Books

The Anatomy of Grief

Excerpt from Saying Hello to Your Life After Grief

Grief has brought agony to human beings since Adam and Eve lost the Garden of Eden. One of the most excruciating experiences of life, grief existed at the beginning. Yet, we waited until the middle of the twentieth century before writing intentionally about the subject.

Since the mid-1940s, more specific help has been available, but we still have much to learn about working through grief. May we be willing to learn, trust, grow, and work.

We dare not be glib in the face of grief--neither our own nor that of others. Grief is individual; no one person's grief is exactly like another's.

Grief is awful, particularly when it is your own. Lord Byron was right: he saw the reality of grief as "the solitude of pain--the feeling that your heart is in pieces; your mind is a blank; there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

Any loss causes grief. Any loss! The more closely a person is bonded with the person or object of loss, the more bereft the person feels from that loss. Regardless of how others perceive a loss, it is devastating to the one who experiences it. Someone who does not understand your loss can easily make flippant comments: "Get over it!" "My grief was worse than that!" "We'll get you another dog." However, we must take seriously the fact that significant loss always causes significant pain.

During my first pastorate, my secretary called and said, "Shirley's second cousin has just died; she is devastated. She needs her pastor!" I rushed to Shirley's home willingly, but I did not understand why a second cousin was such a serious loss. On the way I tried to think of how a second cousin is related to a person. Did I know any of my second cousins?

When I arrived, I quickly learned that Shirley's parents had died in an auto accident when she was five years old. The "second cousin" was the woman who took her in, offered her a home, and mothered her all those years. Shirley had remained close to this woman while growing into adulthood. The family records and the obituary listed "second cousin," but Shirley's heart cried "Mommy!" Of course, I know now that the loss of Shirley's second mother brought back to her conscious mind the loss of her first mommy. Superficially, her loss sounded insignificant to a young pastor. Actually, she grieved a major loss and a double loss! We must be hesitant to assume we know what someone is feeling as the result of a loss we consider insignificant. We need to understand as much as possible about the anatomy of grief.

Eric Lindeman gave us a wonderful gift when he began his research following the tragic Coconut Grove fire in Boston in 1944. He approached the families who had lost loved ones in the fire one by one and--with care, skill, and patient sensitivity--listened to their experiences. He kept careful notes and then recorded his findings to help others struggling with loss and the people seeking to be there for them. He documented what Wayne Oates phrased so well years later: "To go through grief, we must grow through grief "'

The world has struggled with loss since Eden and the death of Abel, but not until 1944 did anyone document what tends to happen to humans when we experience loss. Not until 1970 did an American medical school include a textbook on grief in its curriculum.

This latency may have been born of denial. We do not want to face our losses. My friend "Red" Duke--surgeon at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, instigator of helicopter ambulances, and star of his own medical-help TV spot--said it well: "Denial is not a river in Egypt." Maybe we humans are so good at avoiding pain and the labor of grief that we did not want to face the causes and remedies. Maybe we trusted in folk cures too long. At any rate, we waited unnecessarily to have the knowledge now available about moving through grief.

The crux of the knowledge is that any and all loss causes grief--the more serious the loss, the more painful the grief. I invite you to consider some of the many losses that comprise the anatomy of grief. I hope you will find help and encouragement for working through your story of grief and for listening as others work through their stories. The great Miguel de Unamuno helped us learn that we begin to heal from grief when we walk out into the streets and become willing to "share our common griefs."

Clemons continues to address the issues of grief by exploring several common obstacles encountered daily by humanity, including the death of someone close to you, divorce, loss of a job, birth defect, and molestation.