SHARED PAIN

A number of people I love are in pain--emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual. I hate it!!  I want to fix it. It seems to be a natural impulse for me to want to do something--anything--to reduce pain of those I love.

But that can be a problem. Most of the time I can't fix it!! Pain seems to be uniquely individual. Each of us experience it in our own way. The only way we can get beyond it is to go through it. We can try to avoid it, but mostly it comes back, sooner or later and has to be dealt with.

Now one of the problems with my wanting to fix the situation that creates pain for others is that, since I mostly can do nothing to fix it, I am tempted to avoid people in pain.  It is frustrating to feel like I should fix the problem and not have the ability to actually do that.  I feel helpless. In order to avoid frustration, I may be tempted at times to just crawl into the safety of my own world and not show up in the lives of those who hurt.

But, I know from my own experience of pain that having people accompany me in my pain can be helpful. The presence of people who know me and who care for me is really important.  It is important when they come along side of me and walk with me in that pain.  I know that others can't fix the problem and move life back before the painful experience occurred, but it helps me carry my pain when others hold it with me.

And the presence that is most helpful is that which comes gently into my space. Those who try to insist that they have to be with me may be helpful at times, but the most helpful people are those who are near by, waiting and ready when I feel the need to reach out.  It is those who remind me from time to time that they are available. It is those who email, who send a card, who phone.  Just a reminder of their potential presence.

So, if you know someone who is hurting--don't avoid them just because you feel helpless to fix their problem. Respect them enough to allow them to have their own pain, but love them enough to be willing to share time with them when they desire it.

FEELING GUILT

Endings bring a lot of confusing and painful feelings.  Especially when what has ended is something that someone wishes would continue.  Pain, disorientation, anger, frustration.  These are understandable and fairly easy to explain.

But, there is another feeling that sometimes surprises us.  That is the feeling of guilt.  When something we desire and value has ended, it seems important for people to attribute blame.  We need to explain it. Someone must be responsible for it.  We seem driven to find out why it happened and who is responsible for it. Someone is guility.

Sometimes that guilt is assigned to others. Others have not done what they should  and that is why we have experienced the ending. When someone dies, it is often the doctors that are blamed; or the medical system; or the person who didn't live in a way that would have prolonged their life; or some might blame God. 

But, sometimes the ending also brings a sense of guilt to those of us who suffer the agony of the ending. Sometimes we focus on ourselves and what we "could-a", "should-a", "would-a" done. The "if-onlys" chase our hearts down the corridors of our minds.  "If only I had told her to go the doctor sooner when the symptoms first appeared. If only I had been more sensitive to her needs. If only I had been attentive when she was alive at least I wouldn't feel guilty about the mistakes I made in our relationship."

It is important for those who suffer loss or those who accompany others through loss to realize that guilt is a normal and almost automatic part of the grieving process.  When something ends and there is no opportunity to retrieve that which is lost, we rehearse the past, sifting through the nuggets of memory to see if we can't create a narrative where we might discover a direct cause and effect.  

Unfortunately, there will be many loose ends and a great deal of confusion in most cases of loss.  So don't be surprised when guilt is a significant part of the way we attend to the losses of our lives. And remember that it can become a prison which locks us in the past.  

CREATE A MEMORIAL

Significant relationships are rich and complex. Your relationship with someone you love is deeply conflicted and filled with tenderness and tension, desire and duty, affection and anger. Such a relationship that has lasted a long time has woven a fabric of knowing and caring that wraps itself around you and sustains you.  It is a necessary part of how you know yourself.

When that relationship ends because of death, divorce or someone moving away, the disorientation and pain can be really frightening. The temptation is to avoid the pain and to to stay busy or to depend on some drug or alcohol to protect us from feeling it so sharply.  We may just move on and pretend that it didn't really matter that much.

But as I have said, re-membering is important to the creating of a new relationship with the departed person. It helps us organize the memories of the person so that we can continue to relate to their presence that still lingers after their absence has become real.

But remembering well is also a way of shrinking the size of that person's presence in our lives so that it becomes "pocket-sized". When that presence is smaller, there is room for new life.  It is helpful to remember the person long enough and well enough that you can create some small reminder of the essence of the meaning that person had in our lives. When their presence becomes memorial-sized, we are able to honor their memory but move forward to grow the new relationships that will enrich and sustain us.

This is why nations and cities create memorials of significant events in their history.  The past matters. Memorials honor the complexity and the rich meaning of events where fundamental change occurred and many sacrificed so much as a result of the event. But, the past can't control the future. It needs to be honored but not become a prison.  Memorials help us remember and be free to move forward into the new world.

When you lose someone significant in your life, create a memorial that can remind you of their meaning for you and free you to live the new life that you have been given.

FORGET AND MOVE ON

One thing people who  have had a significant loss often hear is "You have to forget it and move on." It is the desire of friends that we continue to live our lives. They don't want us to hurt and they don't like the feelings they have when we do hurt.

But, when things fall apart, one of the most natural thing to do is to "re-member".  When things are broken and scattered, we want to put them back the way they were.  We want to "re-member" them.  That way we don't have to deal with the pain of brokenness or the the chaos of scattered pieces of our lives.

But, I think re-membering is also important because that which is lost needs to be integrated into the life that we live moving forward. The loss of someone or something that has been significant in our self-identity has to be processed in a way that we can move forward. Our past doesn't just disappear.  It isn't simply forgotten.  Our past has to be reintegrated into the self that is moving forward.

So my recommendation is that we re-member our past so that it can be integrated into our new life as part of who we are but in a different relationship to  our lives.  Whereas it might have been central to the way we do things, now, it might be more peripheral.  If your job was central to your self-understanding when you were employed, it now may be important for your understanding of who you have been and who you might be, but it isn't as central to who you are right now.  It has to be re-membered in a way that you can carry it forward in your life to give you courage and strength to move into the unknown future.

So, re-member well.  The past remains part of who you are becoming.

DIAGNOSIS

Grieving is what happens when there are endings.  When you have trusted your life to be lived in a certain way and then something happens to cause you to question whether it will continue to be lived that way, grieving begins to happen.

That is why a diagnosis is an occasion for grieving. If you have been able to be independent and self-supporting and then you are diagnosed with a disease that might compromise those self-supporting activities, you have to learn to live again in light of the new reality.

Because of this, we start acting in ways that we may not like.  We name our losses and feel the pain of fear and anxiety that comes with uncertainty.  We find ourselves getting angry at others, even those who have not had anything to do with our situation.  We get angry at others who are not threatened like we are.  We begin reminscing about days in the past when things were good. We look around for someone or something to blame and assign guilt.  

But, for us to be free to live with our disease or our altered circumstance, we need to be freed from our guilt and our pain.  Over time a forgiving spirit can emerge.  I don't think forgiveness is something that someone simply decides to do.  I think it is often a gift that comes to us when we work through our losses and when we gain strength to imagine new and different ways of being. We are resilient people and it is possible to discover new things about ourselves and new possibilities for our lives.

The emerging of new life can be terribly painful. Don't let anyone talk you out of your pain. But, find some friends to talk with about it. Shared pain can be more manageable. Explore your new new limits.  See what you can do with the new reality. It is not easy but it can be redemptive.