Reading Lost Connections by Johann Hari. He speaks to a mother who has lost her daughter and how she copes with the grief.
Far from being irrational, Joanne says, the pain of grief is necessary. “I don’t even want to recover from her death,” she says about her daughter Chayenne. “Staying connected to the pain of her death helps me to do my work with such a full, compassionate heart,” and to live as fully as she can. “I integrated that guilt and shame that I felt, and the betrayal, by serving others,” she said to me, with some of the horses she has rescued running in a field behind her. “So in a way my service to others is how I remunerate—it’s my way of saying sorry to her every day. I’m sorry I did not bring you safely into the world, and because of that I’m going to bring your love into the world.” It made her understand the pain of others in a way she couldn’t before. It “makes me stronger,” she says, “even in my vulnerable places.”
Recently, I called my grand-aunt who I have not spoken to in decades. After losing her young son to cancer, she became a different person and there seemed no way to connect to her at any human level. Her grief was unique and unshared by most of us who sought to comfort her, trying to bring her back to the land of the living. I was too young back then to have the wisdom or the words to offer her any solace- those much older than me did not appear to fare much better either.
When I spoke to her a few weeks ago, she sounded like the person she once was - before her son's untimely death, yet without the love and warmth, she was then been capable of displaying. Her recovery seemed to have restored the facade of the person after the core had been razed to the ground. After hanging up, I felt like my call had been in error. There was still nothing I could do or say that would ease the pain she must still feel every day. It was very illuminating to read of another mother's journey of loss and how she copes with it.
Far from being irrational, Joanne says, the pain of grief is necessary. “I don’t even want to recover from her death,” she says about her daughter Chayenne. “Staying connected to the pain of her death helps me to do my work with such a full, compassionate heart,” and to live as fully as she can. “I integrated that guilt and shame that I felt, and the betrayal, by serving others,” she said to me, with some of the horses she has rescued running in a field behind her. “So in a way my service to others is how I remunerate—it’s my way of saying sorry to her every day. I’m sorry I did not bring you safely into the world, and because of that I’m going to bring your love into the world.” It made her understand the pain of others in a way she couldn’t before. It “makes me stronger,” she says, “even in my vulnerable places.”
Recently, I called my grand-aunt who I have not spoken to in decades. After losing her young son to cancer, she became a different person and there seemed no way to connect to her at any human level. Her grief was unique and unshared by most of us who sought to comfort her, trying to bring her back to the land of the living. I was too young back then to have the wisdom or the words to offer her any solace- those much older than me did not appear to fare much better either.
When I spoke to her a few weeks ago, she sounded like the person she once was - before her son's untimely death, yet without the love and warmth, she was then been capable of displaying. Her recovery seemed to have restored the facade of the person after the core had been razed to the ground. After hanging up, I felt like my call had been in error. There was still nothing I could do or say that would ease the pain she must still feel every day. It was very illuminating to read of another mother's journey of loss and how she copes with it.
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