A detail from an 18th-century oil painting depiction of the Dance of Death.
Can one recover from loss?
Recovery means acquiring skills we should have been taught
to allow us to deal with loss directly. Sadly, most of us have not been given
the necessary information with which to make correct choices in response to a
loss.
A year after my father, John, died my youngest brother, Jacob, died. He was a dancer, funny, handsome, and eager to start his adventure in the
world. As a 24-year old dancer he was fit, strong and had grown to be fully
alive in his body. As a child he tripped over his feet and now after studies in
dance, he owned every part of himself. Except one.
At eighteen, he was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.
I’m one of five children in a tight knit family. The loss of
my father was incredibly hard on each of us and our mother. Jacob was
struggling with college, type 1 diabetes, and normal living before my father’s
death. Yet after, in each of us there became a deep need to “seize the day” not
matter what.
He struggled with his diabetes, graduated college, and then
decide to move to NY city. Taking with him so many piled up losses over the
last several years: loss of health, loss of community, moving, death, a fractured family structure, loss of a sense of self, graduating again, and moving again. He
avoided talking about diabetes, changes in his health or how it was
progressing. These losses are hard enough as a griever, and then another level as
a person with diabetes, large changes in a pattern can be really hard on the body.
Not to long after moving to NY city, he was found in his apartment
dead. It is suspected his blood sugar was low causing hypoglycemia. He fell and
may have hit his head. My mother, my brothers, and I went to claim his body in
a NY city morgue. Looking at his lifeless body, I can tell you it was one of
the worst experiences of my life. I do not regret being there as I loved him. I
still love and miss him. We are left with the uncertainty of the events of his
death to this day.
After that, I had a significant amount of emotional grief that
I stuffed deep into myself. I had to stay
strong for my mom and my siblings. I kept busy taking care of "things," and stuffed
the pain and loss into the depths of my being. Not even when I was alone would I take it out and work through it. Then it became worst, a fond or beautiful
memory of him would turn painful as all I could remember was that day in the morgue. I
made a choice in that moment that I would look for tools and actions that would
help me to celebrate, love, and remember Jacob while being able to let the
grief, pain, and loss go. Even writing this, I’m remembering his smile, the curls
in his hair as a little boy, his ability to make me laugh, and the way he could
dance. That day in the morgue has become just a fact in his death and never
overrides the memory of all the good stuff anymore.
Good tools and a series of small and thoughtful choices made
by a griever can support recovery from loss. I found the Grief Recovery Method
and my art practice invaluable in this process. With these tools and actions, recovery
becomes the ability to feel better, to find new meaning for living, enjoying
fond memories while also being able to work with ones that might not be. Most importantly,
recovery is acknowledging that it is perfectly all right to feel sad from time
to time and to talk about those feelings no matter how those around you react. Recovering
from a loss is not as easy task. Taking the actions that lead to recovery will
require your attention, open-mindedness, willingness, and courage.
Do you want to go deeper?
Recovery from loss is achieved by a series of small and
correct choices made by the Griever.
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I’ll be here when you are ready.
