose or sense of direction? What about your hopes and dreams for the future? Your sense of safety? How have your family roles and duties changed?
Circle
the three that most resonate with you, or write your own down. Who can you talk to about these losses? Who recognises the importance of them and will support you? What about putting your thoughts down on paper if you don’t want to talk about them, or discussing it in an email with a sympathetic source? Greater awareness brings the opportunity to gradually devise strategies for dealing with these additional losses, and lets others know how and when they can help.
Chapter 7
Positive emotions
BOOKS AND WEBSITES ABOUT grief and mourning feature plenty of information about negative emotions—how important it is to feel them, not repress them, and how fundamental they are to grief. You cannot love and not experience some degree of negative emotions when that loved one dies.
What the traditional bereavement research fails to explain, however, is the transformational power of positive emotions in all stages and aspects of our life, and especially while we are grieving. The grief literature might be adept at telling us to accept that experiencing and sharing our negative emotions is key to successful grieving, but it is largely silent on the critical importance of experiencing and sharing positive emotions at this time. This is largely based on ignorance, owing to the fact that academics don’t commonly like to consider research findings from beyond their field. So, while plenty of evidence has accrued in psychology over the last three decades detailing the vital importance of positive emotions for our psychological health,1 most of the researchers publishing in Death International (yup, that’s the snappy name of the leading bereavement journal) have yet to stumble upon this important and relevant research.