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Key points
- Grief needs space to be experienced and managed.
- Creating space to grieve can feel challenging but can be simple.
- Finding meaning in loss involves creating space to grieve.
I know I’m way behind on something when my mom asks me about it.
My mom, and now my daughter, are way ahead on everything. They are planners with paper planners. My wish for my daughter is that she makes something meaningful out of her organizational drive. I used to be like her, before I had children.
These last couple of years, my mom has asked me if I’m going to write something about my dad, a tradition I’ve kept up since 2009. I’d say the reason she’s had to ask, rather than just see a piece published and offer a supportive comment, is because my life has changed a lot since I started writing about my dad. I became a mother, changed directions in my career, and took on more responsibility in multiple areas of life. So, while each year in August I am thinking of my dad and his death by suicide, now 35 years ago, carving out the time to write about it has become increasingly more challenging.
This year had a unique wrinkle. We somehow planned a family trip the week of the anniversary of my dad’s death, so the time leading up to this anniversary was spent preparing for the trip, and I was occupied with the mundane adult tasks of laundry, packing, finding device chargers, forgetting to pack any shorts for one child…and the reflecting and sitting and writing that would have been needed to actually publish something slipped to the bottom of my priority list.
On the trip, I had no privacy nor true time to myself, as is the nature of a family trip. So, the time I might have had, even just to do one task of memorial, disappeared, yet again.
When I returned from the trip, I ended up at my synagogue for a regular service, a time when the traditional memorial prayer is recited at multiple times, giving anyone in mourning a chance to grieve and remember. It was only as I was talking to another person who also had a significant anniversary at this time of year that I realized, oh, I can say the prayer today! This is my moment! Somehow, my children were occupied and I was not with them, and I had a moment (truly, a single moment) to meaningfully remember my dad.
Grief, Over Time and in the Present
What I found myself reflecting on this year, in the moments after I said the memorial prayer, was how hard it is to find the time to grieve when a death is so far away in time. Thirty-five years is a very long time. I’ve now said that memorial prayer so many times, over so many years, as my own life has gone on, continued, and evolved. Grief looks so different now, when life is so, well, full of life.
And just as I was firmly cementing myself in “life is so full of life,” a friend died, and I was thrown into active grief, which, I noted, was very, very different than the ongoing grieving of a loss that began a lifetime ago.
My friend was someone who absolutely lived life in a “life is so full of life” way. She had faced the true possibility of death multiple times and, somehow, did not die. Until she did. Even though she lived a full life and died in a way that even she would have said was a good way to die, she isn’t here anymore, and I am deeply sad about it. It is trite to say that we never know the last time is the last time, but I really didn’t know that the last time I smiled at her would be the last time she would smile back, emanating love and acceptance. I wish we’d had more time together.
Stages of Grief
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief have become so ubiquitous that people with no background in psychology can recite them (including Homer Simpson), even though research suggests that all who grieve do not experience all five, and if they do, they don't necessarily experience them in any particular order. Kübler-Ross’s co-author of On Grief and Grieving, David Kessler, writes of a sixth stage of grief, which he names as finding meaning.
I’ve been in this stage of grief for my father since 2009, when I decided that I wanted to be very public about losing a loved one to suicide, because I felt that I could help decrease stigma by being open about my family’s loss. I found myself jumping through the stages of grief for my friend—definitely denial, then anger (quite a bit of it), not so much bargaining because of the sudden nature of her death, then a small period of sadness when I lay on my bed and closed my eyes, and then, yes, acceptance, because, really, what are we to do? Finding meaning happened quite easily, as her life was so much about making meaning. It was clear to me right away that I could find meaning, if not in her death, then in her life.
Kessler encourages remembering those who have died with “more love than pain” and coming to a place where we can move forward in a way that honors our loved ones. I find myself actually looking forward to honoring the life of my friend, which has been quite an unexpected response.
Creating a space to grieve is a path to finding meaning. This year, I found even one moment—one moment of prayer, or one moment of sadness—to be an adequate space to open up to the possibility of finding meaning.
If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
Copyright 2023 Elana Premack Sandler. All Rights Reserved.
