 |
Helping a Person Who Experiences
a Deceased Loved One
|
Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Grief is ultimately about making new discoveries.
Bob Deitz in Life after Loss
Whenever those who are grieving accept your offer to walk with them through their intense emotional pain, or reach out to you for assistance you have been honored. Someone in the throes of traumatic change will most often turn to those they have confidence in and can be vulnerable in front of without fear of humiliation. In a word, you are looked upon as a trusted friend. Of course, that is only the beginning of what often turns out to be a much longer journey than you had anticipated; but you should never forget that you have the opportunity to help someone heal, to serve them in their darkest hour.
If this is a first time for you helping a friend or relative, it certainly will not be the last. You will have many opportunities to step forward and provide the most important service one human being can give to another?to be there when another is in excruciating emotional pain. This is no easy task. Yet being there on a consistent basis, often in silence, without offering cliches or platitudes, is perhaps the most demanding service one is called upon to give throughout life. I emphasize the word "silence" because there are many times when your presence alone will be a great comforting force and all that is necessary for the moment. The silence will be difficult for you. You will be anxious, thinking you have to come up with comforting words. But maintain the silence and let the mourner be in charge.
During your silent vigil, you will eventually be called upon to offer an opinion. You will be confronted with direct questions: "What do you think I should do? What will be the best thing to say? Who should 1 consult for advice with this problem? What do you make of this dilemma? Do you agree with me?"
You will be tempted to want to give immediate helpful answers in the hope that they will take away the pain that surrounds you and your friend. However, you must be cautious not to take over and reinforce the feeling that the survivor is also a victim as well as a survivor. Victims by definition are helpless. Survivors need people willing to listen to them repeat and repeat what has happened and how their loss is affecting their lives. Still, there is a fine line between providing support and creating total dependence on that support. You will sense when you must answer a question with a question and ask how the survivor wishes to deal with the issue. Then, when appropriate, alternative possibilities can be offered. At other times, you must learn when to summarize the core of the related experience and reflect it back in concise terms in order to show that you are trying to understand the experience and the dilemma.
You may also have a special advantage in helping a friend or loved one if you are also grieving the same loss, because in giving of yourself you will benefit from being able to share your honest feelings and hurts. You can do both: provide sup, port and share your sorrow. This will often be an invitation for your grieving friend or relative to be more open and honest in the relationship. However, this does not mean to imply that you must be grieving the same loss in order to provide the best comfort and care. You can be a major support for anyone?if you are willing to be around pain. We all need to train ourselves to be around pain. That commitment alone means that your healing presence can be helpful. You are there and you care.
One other point: Confidentiality is a must. You will be hearing and seeing the deepest emotions and feelings another person can express. Some of these feelings may move you to tears, cause surprise, or even alarm. When a friend who is grieving tells you he has heard, seen, or somehow felt the presence of the deceased, you will be especially pressed not to divulge this information. Honor the intimate relationship that is being formed, and resist the temptation to relay any part of what has been entrusted to you to another family member, unless the mourner gives specific permission to do so.
Basic Guidelines
Here are three very basic guidelines for helping your friend without creating total dependency. These are applicable in most loss situations involving major change, and they will facilitate the mourning process, which in part I defined in Chapter
3 as "sharing one's grief with another." At the same time, they will provide a framework within which the mourner will feel more comfortable in talking about a contact experience, if one has occurred.
First, review the relationship with the deceased. Whenever you are committed to helping another who is mourning, the first thought which may come to mind is: How can I reduce the pain? What you really want to do is to help your friend squarely face that pain. That is the only way one can deal with it and then gradually let it go. So your overall goal in helping a friend or relative is to review the relationship the person had with the deceased loved one. Doing so will usually bring more tears as poignant memories, or even a few unhappy ones, will surface. Be assured, this is a time?consuming task; it will challenge your endurance and may take days, weeks, or months. I say weeks and months because, as I said earlier, it is important for mourners to repeat what they have already told you (and they will); and as holidays and birthdays roll around, there will be more memories to talk about. But remember, by helping the mourner experience the pain and face the changes you are helping him or her grasp the reality of the loss,
Not infrequently, it is during this review that you may find the mourner sharing any contact experience with you. If you feel comfortable, it is even appropriate to ask whether or not the mourner has experienced one. Let the story unfold and accept it as you would any other part of the relationship with the deceased.
How do you facilitate the review of the relationship? By a simple question or two at the appropriate time. To begin with, something like: "Please tell me about your Dad," is all that may be needed. Later, you can ask questions based on what you have been told, "Where did you always go fishing? Did he give you your first fishing pole? What did he say when you dropped your pole in the water that day?" These are all appropriate questions, and part of the review.
The second approach in your care giving is to normalize the feelings associated with the loss of a loved one. This means saying it's all right to cry, to feel sad, experience loneliness, to regress, or to feel any number of other emotions. That is all part of the grief process, and is nothing to be ashamed about. Furthermore, several months later, when the person thought he was beginning to feel better but suddenly has a day which was like the first week after the death, be there to normalize, to say that the experience is not unusual. One of the big misconceptions about grief is that it is a two?week job, and people should be their old selves in a very short time. For many, grief is much longer than anticipated. You can reassure your friend or loved one that there is nothing wrong with them when they are moved by a special memory or reminder of the loved one even years later.
Third and last, remember that grieving is hard work. As I said in Chapter 3 grieving is ongoing hard work because the "year of the firsts" entails all sorts of adjustments and reminders of previous years when the loved one was alive. They are painful, but it is necessary pain which leads ultimately to letting go of (but not forgetting) the deceased. And sometimes adjustments and reminders will be problematic for years, depending on the personal characteristics of the mourner, the nature of the loss, and the quality of the mourner's support system. Nevertheless, new routines have to be fashioned, and your friend or relative will have to work at refusing to anticipate what used to be done with the deceased on a daily basis. That was life in the past. Now the present has to be structured, and new routines laid down, routines which do not include the lively presence of the loved one. Of course, this is easy to say but difficult to carry out, and you will have to be infinitely patient in supporting the mourner and providing comfort during the long period of transition.
As the support person, you not only have to be aware of the work of grief (and read about it), but you must let the mourner know you can only imagine how he or she must feel. Grieving is a long and arduous road at times; an endurance race, if you will. You will be there, walking hand in hand, when needed; but it is the mourner that must choose to see the race to the finish.
|
|
