In Memory of My Brother: Duration of Grief by Joanne Cacciatore

In Memory of John

My brother and I were born 72 years ago on March 25th, 1951. Our birthday is always bittersweet for me, even all these many years after his death. John is always with me and I'm especially conscious of that on our shared birthday, on the anniversary of his death in 1978, on holidays or visits back to our Midwest roots, when I'm standing on the shores of the Pacific Ocean or on the land of our ancestors and childhood homes in Michigan, and many other times.

 

While there is a lot of sadness for me surrounding my twin's life and death, there is also much more than that. My heart smiles as I remember the happy times of John sailing at Orchard Lake or on Lake Saint Clair. There are those memories which bring some balance to the generational and cultural trauma and losses long carried in our family.

 

I am also mindful again and again of the grace and blessings that can ultimately be discovered through the experience of surrendering to the journey of deep grief. And for that I am eternally grateful.

 

This little chapter that I am moved to share today from Joanne Cacciatore's beautiful book speaks to me and to so many others of both the grief and the grace that can emerge even from traumatic deaths. Dr. Jo lost her infant daughter Cheyenne many years ago and ― while her grief continues and always will ― she has also transformed that profound loss into a wealth of wisdom, compassionate action, and love that she shares with countless others.

 

We humans all experience great losses in our lifetimes. And what we do with those losses ― whether or not we constrict and fragment or expand and strengthen our hearts ― is the choice that I believe we all face at different times in our lives. 

 

Perhaps this little chapter will also speak to you. In memory of my beloved brother, I share this today from my heart to yours. 💗

 

With tenderness and love and blessings,

Molly

 

* * * * * 

 

Chapter 30: Duration of Grief

 

"I have faith in nights."

 ― Rainer Maria Rilke 

 

I'm often asked the question about grief's duration.

 

Just this morning I had an email from a sibling grieving a murdered brother who asked, "How long will this take?" 

 

The people who ask me such things are often the newly bereaved or those who deeply care for them, wishing for life to be as it once was. For those grieving, it is impossible to imagine that this peculiar and idiosyncratic pain will ever end, that life will ever be "normal" again, that the tears will run dry. 

And truly things cannot and will not ever be exactly as they were ― because we and our world are changed.

Some claim that it is time that heals, but I see this process a bit differently.

Certainly, time allows some necessary space, a kind of respite, from the despair of early grief. Personally, though, I don't actually feel that my grief has diminished over time.

I can still access the deep, vivid grief of losing Cheyenne.

The idea that grief incrementally weakens by the mere passage of time has not been my truth.

Nor would I want it to be.

It isn't how much time has passed that counts. It's what we ― and others around us ― do with that time.

***

I decided early that i would not be willing to fragment parts of myself in order to make me ― or those around me ― comfortable. And, by allowing myself to be with grief, to bear its weight, to carry it, I have become stronger.

Eventually, I became strong enough to help others carry their grief.

 

If we were to use a 1-10 scale, my grief varies day to day across the whole range, but my capacity to cope is almost always (in recent years) at a 9 or a 10.

It happened like this:

Slowly at first, very slowly I started to stretch and exercise my "grief-bearing muscles" by being with my pain. Carrying such formidable weight, my muscles hurt at first ― almost constantly, they ached and burned with pain ― as my body objected to the new weight I had to carry.

Over time, as I kept stretching, kept lifting grief's weight, I grew stronger and more flexible ― becoming better able to carry grief in all its myriad shape-shifting forms. The weight I needed to bear never changed ― only my ability to carry it.

I wanted to adapt to the weight rather than having to overcome it, to force healing, or to be at war with my grief or myself.

And through such adaption, my heart has grown bigger, and my capacity to learn from and transform suffering has also enlarged.

Even so, I would gladly give back my newfound strength and flexibility to have Cheyenne. And yet, the other side of that truth is that decades later I am more whole today than I would have been without having known and loved my daughter.

 

***

Those we love deeply who have died are part of our identity, they are a part of our biography.

 

We feel that love in the marrow of our bones. 

There is a lingering call to remember them that, though sometimes muted by the chaos of the world, never fades away. When we dismiss that call, the cost to ourselves is fragmentation and disconnection, and the cost to society is an emotional impoverishment that ignores grief and causes it to be reborn into self-and-other. Seeking to live without grief, we diminish our ability to feel truly content.

Turning toward the shattered pieces of our selves, choosing to stand in the pain, is a serious responsibility. When we remember our beloved dead, we bridge the gap of space and time between us and them and bring them back into the whole of our reality.

Particularly when life has regained a tempo of comfort, surrendering to grief is an act of necessary courage.

 

― Joanne Cacciatore 

From Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and

the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

 

https://www.amazon.com/Bearing-Unbearable-Love-Heartbreaking-Grief/dp/1614292965