"All Our Losses / All Our Griefs" Chapter One

Chapter One: The Pervasiveness of Loss and Grief

Experiences that evoke grief are both more frequent and more varied than most people imagine. The death of a person one loves is such an obvious occasion of grief that many people have come to think of it as the only such occasion. The result of that misunderstanding is that many people have experienced lengthened suffering from unrecognized grief.

Our first task in this book is to explore the genesis of grief: to understand what can cause grief and how that cause has its roots in childhood experience. We begin the exploration with several vignettes, each a tale of grief triggered by a significant loss, but none having to do directly with the death of a loved person. 

"All Our Losses / All Our Griefs" by Mitchell & Anderson

The authors then lay out for us three short vignette's. One covers a man returning to his old hometown to find everything changed and that his old friends don't recognize him any longer.

The second covers a man who is promoted out of a job he loves and into one he dislikes. He is also transferred from a smaller city to a much larger city.

The third involves a Church in need of a new building but a church which has a strong historical and personal attachment to their current building.

This first chapter is very short and really serves to make the reader sit back and reexamine their definition of grief. Or perhaps more accurately to force the reader to expand the incidents that they recognize as bringing about a sense of loss or grief.

Grief is something that we just cannot escape in life. We all experience it at some point and in varying degrees. Right now our little family is going through a period of loss, though not a death it's impact is none the less significant in the life of our family.

With Madeline now off to college Gail and I are left as 'empty nesters'. Our loss is the loss of what has been constant all the way through our marriage. No longer is the day to day focus of our lives together revolving around one or more of our children.

When Gail and I got married we learned very shortly that we were expecting our first child (our son Creath) so the marriage immediately became focused on the soon to be arrival of our child. Ever since then we have always had the children around, when Creath moved out there was a noticeable disturbance in the 'force' that is our family, however we still had Maddie there with us. This year with Creath moving into his own apartment and Maddie going off to college it's impossible for us to ignore that our family has grown up and no longer is either Gail or my primary focus raising our children.

Given that we had such a short amount of time in our relationship together that there were no children it's interesting and a bit frightening seeing how our relationship is adapting to this change. I hope that we are making the transition in a healthy way though there have honestly been times when both of us have been frustrated. I do think that Gail is honestly having a harder time adjusting to life without her children around than I am.  Which is a bit surprising, as I've been the one vocally dreading an empty nest for the last several years. (I have even been lobbying to adopt a child which hasn't gone over to rave reviews) Perhaps that is why she is struggling more than I, I've already dealt partially with the grief caused by the loss whereas Gail has brushed it off and tried to avoid it.

At this point in my life I had planned to already be a grandparent. Which in some ways is a loss of a dream but actually hopefully, merely a postponement of a dream.  I have however repeatedly informed my children that they must marry blue-eyed blondes, which when questioned on that I have informed them that I have always dreamed of having blue-eyed blonde grandchildren.  They both have repeatedly rolled their eyes at me, none the less I do continue to assert my desires on that front.  If one has a dream you do have to act on it, after all I really do want to see all those cute little blonde grand babies someday.

After this short review of the first chapter of the book, just stop for a second and think about some losses you've had in your life that didn't involve a death but that involved a major change in your life.

The loss of a job, status, or just a dream. Honestly I think that the loss of a dream just might be the most damaging loss that we can endure. Of course all too often when we have a death in our family it not only involves the grief of the death but it is also wrapped up in the loss of a dream. A spouse dies just before the other spouse retires and all those dreams of post retirement travel are now gone, a child dies and all those dreams of watching them grow up, getting married and having children of their own are now gone with them.

In one post last year I mentioned that I had always wanted my Grandmother Karlen to see and hold my children. Grandmother always made a big fuss about her great and great-great grandchildren, and I wanted to see her face when she held my own child. When the day came that she passed away and I had not yet had a child, that dream died with her. I felt a great range of emotions over that loss and ultimately that loss shaped the remainder of my life more than any other event in my life.

I have picked up two more copies of this book in order to be able to loan them out as needed.  In fact just yesterday I dropped off a copy of this book for a friend who has suffered the loss of a loved one.  When I stopped in to drop it off, he was already gone for the day so I left the book with his receptionist.  As I talked to her, I learned that she was struggling with loss and grief in her life and she asked if she could take the book home and read it that night before giving it to my friend.  I told her to please do so, and that it was not a problem at all.  Honestly this little book is a fast read as well as being short so I have no doubt she'll pour through it in one evening, especially since she says she is a very fast reader.  After talking with her about her situation for a bit I gave her a blessing and left, wishing I'd have had the foresight to have brought an additional copy with me.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts this book brings is the reinforcement of the realization that we all are suffering with some loss and some grief, nearly all of the time.  And that we are certainly going to be coming into contact with somebody daily, who is also suffering.  If we can somehow keep this thought in mind perhaps we'll all be more understanding of each other and forgiving as well.

I'll try to get a summary of Chapter Two up yet this week.

May you all be blessed and well.

In His Grace,

Roy