​EVERY STEP YOUR TAKE

Grief is shared; the journey is personal.

 
Wisdom Wherever You Find It
 
Grief is shared; the journey is personal.    Ann Moline
 
The people I love have had more than their share of grief this year. Looking at the concentric circles of family, friends, and acquaintances, I am stunned by just how crowded the road of bereavement has become. I have shared before that our sweet baby grandson Oliver succumbed to complications of necessary surgery just hours before the murderous atrocities that befell Israelis at home and on holiday, which in turn preceded the deaths of other civilians cynically used as human shields to protect the terrorist perpetrators.
 
(Please don’t argue my terminology. Frame it as you choose or choose to stop reading.)
 
Of course, death and other kinds of loss are part and parcel of living, so each of us must find a way to travel that road from devastation to recovery. The circumstances of any death resonate differently for each survivor. For some it is profound sadness, for others, white-hot anger. The “stages of grief” include denial and bargaining and guilt and even some level of acceptance and rationalization. All of them flow from a common point: any death reminds us that we are not in control of our world. And, wow, do we want to be.
 
It has been ten years since I retired from the day-to-day responsibilities of serving a synagogue as the rabbi, and during the thirty-five years preceding I walked the path of bereavement with hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals. The very first funeral for which I was individually responsible was for a twenty-one-year-old son of strangers who became immediate confidants. I was clueless about guiding them, filled with book-learning and a ritual checklist. They had lost their golden child. I wasn’t much older myself, yet they relied on me to show them how to continue on the path their child would never again travel. They were not people of faith when their son got sick, and though they fervently prayed for his recovery, they had little belief that they could cajole God into a miracle. The parts of their souls that were bound up with his were filled with the magnitude of their loss; they joined my synagogue (the first to which they ever belonged) because they felt I represented the continuation of their son’s legacy. When my career took me to another city, they retreated to the loneliness of his empty bedroom.
 
Many years later, I shepherded another stranger through the decline and death of her beloved father who had lived in my community for his entire adult life, more than sixty years. By then, I was more familiar with the nuance of individual grief. But I was unprepared when she informed me the day before the funeral that the burial would be in a different city, and I was unable to officiate. Her fury was uncontained; she had been abandoned twice in two days. My attentions and sympathies were irrelevant. I never heard from her again – though the leadership of the synagogue did, at volume.
 
I have navigated my own losses along with others’ whom I have accompanied. The more times I have done so, the fewer pieces of advice I offer, even when asked. For all the fellow travelers on the journey through grief, it is only the grief we share. I have tried not to make the mistake of persuading myself – let alone them – that I know how they feel.
 
This past fall that road was more crowded than I ever recall. Other tragedies have produced multiple casualties and other casualties have been just as close to me. But somehow the personal nature of the grief for those around me has generated an intensity that has demanded amplification rather than empathy. We are all grieving, but the grief is not enough this time. We are looking for validation for our reactions, as if the sadness is not sad enough or the anger is not angry enough without the tears and shouts of those around us. And sometimes, God help us, we want others to suffer as we are, as if it will bring some measure of comfort and satisfaction.
 
Here’s the truth: grief is shared, but the journey is personal. And by personal, I mean lonely. We gain nothing by pretending otherwise, and when we do, we squander the opportunity for comfort, however small, that sharing our grief provides.