When Olympian gymnast John Orozco made it onto the US Olympics team after recovering from an Achilles tendon injury and, more importantly, the loss of his mother, he wept openly with a mixture of joy and profound grief. We can’t know whether he was trying to suppress his tears, but they flowed freely and he made no apology for them. I was moved by his emotion, of course, but also grateful that he appeared to weep unabashedly and free from shame.
Not many men can do the same. I have been honored and fortunate to be in the presence of men crying on a regular basis. As a volunteer facilitator for a grief support group, I see men seeking support after the loss of their children, spouses, or other loved ones. Although a few manage to suppress their tears, most of the men weep, and almost all of them apologize for crying like a child. Fortunately, other men who have experienced a traumatic loss are quick to offer a reassuring, “Don’t worry, I’ve spent many hours crying my eyes out, too” or something similar.
It is disappointing, though, to learn how many men do not feel comfortable crying in front of their own families and partners. I hear stories of men crying in the middle of the night or in cars, closets, and bathrooms. Some men schedule time to let their tears flow as they try to put on a brave, unemotional face for the world.
I wish I could say their efforts were unwarranted, but too many men have been criticized for their tears. One distraught father who lost his son to suicide told me people at the funeral told him to “pull himself together” for his family. Other men tell of supporting their wives through extended fits of wailing only to receive a cold shoulder when they break down. Often, I hear laments along these lines. “I know I’m a strong person. I have to be strong. But this is too much. Is there nowhere I can get support?”
It is commonly held, even by some therapists, that men naturally grieve differently from women. Allegedly, men process their emotions through actions rather than emotional purging. Men may bury themselves in work, start organizations in the name of the deceased, build monuments, or fight for legal changes to prevent future deaths. Of course, many men do this, and so do women, but this does not mean that men’s biology prevents them from accessing their tears. Men and women both grieve through actions and tears.
If anything prevents men from grieving openly, it is social prohibition, not biology. Whether you are a man or a woman, please know that most men are capable of crying, need to cry, and should not be ashamed of their grief or their tears. If you need to support a man in mourning, please let him cry. If you are a man in mourning, please follow the example of John Orozco and cry without shame or apology. You are not crying like a baby; you are crying like a man.
Over the years, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time discussing anger, apologies, and forgiveness with therapists and survivors of child abuse and other traumas. Survivors and therapists alike are often passionate in the their belief that forgiveness is the only way to move forward from traumatic abuse. Without forgiveness, they feel, healing is impossible.
Having a typically transactional view of forgiveness, I always held that it makes no sense to forgive when there is no acknowledgment of wrongdoing on the part of the abuser. Asking a survivor to forgive unilaterally and unconditionally is bereft of meaning at best and morally repugnant at worst. Only if the abuser were to apologize and make some effort at amends, at least, could I see then extending forgiveness to the abuser, and I would consider this a charitable act on the part of the survivor.
Others have hastened to tell me that such an exchange is not necessary. They insist that unconditional forgiveness, freely given, is more meaningful and more liberating to survivors than the transactional form of forgiveness. Besides, they say, forgiveness is cleansing and is, indeed, the only way for survivors to rid themselves of the burden of intense and destructive anger.
I have always countered that it is possible to put anger aside without offering forgiveness to someone undeserving and unrepentant. Choosing a somewhat less emotional and inflammatory example, I can point out that I once had a moderately expensive lawnmower stolen from me. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it certainly made me angry. The thief was not caught and, I assume, never suffered any pangs of guilt for the crime. Over time, I was able to get on with my life, though I still remember it 30 years later. I decided to stop dwelling on it and get over it, so I tried to stop thinking about it and focus on things that could improve my life.
My interlocutors quickly countered that losing a lawnmower is nothing like the pain of having your innocence robbed (some described it as theft of a child’s “soul”). I am quick to agree, but I see it as a difference in degree, not kind, and I still cannot see how offering forgiveness to a remorseless abuser can aid healing.
My view was bolstered by the work and words of Alice Miller, the famed psychoanalyst and child advocate who died in 2010. In her 1991 book, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, Miller writes, “Forgiving has negative consequences, not only for the individual, but for society at large, because it means disguising destructive opinions and attitudes, and involves drawing a curtain across reality so that we cannot see what is taking place behind it.” Instead, she tells us, “Survivors of mistreatment need to discover their own truth if they are to free themselves of its consequences. The effort spent on the work of forgiveness leads them away from this truth.”
By Robin Holland – Photo file provided by Robin Holland
third way of viewing anger and forgiveness. Nussbaum agrees that therapists should not force forgiveness, but she offers a more nuanced and philosophically grounded way of viewing the work of anger and the way forward from even extreme wrongs and injustices.
While many philosophers have ignored or dismissed the moral relevance of the emotions, others such as Aristotle have noted the importance of anger to a good life. While anger is a negative emotion, it has benefits for people seeking to flourish in life. Namely, anger is said to enable us to recognize injustice when it occurs and then motivate us to action to correct the wrongs inflicted on innocent parties. For Aristotle, anger occurs when someone’s status is lowered without good cause. Indeed, an attack on one’s character or social rank is likely to provoke anger and, in many cases, a wish for revenge. Nussbaum notes that revenge has few or no practical or moral benefits. Other than a temporary sense of satisfaction, payback accomplishes nothing of importance for us.
But if payback isn’t a useful result of anger, then perhaps contrition, apology, and forgiveness are necessary components of a moral and flourishing life. Most of us have grown up in a culture that stresses the importance of apologies and forgiveness for wrongs. Nussbaum traces ancient Jewish and Christian (primarily) texts dealing with the role of forgiveness. The most familiar form is transactional—if someone reduces the status of someone else, the perpetrator shows remorse and asks forgiveness. When the wronged party bestows forgiveness, the proper ranking of the parties is restored, and justice, it seems, is served.
Of course, contrition and apologies are not always forthcoming. Sometimes the perpetrator is simply stubborn and sometimes the perpetrator is no longer alive. This is often the case for survivors of child abuse. In the absence of an apology many therapists, as noted above, advise survivors to offer unconditional forgiveness. This kind of forgiveness is said to release the victim from the shackles of anger and enable a flourishing life to happen. Of course, contrarians such as Alice Miller claim this type of forgiveness traps survivors in a life-long lie that destroys them emotionally.
Nussbaum recognizes these challenges and takes a different approach. She offers several examples of people who move forward without offering forgiveness but in a more positive way than Alice Miller would likely think possible. In the example of the Prodigal Son, the son returns to his father to be greeted with open arms. Although the son has behaved quite badly, his father thinks only of the future with his son and not the past (his other son is not quite so ready to embrace his wayward brother). It is the focus on the future that makes all the difference for Nussbaum.
In an even more painful and poignant example, she describes a father from Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, whose daughter becomes an addict and kills several people. The father finds his daughter and realizes he is helpless to change what she has done or her future prospects. He does all that he can do. He loves her and stays with her. Nussbaum says, “There is no apology, and there’s really no question of forgiveness on the agenda, whether conditional or unconditional. There’s just painful unconditional love.”
When anger is useful, Nussbaum says it is useful as a transition from a wrong to a focus on a better future. In the transition, someone would say in anger, “That’s outrageous! Something must be done to prevent this in the future!” Nussbaum applies this model in three realms: the intimate, the middle (public), and the political (social) realm. Simply because of my interest and background, I found her discussion of the intimate realm the most interesting and compelling.
In the middle, or public, realm, I think most of us realize our anger at strangers is rarely helpful. Minor wrongs (e.g., someone cutting in line at the grocery store) are best forgotten as quickly as possible. More serious wrongs are a matter for law enforcement and the court system. Being consumed with anger is only a form of self-torture.
In the political realm, though, anger is said to be a great motivator toward justice, and surely anger has propelled many social movements to success. Again, though, Nussbaum warns that it is easy to get caught up in concern for revenge or payback rather than creating a better world. After great harms, we need to focus on truth and reconciliation, not punishment. Indeed, the most successful social movements have focused on the future and not redressing wrongs.
Nussbaum sees Nelson Mandela as an exemplary role model for looking to the future rather than the past in response to injustice. She says, “Mandela frames the entire question in forward-looking pragmatic terms, as a question of getting the other party to do what you want. He then shows that this task is much more feasible if you can get the other party to work with you rather than against you. Progress is impeded by the other party’s defensiveness and self-protection.”
For years, I have had difficulty clearly delineating exactly what I found problematic with our accepted model of anger and forgiveness. Nussbaum has provided a welcome bit of clarity for a universal yet surprisingly complex human problem. Realistically, we will not be able to let go of useless anger and focus only on transitional anger, but at least we have a better target. When we do succeed it will be because we rely on another human emotion—love.
As a child, I grew up in a culture defined by rampant sexism, racism, and homophobia. While I now realize many of the people around me were gay, they were invisible to me at the time. At least, their sexuality was invisible to me. As a teenager, I made an intellectual decision that everyone had a right to equal dignity and expression. Living in a seemingly homogeneous society, though, I didn’t have the opportunity to experience my own implicit biases until later.
I strongly defended the rights of gay people to live, work, love, and express their lovepublicly, but my reaction to actual gay lives was untested. I was probably a bit too comfortable with myself and my choice for equality, for the first time I saw two men kissing, I was horrified to find that I looked away with feelings of discomfort and perhaps even disgust. I was then filled with shame for the latent feelings I obviously had, but I did my best to not turn away.
Over time, I was lucky enough to find many gay friends and to experience their love and affection in ways that seemed perfectly natural because they were perfectly natural. I’m sure I still have many implicit biases, and I keep trying to overcome them all, but at least now I can usually deal with people kissing with no internal conflict. (As I age, I have become painfully aware that many young people feel the same disgust when they see older people kissing.)
Unfortunately, many people react to a man crying in the same way I initially reacted to men kissing men—they turn away in discomfort or even disgust. It is widely assumed that it is men who are disgusted by other men crying (and I’m sure some are), but famed vulnerability researcher Brene Brown found that it is more often women who can’t accept men’s vulnerability. Obviously, being vulnerable means much more than just crying, but I would like to say that I think crying is really the single behavior that sets people stomachs to churning.
We find crying so shameful, in fact, that we often call it “being vulnerable” in order to avoid saying the word “crying.” I don’t mean this to be a criticism of researchers’ use of the word “vulnerability” while they discuss men’s emotional health. Rather, I mean to suggest that the rest of us have adopted the word “vulnerability” as a way of avoiding discussion of crying. Often we will only say that a man “was vulnerable,” because to say that he was “openly sobbing” would be to rob him of his dignity and bring shame to him. Paradoxically, by trying to protect him from judgment, we reinforce the judgment that all men face for being weak, sad, or emotional.
I should qualify that last statement. We don’t judge men so much for being emotional as we judge them for what particular emotions they express. Crying is acceptable for women and girls, but anger is reserved for boys and men. If a man loses his son or father, for example, he may seek revenge in various ways, and he is often honored for doing so, especially if the death was caused by malice or negligence.
Historically, revenge frequently took the form of actual violence, and vengeful violence has certainly not disappeared, but revenge can also take the form of lawsuits, public shaming campaigns, and other legal and socially acceptable forms. But the man who falls into a deep depression or cries uncontrollably for an extended period will face criticism. I once talked to a father who was told he needed to “get it together” at his own son’s funeral.
We pretend that men aren’t in touch with their feelings or that men are incapable of expressing their feelings. If these things are true, it is only because we have conditioned men to suppress their feelings through our own reactions of disgust. Boys are taught in their first months out of the womb that crying is unacceptable. The result is that men must either destroy themselves or destroy those around them in order to process their own feelings.
The price we pay is that the men we are around are emotionally drained, stressed to the breaking point, and prone to anger and destruction over empathy and connection. Of course, this is an oversimplification and is an exaggerated statement of what happens. We all know well-balanced men who are nurturing and emotionally connected. Some men are lucky that their lives have not burdened them with too much grief and sadness. Other men have, in spite of social programming, been lucky to find people who accept them and their emotions. And, finally, some men have the fortitude to find effective means of self-care.
Still, we can and should work to remove the shame and stigma from male weakness, and that begins with removing disgust from the sight of male tears. How do we do it?
Don’t turn away. If a man is crying in your presence, do not avert your gaze. Continue to look at him and let him know that you are with him, free from judgment.
If you are a man, openly discuss your own tears with both women and men. When we remove our own shame, the disgust of others cannot affect us.
Stop saying, “boys don’t cry” to anyone, especially a child. Boys hear this almost as soon as people start talking to them. Support the full emotional range of boys.
Stop mocking male tears. Some feminists seem to feel that making fun of male emotions is an acceptable response to centuries of male tyranny, but mocking male tears is a sure way to help perpetuate misogyny and the oppression of women.
Create safe spaces for men. Men need opportunities to talk to other men about crying and weakness. Men need to let one another know that crying is not weakness. You can take care of your family, be a protector, or be a warrior and still take time to cry.
Recognize the varied experiences of men. Adult men are often victims of childhood abuse whether it be physical, emotional, or sexual. Men are victims of domestic violence and abuse. While physical violence is a reality for many men, emotional battery is even more common. The victimization of men is not a joke, so please stop laughing at it.
Many men will reject my suggestions as being absurd and will suggest I should just “man up.” I ask those men to remember those words the next time, and it will happen, they are struggling to force back the knot forming in their throats as they build a dam against the tears threatening to break forth. Whether we choke the tears back successfully or not, the damage is done. We still feel the shame and disgust. We feel devalued and demoralized by our own natural emotions. We can be free and we can be whole. We just have to come out and be honest about what and who we are.
We are offering a workshop on the ethics of grief on Friday, Dec. 4, from 9 a.m. till noon. We will be exploring proper responses to grieving clients. Most therapists accept the dictum that “There is no wrong way to grieve,” but we will look at extreme cases such as homicide and self-destruction and search for the “bright line” between good and bad grief. We will then ask whether “bad grief” is unethical or merely unhealthy. We will examine the ethical response to “bad grief” and explore whether men and women should respond to grief differently.
The workshop is open to anyone, but we offer 3 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, and Licensed Clinical Social Workers.
The cost is $25.00.
For more information, write randall@ethicsbeyondcompliance.com
My wife and I recently led a discussion on the ethics of grief with a group of psychotherapists. Wishing to challenge the claim that there is no wrong way to grieve, I asked the group to consider boundaries they would place on proper and improper grieving. For the most part, they were a cooperative group, but they were certainly reluctant to declare any way of grieving to be unethical or wrong. Sometimes our conditioning is strong. When the workshop was over, one of the participants asked me what sorts of grieving I think are unethical or inappropriate.
My answer is really simple. I think you are clearly grieving unethically if you let your personal pain compel you to hurt others. I also think you are grieving unethically if you let your personal pain compel you to hurt yourself, but I don’t think that claim is so obvious as the first one.
Some examples:
Homicidal rage—I’m not saying this happens often, but someone overcome with grief who goes on a killing spree is acting unethically for sure. After Ivan López opened fire at Ft. Hood military base, killing three and wounding 16 others before killing himself, friends speculated that it was a reaction to grief over his mother’s death.
Lying and cheating—In her book, Wild, Cheryl Strayed described the emotional turmoil she experienced in the wake of her mother’s death. In her agony, she turned to casual sexual relationships and substance abuse for comfort, tearing apart her marriage and leading her to lie to her husband and other family members. She eventually found better means of coping, of course, but she still regrets the pain and harm she caused those who loved her.
Alcohol and other drugs— The philosopher, Bertrand Russell, took a fairly standard Stoic response to grief, saying it is acceptable to grieve so long as it is not to excess. He says we should distract ourselves from our grief with other pursuits, so long as they are not harmful to us. In his words: “I do not of course deny that a man may be broken by sorrow, but I do say that every man should do his utmost to escape this fate, and should seek any distraction, however trivial, provided it is not in itself harmful or degrading. Among those that I regard as harmful and degrading I include such things as drunkenness and drugs, of which the purpose is to destroy thought, at least for the time being.” Self-harm is harm, and we do have ethical obligations to care for ourselves.
Demanding but not offering emotional support—Many people repeat an unsubstantiated claim that most parents who lose a child will divorce within a year of the child’s death. This claim is not substantiated by any sort of study and seems to be more intuition than anything else. Nonetheless, it is true that some people who are overcome by grief are unable to provide emotional support to others even though they are receiving and expecting emotional support from those same family members or friends. It is a special kind of cruelty to ask someone in the vice-grip of unimaginable grief to provide emotional comfort and support while being left to drown in sorrow alone and adrift. If you find yourself overwhelmed by grief and unable to provide support to the rest of your family, please help them or at least permit them to find other sources of support. If you can’t provide what they need, at least do not become an obstacle to their mental health and comfort.
Anyone who has grieved has probably felt judged for his or her style of grief. As a result, we rush to say that there is no wrong way to grieve, but this bold (and wrong) assertion prevents us from having discussions about the correct ways to grieve. When our grieving causes harm to others or ourselves, it is not merely unhealthy—it is unethical.
A conversation about ethical grieving is worth having, and we can have it without shaming those who are suffering from grief. We can improve our own grieving and our reactions to grief if we can establish an ethics of grief that seeks a path to greater collaboration, greater care, and greater health. Grief will never be easy, and it will always come with risks, but an open conversation can help us avoid its worst effects.
While philosophers seem to thrive on conflict and would really have nothing to say at all without substantial disagreements, they are remarkably consistent on how to respond to death, dying, and loss. Most recently, I have turned to the work of Al-Kindi , who lived from about 801 to 866 in Baghdad, for advice on how to respond to grief. Al-Kindi gives us the example of the mother of Alexander the Great.
As his death approached, Alexander wrote to his mother to prepare her for the loss of her child. As Al-Kindi tells it, Alexander said, “Do not be content with having the character of the petty mother of kings: order the construction of a magnificent city when you receive the news [of the death] of Alexander!” Everyone in Africa, Europe, and Asia should be invited to a great celebration of his life with one proviso, that anyone struck my similar misfortune should not come. After his death, his mother was mystified that no one obeyed and attended the funeral until someone pointed out to her that no one had ever escaped the type of misfortune she was experiencing and those with similar losses were told not to come.
Al-Kindi says Alexander’s mother exclaimed, “O, Alexander! How much your end resembles your beginning! You had wanted to console me in the perfect way for the misfortune of your death.” This story of consolation is similar to the Buddhist parable of Kisa Gotami who lost her young son and was advised by the Buddha to collect a mustard seed from every family that had not lost a close relative. Of course, she was unable to find any family that had not faced loss, so she realized her suffering was universal and took comfort in the teachings of Buddhism.
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, himself influenced by Buddhist texts, also points us to the suffering of others for comfort: “The most effective consolation in every misfortune and every affliction is to observe others who are more unfortunate than we, and everyone can do this. But what does that say for the condition of the whole?” Indeed, the suffering of others may make us feel petty for our complaints, but it does little to relieve our pessimism about life. But maybe we just cling to life too tenaciously.
Al-Kindi tells us that all our possessions are only on loan to us and that “the Lender has the right to take back what He loaned and to do so by the hand of whomever he wants.” He says we should not see our loss as a sign of disgrace; rather, “the shame and disgrace for us is to feel sad whenever the loans are taken back.” He is speaking of possessions in this instance, not of children, but I’ve heard many people say that our children are only “on loan” from God, who can call them home at any moment. I personally have never found any comfort in this, and I wonder whether anyone has ever felt the brunt of loss softened by the thought of a merciful God calling in His loans.
No matter what happens, Al-Kindi tells us we should never be sad, as sadness is not necessary and “whatever is not necessary, the rational person should neither think about nor act on, especially if it is harmful or painful.” Many philosophers echo this sentiment. We should trust that God has created the world that is perfect according to God’s design; therefore, we should accept the vicissitudes of life with equanimity. This advice is almost universally dispensed and almost universally not followed for a simple reason: sadness is really an involuntary reaction to loss and pain.
Al-Kindi tells us the death is not an evil, because if there were no death, there would be no people. By extension, if what is thought to be the greatest evil, death, is not evil, then anything thought to be less evil than death is also not evil. As such, we have no evil to fear in our lives. From these assertions, Al-Kindi claims that we bring sorrow to ourselves of our own will. A rational person would not choose such a form of self-harm, so depression and mourning can be controlled through the proper exercise of reason.
Most ancient philosophers, and many contemporary ones, will tell us that letting our rational nature rule our emotional nature will ease our pain in the face of loss. Certainly, a rational examination of death, life, and loss helps us to make sense of our suffering, but it does not eliminate suffering. In fact, if you see grief as a moral failing, which many thinkers have said it is, I believe your suffering is compounded. Grief, hard enough to bear on its own, becomes a catalyst for an explosion of guilt and shame.
While it is important to examine the causes of our suffering and explore what meaning loss brings to our lives, denying the necessity of grief is as useless as denying the necessity of breathing. While I can accept that Al-Kindi’s description of death is accurate, it only helps me come to terms with the prospect of losing my own life. For each of us, our own death brings a promise of relief, but the death of our loved ones only brings relief when they are so burdened by suffering that we can no longer bear to see life oppressing them.
Death is still an evil, because it robs me of the people that make my life meaningful. It threatens to rob me of the people, indeed, who may make my life bearable. It is possible to imagine that death is not an evil, but, more importantly, we must recognize that love is certainly a good, and to lose those we love is an excellent reason to mourn. Mourn freely, I say, without guilt and without shame.
The following is an actual dream (nightmare) I had. As far as I know, it doesn’t mean anything. I have no idea why Peter Singer was in it, but I only wish him good health and safe travels.
I am crossing riotous waters on a suspended steel walking bridge composed of steel cables with metal planks bolted to them on either side. As I walk, a storm moves in quickly and pelts me with blinding rain that makes footing unsure. As my feet slip on the metal planks, the planks begin to come undone and slide off the cables. I am forced to cling to the cables and pull myself up onto the loading dock on the far side of the bridge.
As I take cover under an overhang on the dock, I see Peter Singer in a white cargo van on an elevated roadway or ramp of some kind. To my horror, he drives off the ramp and crashes nose first onto the concrete dock below. The van is badly mangled and I fear he is dead. I think to call 911 but realize my phone is in the van. Just then, he pops through the broken glass of the van like a jack-in-the-box and says, “Well, that was lucky!” in a comic fashion to the sound of laugh track laughter. Before I can feel any relief, he collapses and appears dead.
I walk to the nearest person (the dock seems crowded with rubberneckers now) and ask, “Did you call 911?” She says, “Well, HE won’t call!” [More laugh track.] Finally, I am overwhelmed and start to walk away. I hear a voice call after me, “I’m sorry. Did you know him?” [More laugh track.] I say, “No, but I’ve been reading his books for decades.” [Laugh track.]
The voice replies, “I know what you mean. It takes me a long time to get through a book, too.”
The following is the recollection of a woman in middle age reflecting on her father’s illness and death some years earlier. I’ve heard many people from the UK who express similar gratitude for the NHS.
Memory is not my strong point. I say that because, when someone is dying, memory can get fuzzy anyway and I will remember some things about my Dad’s dying and death clearly and some things less so.
I guess Dad’s illness became most obvious about a year before he died. I can’t remember whether I knew it was Myelodysplasia – MDS (a form of leukemia in which the bone marrow does not function normally and produces insufficient number of normal blood cells ). What I do remember is that he started to feel tired and listless and started to have regular blood transfusions, at first once a month, then once every two weeks and finally weekly (and it could have even been more often). This trek to the hospital for the transfusions was quite a burden for him and for Mum. I was living 200 miles away at the time so heard about it in our weekly phone calls. Mum would tell me how he was doing. It seemed at first that everything was under control and there was nothing really to worry about. Life went on.
I think the first time I began to realize that something was really wrong was when I went home for a visit and saw the weight Dad was losing and how his mood was really affected by the illness. He was irritable, not his usual cheerful self. Someone had come to visit, a neighbor who, if I remember right, was also going through some illness himself. I remember Dad only being able to tolerate a very few minutes of the social interaction before he had to give his apologies and go back to bed because he was so tired. I think this was a shock to me. This had to be about 6 months in.
I tried to visit more often of course, but a life in another city and a busy job kept me from doing so. I would hear in more regular phone calls with Mum about Dad’s slow deterioration. I marvel at the fact that the intense regime of transfusions and the treatments associated with them were free to Dad – a function of the British National Health Service (NHS). Over their years of working Mum and Dad had contributed their National Insurance contributions and now the NHS was doing what is was supposed to do – support them in their hour of need. Unlike here in the US, my parents never had a moment of worry about having to pay for the treatment – a true blessing at a time when any extra worry would have been overwhelming.
I learned later that Mum really knew what was happening, despite downplaying the seriousness to us (adult) children. I also learned later from her that she had tried to talk to Dad about the inevitable end point that she knew was coming – his imminent death, but, either because of his fear or discomfort for both of them in talking about such a taboo subject, she couldn’t get him to talk to her until a few days before his death and then only briefly. My heart aches for the lack of this conversation, and I tear up now imagining what more discussions could have meant to them both.
Over the months, I think I had been hearing the stress in Mum’s voice and came to see them more often. However, she never asked for help – a Northern British trait if ever there was one. The first time she did tell me she needed me to come was on the day of the General Election in May of 1997. I will never forget that day. I was volunteering for the Labour Party that day, taking numbers at the polling station. Mum and I talked and she finally told me that she feared the worst – would I come? I, of course, said yes. I stayed up to watch Michael Portillo lose his seat and got on the earliest train home the next morning.
When I arrived at home, I remember the stress, grief and fear that I encountered in Mum. I also remember seeing Dad, in bed, so tired, exhausted and drained. And thin, stick thin. A shock to me after not seeing him for a few weeks. That afternoon, the doctor came (yes, a home visit – a rarity these days). Dad had also been tended to by the District Nurse (as a side note, my recollection was that he had been looked after by Macmillan Nurses – an amazing free service via the Macmillan Cancer Support charity in the UK. In later conversations with Mum for this article, she reminded me that although they had applied for this help, everything happened so fast in those last days that Dad died before she got their help). All of us, the doctor, the nurse, myself and Mum sat outside in the garden on the afternoon of 2nd May. I remember that scene so very clearly. I remember the doctor telling us about Dad’s condition and how he had deteriorated. I remember asking the doctor directly “How long does he have? Days? Weeks? Months?” I remember the doctor telling us that we should prepare for Dad’s death in the next hours and days. It’s hard to convey to those who haven’t experienced this kind of interaction what a profoundly awful, sad and gut-wrenching feeling is engendered by this information. I think that’s why I remember it so vividly still today, 17 years later. There is something good about knowing this though, of course. It gave us just a little time to prepare.
So, with that time, Mum and I contacted my brother and sister who made plans to come straight away. That night I told Mum I would spend the night with Dad to give her some rest. In hindsight I don’t really know whether I regret that decision or not. It was probably one of the most traumatic and harrowing times of my life. I won’t go into details here but suffice to say that Dad was hallucinating on morphine and coming in and out of rational thought. It was a powerful and devastating experience, for both of us.
On Saturday my sister made it in the morning. She spent some time with Dad and then Mum and us girls made it through the day. Dad was in bed, still gravely ill but hanging on. What I now believe is that he hung on determinedly and staved off death until my brother made it home in the late afternoon. What an amazing gift he gave us for us all to be together at this profound moment. All of us were downstairs a couple of hours after he arrived and I heard a noise upstairs. Mum and I went to check on Dad and sat with him a while. Then he died. Once more, it’s hard to convey the gravity of this experience. I was so glad we were with him to hold his hand and let him know that he was loved as he journeyed out of this world. Once his spirit was gone and his body remained, we all as a family spent time with him, in his own bed, sitting with him, drinking whiskey and sharing tears and memories. The doctor and funeral directors came later that night and he was truly gone, spiritually and physically. To be honest much of these activities are a blur to me now.
I suppose the reason for putting all of this down on paper is partly to remember that time and have a record so that it’s noted in this span of life when I can still recall some details. Another reason is to remark on my experience of how terminally ill people are supported and cared for in England. Mum will have her own experiences of the National Health Service treatment leading up to this final time. From what I remember it was supportive. My sister reminded me that it wasn’t all great and that sometimes Dad would be waiting on a trolley until he could get a place in a ward and that this experience made him determined to die at home. However, what I do clearly remember is the warmth, care, attention and dedication of the healthcare providers I encountered. And, what I also remember is that all of this amazing care was free at the point it was needed. No-one in this story had to have the additional stress of worrying about which treatments were covered by health insurance. No-one had to worry about co-pays or debt because of the treatment my Dad had to have. No-one had to have the additional stress of worrying about bankruptcy if things weren’t covered. I know the NHS has it’s problems – it did back then and it does now. But, even though problems exist, the fundamental principles of the NHS: that it meet the needs of everyone; that it be free at the point of delivery; that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay substantially helped my family to experience leukemia diagnosis, treatment and ultimately death in the best and least stressful way possible. I hope you’re listening America.
When I was fifteen years old, my 25-year-old uncle died in a fire
While some older adults had feared for his well being for some time, his death was sudden, unexpected, and extremely traumatic for me. In times of grief, we all experience mixed emotions, but I was overwhelmed by feelings of confusion and isolation.
In the days following his death, my time was spent among both close and distant relatives in the home of my grandparents. When people interacted with me at all, it was generally to tell me to give comfort to someone else (“Go hug your grandfather.” “Hold your grandmother’s hand.”). I did my best, and I got through it. I had been to funerals before, but this was the first time I was so close to the deceased and so aware of the judgments of the people attending the funeral and receptions at the home later. Someone, usually a woman, didn’t cry enough or dared to wear pants to a funeral. Someone else, usually a man, fell to pieces and couldn’t keep it together. Certain friends should not have dared to show their faces, and others had no excuse for not coming. Or so it was stated by the chorus of judgment and scorn.
I tried my best to assimilate funeral normativity, but it really didn’t make sense to me. Years later, I cried at my grandfather’s funeral. This seemed a reasonable to me, and I didn’t predict being judged for it. After the funeral, one of my relatives asked me what I did for a living. I told her I was a writer. She said, “I knew you must be some kind of sensitive artist or something.” So much for the freedom to openly grieve for a close relative at his funeral. Do women face this kind of judgment?
But men who do not express emotions openly aren’t free from judgment or consequences, either. Kenneth Doka, an expert of grief counseling, said in an interview, ‘We do a strange thing with grieving styles. I always say we disenfranchise instrumental grievers early in the process. “What’s wrong with this person? Why isn’t he crying?”’ The man who manages his grief by working through it with projects, helping others, and so on is ignored. The man who emotes openly is criticized. Doka points out that more emotive grievers are penalized later (Why isn’t she over it yet?).
My uncle’s funeral may be when I first developed my revulsion at smug hypocrisy and self-righteous pity. I can remember one aunt declaring, loudly, “Well, if his death had anything to do with drugs, I just don’t want to know about it. That is not what is important now.” And this may also be when I first became aware of paradox. If she believed what she said, she would not have said it, and if she said it, she obviously didn’t believe it. (And a lifelong love of philosophy is born.) Anyway, I also developed my own sense of righteous indignation toward people who couldn’t offer condolences without poking people with daggers in the process.
In my first experience with traumatic grief, the people I would normally turn to for emotional support were all overwhelmed emotionally and intellectually. I don’t blame or resent anyone for it, but I was alone with my grief and my first experiences with this kind of loss. Shortly thereafter, an acquaintance was killed in a motorcycle accident, and I just never took the continued existence of anyone for granted again. I also accepted grieving as a solitary activity.
The next traumatic loss I experienced was described in an earlier post. My niece and nephew drowned on Mother’s Day (May 10) in 1992. The single most striking feature of this grief experience for me is the memory of many friends, coworkers, and family members coming to me to express their condolences and sincere concern for the suffering and recovery of my ex-wife. People lamented that it must be extremely hard on my wife, and I was admonished to take good care of her, as her suffering must be immense. I tried to do those things, of course, as I tried to manage my own emotions and continue to care for my children (I was an at-home dad at the time) and maintain a functioning household.
During this time, I had thoughts that terrified me and flooded me with shame. I began daydreaming, almost longing, for the death of someone who would be important to no one but me. A death that would bring me the kind of comfort and concern that had been reserved for my ex-wife during what was certainly the most challenging and traumatic event of my life to that point. I was horrified to think that I could wish anyone dead. Of course, no one in the world is important only to me. Everyone I love is loved by others as well. Further, I wouldn’t trade any of my loved ones for “good grieving.” (I will add that one friend in particular stood by me and cared for me throughout.)
The true fantasy, of course, was that someone would step in to help me through my current grief, not that I wanted anyone to die. Still, these thoughts became pervasive and persistent enough to plague me with guilt and interfere even more with my recovery. What I really wanted was to receive the same support I was expected to give. I don’t really want to be the only person in the world being cared for; I just want a reciprocal arrangement. I don’t know whether every man feels the same way, but I know I’m not the only one.
Why is it that being a man is to be sentenced to a life bereft of emotional support? When women say they want to meet a sensitive man, they generally mean they want to meet a man who attends to their emotional needs, not a man who openly expresses his own emotional needs let alone a man openly expresses his emotional frailty.
I dream of a world where grief is not gendered and where masculinity is not marked by solitary sorrow.
This sounds harsh, but Epictetus also advises us not to beat ourselves up when we do give over to grief. He says, “Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.” Epictetus assures us that death is not to be feared, and our terror of it comes from within, but blaming ourselves for our feelings is also pointless.
Cicero, Kopiezeichnung einer Büste aus London (Herzog Wellington) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cicero expressed his gratitude for the comforting words laced with recrimination, but also acknowledged their ineffectiveness, saying, “For I think it a disgrace that I should not bear my loss as you – a man of such wisdom – think it should be borne. But at times I am taken by surprise and scarcely offer any resistance to my grief, because those consolations fail me.”
Cicero had also been writing consolations for himself, and he felt himself the inventor of this type of self-help. He said, “Why, I have done what no one has done before, tried to console myself by writing a book.” (This is quoted by Han Baltussen in the Nov. 2009 issue of Mortality in an essay titled, “A grief observed: Cicero on remembering Tullia.”) Unfortunately, Cicero’s Consolations have not survived the passage of time, so we can only infer what they may have said. In a letter to Titus Pomponius Atticus, Cicero remarked that he wrote in order to heal, but his writing also kept him out of public view, preserving the privacy of his grief and avoiding a vulgar display of emotion.
Cicero also took his turn in consoling others, Baltussen notes, “In the examples where Cicero aims at consoling others, we find a subtle approach, developing, as it were, a ‘philosophy of empathy,’ in which he consciously or unconsciously takes personal and political aspects into account. He shows great sensibility in narrowing or widening the emotional gap between him and the consolee.” Cicero noted that one task as consoler was to establish that he needed consolation himself, as he was grieving for his friend’s loss. I think this goes a little beyond mere empathy. Cicero actually feels his own sorrow upon hearing of the sorrow of a dear friend. He understands the friend’s pain because it is a magnified form of his own pain.
I personally feel that Cicero’s struggle with his grief highlights a social failure to deal with grief constructively. Can we not manage to express and process grief openly without fear of censure from friends and counselors? Since the time of Cicero, we have developed grief therapy, expressions of support for the bereaved, and paid lip service to the process of healing. Yet, we still criticize those who can’t “get it together” within a short time. Sadness is seen as weakness, especially for men, and we do not tolerate prolonged grieving. Cicero was lucky to have friends and the ability to spend time grieving and writing his consolations. Men with less power would have had no option but to keep working without respite.
Grief (Photo credit: tombellart)
As for me, I don’t know the best way to console others, but I’ve thought a little about what kinds of consolations have helped me in the past, and these are the things that I appreciate. First, recognize that my pain is of such a magnitude that it obscures the horizon, and I can’t see beyond it. Second, do acknowledge the enormous value of the life I have lost. Third, do remind me that the person I lost had life filled with wonder, love, accomplishments, and happiness. Fourth, remind me also that this person is in a state of peace with no more struggle, pain, or discontentment. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, assure me that I am not alone in the world, my grief is justified, and that a future is possible.
