072 - On the myth of "by now" and more.

Four reflections on a longer view of grieving.

Welcome back (or welcome)!

I write here because I’m committed to giving you tools and stories to be helpful in times of loss. And sometimes, even to be helpful to yourself.

This week, we’re taking a short look at timing and timelessness. And asking a question for healthcare people.

(If you want to support this work, you can buy us all a coffee.)

1. By now.

The other day, I wrote a note to a friend that started with the phrase “by now.” I don’t like that phrase at all, particularly in connection to grief.

I hear people say it of themselves: “By now I should be able to not cry when I hear her name.”

I hear people say it to others: “By now you should be dating.”

I imagine that someone must have a calendar with the magic “by now” dates on it. Or imagine that they imagine such a calendar exists.

I could, I suppose, explore the ways in which artificially imposed “by now” deadlines are destructive. They create expectations where none need be. They create a sense of failure when there’s nothing to fail. They stop conversations and relationships.

So rather than explaining, I’ll offer this: “By now” you could stop creating more pain for your grieving friends or self and stop setting deadlines.

Give grace. Offer presence. Pay less attention to the calendar.

2. Grief lasts.

Many of us talk about grief lasting. About it not going away.

Clarissa Moll writes this, approaching the fifth anniversary of her husband Rob’s death,

“We all know — if we’re honest — that time doesn’t heal all wounds. Healing or recovery isn’t a part of the grief journey we will experience this side of glory. For all of the time that remains before me, the wound of losing Rob will hurt, sometimes throbbing and other times a deep low ache. As year five approaches, I need to call it straight: grief still walks beside me, its shape changing as my life grows and as I make more space for its companionship. Days and months and years are still meaningless when it comes to this unwelcome visitor’s tenure. Grief is here to stay. God, who stands beyond time, will heal all wounds; but that’s not a promise he ever makes for my today. And, today is all I’ve been given.”

Read the whole reflection at How Did I Get Here? - by Clarissa Moll - Hand in Hand (substack.com)

3. Finding words for what we’re feeling

When we say grief lasts, what are we talking about? What are the feelings or the experiences that we can (or can’t) describe? What does “grief lasting” look like?

In what we just read, (and in her book Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving after Loss), Clarissa Moll talks about grief living with us.

As you reflect on what it means when you think about grief lasting,

• Are we talking about a sense of yearning or of pining or of longing?

• Are we talking about missing the sound or the smell or the feel of them?

• Are we talking about moments of remembering bringing tears, or laughter?

• Are we talking about carrying an identity we used to have even as we are forming new identities?

• Are we talking about an overwhelming sadness? 

• Is it like having two different passports we use to enter communities?

There aren’t, of course, any wrong answers. Or any right answers.

I’m continuously convinced that different personalities and different ages and different life experiences, among many other differences, shape our experiences of loss. I’m certain that people who externally process everything before a loss will process the experiences that follow the death that way. I’m certain that people who internally process will internally process. And I’m certain that one group will look at the other and think either, “Can’t you shut up” or “you need to talk about it.”

I’m also certain that the more words we can offer to describe what the feelings might be, the more we can foster understanding and connection.

4. For healthcare people: Is a death the beginning of health care challenges for those around?

Next month, I’m talking to some medical residents about talking to families following a death. In the last few months, I’ve been reading and writing about the public health implications of bereavement.

Writing in The Lancet, Lichtenthal, et al, say:

“The public health toll of bereavement is well documented. Bereaved individuals are at increased risk for numerous adverse outcomes, including prolonged grief disorder, mood and anxiety disorders, existential distress, decreased work productivity, adverse health behaviours, neglect of health care, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Excess mortality rates over the past several years and humanitarian crises worldwide, including war and armed conflict, are increasing the urgency for national-level bereavement strategies and models to alleviate grief-related suffering through timely and strategic interventions.”

Yesterday, I thought, “If we understood that a death will affect the health of those who are connected to the person who died, then as healthcare people, we can attend to being helpful from the first moments of those first conversations about the death.”

We wouldn’t simply regard the death notification as the end of care, the wrapping up of a really hard, often tragic, story. We’d also acknowledge that this is the moment of fundamental shifts in the health of individuals and a cluster of people. And we would start being more attentive to whole person, bereavement responsive, support.

I’m just starting to unpack this thinking. But does this make sense?

See you next week.

Thanks for reading.

Bye now.

Jon