Death is not a popular topic because it’s attached to loss.  People often deny that they or those they love will someday die so when it happens as part of a natural life cycle we are devastated.

I became introduced to death when my Grandmother McCart (who lived with us) died of a massive heart attack.  The memory of Grandmom lying in her antique bed, her children all around her with  her ever present rosaries  intertwined in her fingers made a deep impression on my ten year old soul.  It remains with me still.

Three years later my father died suddenly.  It shattered a major part of me but the gripping grief went underground and stayed unacknowledged until it my favorite uncle died twenty years later and resurrected the buried sorrow.  That’s when I began to comprehend not only death’s complexities but the real power loss over a psyche.  The timing was right, however, to address death’s mystery and its veil because I was earning my Master’s Degree in counseling.  “Counselor, heal thyself” became my personal mantra.

During these four years of academics I came to identify that just because my father was resting in peace didn’t mean I was.  I gave my father pain a voice realizing that not only would talking help heal me but it would translate into making me a better and more sensitive therapist.

When I turned forty-two my beloved eighteen-year old daughter, Katie, was diagnosed with cancer.  She immediately went to a rational place that said she could die.  She shared that information with me and added that her illness could possibly aid my ongoing search to understand my own father’s death.  Because Katie was a teenager, I don’t believe she realized that her illness eclipsed my father’s death a thousand fold whatever her fate would be.

Sadly for me, and for the multitudes who loved her dearly, Katie died at twenty-eight years of age.  This year marks fifty years for my father and eleven years for my child.  Many other people close to me are now also peacefully on the other side: my mother, grandfather, five year old niece, sister, every uncle and all but two aunts.  I am no stranger to death and I am also no stranger to life.

It’s what keeps me focused on the bigger picture.

August 19, 2010

How we feel about a person’s death changes over time.  I think it has everything to do with our relationship to that person and maybe even the age we are when we experience permanent loss.  I also think it has to do with accepting the mystery of death.  Sometimes the death of someone is so shattering in the beginning that we barely function.  Then, as time moves ahead little-by-little, we begin to heal a little at a time depending on the intensity of the love we felt for the deceased.

Sometimes, however, our grief experience is in reverse and delayed as mine was in the case of my father who passed away I was thirteen years old.  Rarely talking about him it appeared on the outside that I was coping fine.  It wasn’t until my early 30’s in graduate school while attending workshops to deal with unconscious elements, my long ago grief for my father was uncovered.  I discovered then how much pain and sorrow had been buried when he was layed to rest.  I learned then that just because my father was at peace didn’t mean I necessarily was.  I addressed then consciously and seriously my deep sadness and loss of him.  And, while a delayed grief process, the-better-late-than-never paradigm was applicable.

When my beloved daughter Katie died at 28 years of age, my father’s death felt suddenly eclipsed despite my love for him because no grief compares with the agony of a child’s death.  My days now - despite it being almost eleven years – go up and down still where her absence from my life is concerned.  There was never a delayed grief with Katie.  It was more a paralyzing one in the beginning.  It still wasn’t going to work for me to talk to anyone about her death but I knew that I had to deal with her absence and my choice for expressing grief came with writing in a journal which, as you all know, evolved into a book.

My sorrow isn’t crippling anymore because I have accepted that death is a mystery no less intense than birth because neither life event can be fully explained for where were these souls before they came to us and now when they leave us?  To me, that is the essence of mystery which, except by faith, is an unexplained phenomenon.  There is consolation there if we allow ourselves to go there spiritually because responsibility to understand and control are removed from our earthly plate and we allow life and death to move at its own rhythm in surrendering the need to understand that which is not understandable.

As we travel through our lives we will all experience many losses.  Being able to pick up the pieces of our lives afterwards and begin a new chapter is a choice that takes grace and faith, friendship and hope.  And we will need other people to help us.  We will need family members to be loving, supportive and sensitive and never to bring on additional pain.  We will need gentleness from others who only need to take our hand and ask, “What can I do to help you?” Or, “Let me take you to lunch this week.” Or, “Allow me to watch your children while you take a walk or get your hair done or go out to dinner with your spouse.”

Remember, being able to think about and speak about death and loss whether the loss of a job, our health, our marriage or our beloved child or loved one makes a difference in a grief recovery.  It makes a difference in whether we feel we can make it.  But do believe me, my friends, when I tell you that you will make it.  You might not feel as though you will, but you will, if you allow yourself to speak of your loss and take heart to know there is always a good soul that is willing to sit with you and listen.  There is always a merciful person who is only a phone call or doorbell away.  There is always a sweet someone who reminds you that blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted, who wants you not only to unburden yourself but to help you through the night so you can remember to make your Every Day Matter.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.