9. UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need #2: Embrace the pain of the loss

• This need requires mourners to embrace the pain of their loss – something we naturally don’t want to do. It is easier to avoid, repress or push away the pain of grief than it is to confront it. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

I am suddenly struck by how ludicrous the second part of the title of the above-referenced book is…”Practical Ideas After Your Child Dies”??? Seriously? What is practical after your child dies? I cast no aspersions against Dr. Wolfelt here. I heard him speak. He is full of compassion. I am keenly aware that being struck this way, in this moment, is more likely avoidance on my part. Not that I haven’t and don’t continue to embrace the pain of the loss of my son. It’s just that suddenly, I am being bombarded with multiple memories of how I have and have not dealt with the pain of losing him. 

At first, I was cleaved in two, like a sword split me open. I was all raw emotion, crying endlessly. There was no solemnity in my grief at his wake. I cried throughout, falling into the arms of whoever came up to me to share their condolences. Well, except for two people that I can think of. One who actually came up to me and asked, “What happened?”, which was beyond my capacity to respond to at the time. The other was someone with whom I had worked. Someone who used my name to get the job even though we had met only once, briefly. Someone who treated our staff like pawns on a chess board, moving them around at her will. Someone through whom I ultimately left said job. When I saw her, I was in the arms of a former professor. I said to her, “I can’t believe that bitch had the nerve to show up here”, or something to that effect. She suggested I greet the woman and come back to her. I stiffly reached out a hand to shake, listened to some platitudes, and again hugged my professor. I am so grateful to her for that. And the tears resumed.

At the funeral Mass, I cried constantly, falling to my knees and sobbing out loud at one point.

I had a hard time going back to work. Then I embraced positions in suicide prevention like I could stop it from ever happening again. No one was ever going to die by suicide on my watch. 

The first time I walked in an AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk, I dissociated and separated from my family group, walking in the other direction. I don’t know if they realized I was missing. Before the walk started, we had each held a balloon upon which we had written our loved one’s name. Then we let them go. I held on to mine for a long time. I couldn’t let it…him…go. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of attendees. All of those people who had lost someone to suicide. 

I participated in another walk years later. A friend walked with me. My daughter, who volunteers with AFSP, introduced me to another griever who walked with us. She, too, has become a friend. This year I walked with her and a few other folks from my Survivors of Suicide group. As I write this, I realize I missed our monthly meeting last night. It completely slipped my mind. There’s a social gathering of the group this weekend. I may go to that.

So…embracing the pain…yeah…I do that…involuntarily. It sneaks up on me.