DISTURBING FEELINGS IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE MOURNING PROCESS

 

 

The natural biological cycle is turned upside down, when a son or a daughter dies. It is normal that parents can’t accept the fact, but on the other hand, they do accept the death of older people, when it occurs.

 

Many of us have become bereaved, without ever having lost a dear person before, or without having ever meditated on our own death , or the death of our dear ones, as part of a process of Life, as a transition to another stage of existence.

 

I also ask myself and you, what  were the meaning of the words in those days like, ”spirituality, “ “Life Crisis”,  “Meaning of Life”, and so many other words that only today, through having experienced our own personal pain, have acquired meaning to those phrased.

 

In this state of vulnerability, suddenly, our son or daughter dies.  It is normal to feel the initial , profound, pain and bewilderment, the sense of emptiness, of injustice, the search for explanations, and the hesitant step, with which we start, timidly, the mourning process.

 

I AM INTERESTED IN EMPHASIZING HERE SOME OBSTACLES AND DIFFICULTIES THAT PRESENT THEMSELVES ON THIS PAINFUL ROAD.

 

Most of you, here, have heard, as I have, innumerable testimonies in which some parents, who have been recently bereaved, find themselves with greater inner peace, than other parents, whose losses are longer endured.

 

My first conclusion, is that Time Does Not Work Miracles, as  Rabbi Earl Grollman says.  Time is neutral.  Much depends on what we personally do with it.

 

It is our job, in Renacer, to help to meditate on negative living experiences that occur, making it more difficult to search for a new Meaning in our lives.

 

 

1)  GUILT

 

 

Feelings of Guilt often appear in the first moments of the Mourning Process; most of which are pure imagination, than real events.

Guilt for what we did, or didn’t do. We are paralyzed with the hopeless desire to change the order of events, as if one could, as if by magic, replace Death with Life.

Sometimes, guilt appears as a form of punishing oneself, that doesn’t help the situation, at all.

 

To feel guilty, is to give oneself huge importance, derived from a feeling of arrogant omnipotence.  We reflect; how could I, who was so perfect, wasn’t perfect with my son or daughter? How was it that I neglected to do this or that thing?

I believe, that only when we realize the un- realness of the situation, is when we arrive at not feeling Guilty.

 

We should accept our limitations, our human defects, and our humble recognition of our mistakes, (that form part of our permanent learning process, during our lifetime).

 

If we can meditate on our relations in the light of reality, we shall lessen our feeling of Guilt; but, not our own responsibilities, that we owe to our decisions.  But, that is another subject that we can touch on, with the indulgence that Guilt gives us. On this subject, Jaime Barilko, said” The only Guilt that we, as parents should feel, is to feel Guilty!”, and of those feelings we surely are guilty!

 

2)   RESENTMENT

 

Other times, the obstacle is resentment. Resentment  is our way of displacing our Guilt onto others.  A resentful person, always blames others for their loss. So, they blame God, or others, they are filled with rage. They consume a great deal of energy in being always in the same place, concentrating on their impotence and fantasizing revenge.

I met many parents who have overcome this difficulty, because of their profound Faith. Those are Parents that accept God’s Will, even though it doesn’t coincide with their own personal wishes.

There are also Parents who overcome their resentment, because they believe in Destiny, where everyone are actors in a prefixed scene.  They believe that their Destinies  are part of Life, even though it means the fatalistic death of their children.

In both cases, or by both roads, resentment,  fortunately, doesn’t  enter, and doesn’t color their pain.

 

3)  IDEALIZATION                                       

 

There are those  that idealize their dear departed.  We hear it in the testimonies of those parents, making their loss most difficult to accept. It is a most arduous effort to try to dissuade a grieving Parent, of the unreality and the risks that entail these feelings, that surge from themselves, and that they believe in  absolutely!

This arduous task is necessary, in order to help those parents, not to bury their lives with their dead children.  They, thus ignore their bonding with those children who are alive, and expecting their love, but, often feel that their parents don’t value them, or idealize them, as they do, their dear departed brothers or sisters.

 

We shouldn’t expect that death bring idealization in our relation. We should give of our love in this Life, with no postponement. We should give all the love that we are capable of, to our family and friends.

 

Life, is a continuous succession of Loves and Errors (mistakes), involuntary the last ones, but, that forms a part of our imperfections.

From this point of view, it will be possible to accept the inexistence of ideal relations.

Our relation with our dead son or daughter need not have been necessarily ideal, in order to throw us into the most Profound Despair!

 

4)  TO FEEL ONESELF A VICTIM

 

We also hear our companion repeatedly, insist on their suffering, that speak of their desire not to Live, that center their loss only on themselves, and being the center of their Bereavement. They ignore their other relations that are still alive, and expecting their love.

These parents assume a Role of Victim. They live only to suffer, searching for Pity from others. They have difficulties in integrating in a group, and often that is the very reason, that they desert to continue participating in the Group.

It is not necessary to dramatize to express our Pain. We do not need to convince others, how much we are suffering the death of our children.

It is not necessary to have the Majority informed, nor do we need to receive anything in exchange, that  can lessen our painful feelings.

Let us be patient and kind to these parents, that present their case as one with no solution. Let us try to integrate them as soon as possible, giving them some task in the group, in order to make them feel more useful to other Parents, who suffer the same pain.  This way, we shall help them realize that, giving and receiving, is the shortest path to come to terms with their Life.

 

5)   DENIAL

 

 

As a contradiction to the preceding subject, we have feelings of Denial.  It is a useless attempts to evade suffering. I see 2 forms of Denial;

 

1. To maintain everything as it was before, everything that belonged to the dear departed son or daughter. I refer to the clothes, the objects, the room and everything that belonged to the son or daughter.  This generates an illusion that nothing has changed, and the result is to delay the mourning process, which is the acceptance of the painful reality.

2. The other form of Denial, shows itself in a feeling of well-being, a doubtful well-being, that only postpones starting the mourning process.

 

6)  Feelings of Loyalty

 

Another setback  is the feeling of Loyalty to their children, that have died. This will make the parents lessen or annul any habitual pleasures the couple might have had, before, and thus accentuate their feelings of sadness and Pain.

To abandon social relations, vacations, love life, reunions, family celebrations during a long period of time, constitutes a useless offering to those children that are no longer with them, and is an example of an unloving attitude towards those dear ones that are alive, and who also suffer the loss of the departed.

 

7)   Personal Feelings Facing Death

 

There are other cases, in which Bereaved Parents consider the physical death of their sons or daughters as final.  Since any idea that their children can exist in another dimension, for them, different to the earthy one,  it is more difficult for them to conceive a meeting with them, when they themselves have died.

This sort of situation, fortunately, is not very frequent. From the point of view of Faith, from different religions and beliefs and scientific research  ( Raymond Moody,  E. Kubler Ross ), who are the most important investigators on the subject, there is a current of thought, that suggests the existence of life beyond death. 

Our Groups are also fertile ground, since we hear testimonies of bereaved parents, through their dreams, their feelings, and multiple “episodes”, that reveal some form of communication with their dead sons and daughters.

 

8)   FEARS

 

We might have lived our lives fearlessly, before our children died.  Our belief that painful situations only happen to others, is often felt.  Destiny, has shown us our error of that belief.

When this happens, all our fears and apprehensions appear together, in an effort to prevent future unhappiness. We become controlling, always giving advice, or prohibitions.  We become overprotective, generating in us, a great deal of anguish.

This paralyzes us and also paralyzes those that we love; our children that are alive and feel responsible for our worries and who want to lighten our burden. They feel that they have to fulfill our expectations, and thus they are limited in their own freedom to act.

Let us try to change our fears for a caring attitude and reasonable prudence.  Let us try not to imagine catastrophic thoughts in order to accept, that it is more likely that one shall return home, than not return at all!

Let us not contaminate with our Fears our dear ones.

Let us not limit with our egoism the right that they have to chose freely their Life.

I invite you to meditate on this thought, “ The opposite of Love is not Hate, it is Fear.”

 

 

9)   THE UNIQUENESS OF BEREAVEMENT 

 

 

With respect to the characteristic of the Grieving Process, let us accept, that no two mourning process are alike. Each one expresses his emotions in a singular way. In the same family, with reference to the same Grief, there might exist notable differences in the individual feelings.  This might bring silences,  lack of communication and reproaches, in the family unit.

They might also arrive at wrong conclusions, since they find themselves observing the pain of the others and compare it to their own.

Let us busy ourselves only with our own pain, of which  we have, unfortunately  enough of. On this subject, I might remind you the gestalt phrase “ I am not inserted in this World to obey your expectations, nor are you here to obey mine: if by chance we might meet, it would be lovely, and if not, too bad”.

Let us  try to prevent ourselves to innocently compare our bereavement with other sufferers.

 

Some parents say that they would have preferred a different death for their children, or different circumstances, believing that the change would lessen the Pain ( as if a different Death wouldn’t be a Death also! )

 

That other Death, that other circumstance, sometimes envied, are in the Group “ Renacer “ heard in the testimonies of other parents that, like us , are there, because of the same pain.  Gonzalez Tuñon would say, “each one carries his Life and his Death with him. “

 

Being born and dying are solitary experiences that occur beyond our possibility of choosing.

 

 

10)  THE FEARED IMAGES

 

It is undeniable, that the final moments of a relation, the last days, the last hours, the last moments that Death overcomes our dear ones, the sad future ceremonies are engraved in our memory in a pathetic manner.

For some parents, these last images, invade them  during a long time, and they often repeat these scenes in their testimonies, with excessive attention  to detail, these sad moments that are real nightmares!

All these feelings, make these parents suffer greatly, but, also those that listen suffer, as well. Those that receive so much anguish, try to  preserve themselves, distancing themselves with this type of testimonies. For some parents, especially for the newly arrived ones, the anguish and dramatics of these stories tend to make them flee from our groups.

We should try to dissuade them. We want to help them.

I  try to transmit to those Parents my own experience, that surely will be shared by many of you. I have also lived, like all of you, my nightmares.

During a time, those thoughts kept me awake and invaded my waking moments and my feelings.

I understood, that my relation with Martín, was not only expressed in his last days, but in all the happy moments that we have shared together,  and  fortunately, there were many. Those are the moments that I miss, that form part of my nostalgia.  Those are the moments that I want to remember and want to share with all of you.

On the other hand, those hours that followed the accident,  I can recall today, without too much emotion.

They don’t dampen the tenderness,  the great Love that belongs to the permanent memory of Martin.

As we already mentioned, Time is Neutral.  García Marquez, would add, “The memory from the Heart Eliminates the ugly memories, and shelters the good ones, and it is thanks to this way, that we achieve  overcoming the Past.”

 

I would like that this modest and incomplete summary of places and scenes, common to all of us, serve as an incentive to my companions to continue to meditate on  these subjects and thus, be able to develope other plans, surely more complete, than the previous.

I believe that they could constitute a valuable instrument to induce us to reflect on healthy proposals. We can trace some paths that can make possible to overcome the obstacles mentioned previously, in order to Continue in the daily effort that we want to accomplish.

 

In order that “In spite of it all, yes to Life”,  shouldn’t be an empty phrase, instead a firm conviction of all of us.

 

CARLOS J.  BIANCHI,    October, 1993.