Chapter 3: "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs" - "The Nature of Loss"

Chapter Three is all about the various types of loss that we undergo in this lifetime.  The authors have broken them down into six major types of loss.  The following is edited from the chapter, each quote only includes enough of the original text to convey the message intended.

Six Major Types of Loss:

1) Material Loss:  Material loss is the loss of a physical object or of familiar surroundings to which one has an important attachment.  Some adults resist recognizing the importance of material loss, as if to take it seriously might mean that one was either too materialistic or too sentimental.  Children will much more easily confess how strong their attachment to a particular object is, and how painful its loss.  Most human beings have some kind of powerful attachment to a material object, whether it be a family farmhouse or a favorite jacket.  If the farm is one day bulldozed to the ground or the jacket given to the Salvation Army, either is a painful loss.  If the object is important because of it's origin - a gift, say, from someone deeply loved - it has extrinsic value.  Other objects may have an intrinsic value; we have an investment in them for some quality of their own.  Objects with extrinsic value attached to another human being whom we love cause the deepest pain when lost.

Material loss is frequently, though not universally, the first loss of which a child is consciously aware.

2. Relationship Loss: The first conscious awareness of relationship loss is also a childhood experience for many.  It may be a loss related to moving, divorce, job change, or change in personal friendships.  Relationship loss is the ending of opportunities to relate oneself to, talk with, share experiences with, make love to, touch, settle issues with, fight with, and otherwise be in the emotional and / or physical presence of a particular other human being.

It is an unavoidable component of human life.  Sooner or later we all experience such a loss.  It may be partial, as in moving five hundred miles away, or total, as with widowhood.

3.Intrapsychic Loss: Material loss and relationship loss are both likely to occur within the child's experience before adolescence.  Intrapsychic loss may occur during that same period, but is more likely to happen for the first time in adolescence.  It presupposes an awareness of the self present in a new way after puberty.

Intrapsychic loss is the experience of losing an emotionally important image of oneself, losing the possibilities of "what might have been", abandonment of plans for a particular future, the dying of a dream.  Although often related to external experiences, it is itself an entirely inward experience.  An external event may be paralleled by a significant sense of inner loss.  What makes such a loss intrapsychic is that what we lose exists entirely within the self.

Very often what we lose has been a secret, a hope or a dream seldom if ever shared with others.  For that reason, the fact that a loss has occurred will also be a secret.

4. Functional Loss:  Powerful grief can be evoked when we lose some of the muscular or neurological functions of the body; we call this functional loss.  It is strongly but not exclusively associated with the aging process.  Most people react with horror to the idea of a child's blindness or crippling; yet the same phenomenon in an elderly person provokes a lesser reaction, reflecting our underlying belief that functional loss naturally goes with the aging process.  But loss is horrifying to young and old.  Going blind at seventy-five is no less painful than going blind at fifteen even if it does happen more often.

Functional loss often carries with it a loss of autonomy.  To lose sight or hearing or coordination is often to lose mobility. That in turn means a loss in autonomy.  Gone is the sense that "I can manage".  In many cases, people will admit the fact of the functional loss but will deny that some of their autonomy is lost.

5. Role Loss:  The loss of a specific social role or of one's accustomed place in a social network is experienced as role loss.  The significance of role loss to the individual is directly related to the extent to which one's sense of identity is linked to the lost role.

Retirement is perhaps the most familiar occasion of role loss, and for some people is accompanied by traumatic grief.

6. Systemic Loss:  Systemic loss is a concept that forced itself upon us as we studied what our informants told us.  To understand it, we must first recall that human beings usually belong to some interactional system in which patterns of behavior develop over time.  Even without a strongly personal relationship to others in the system, one may come to count on certain functions being performed in the system.  When these functions disappear or are not performed, the system as a whole, as well as its individual members may experience systemic loss.

It is not surprising that one of the most common instances of systemic loss takes place when a young adult departs from the family of origin.  When an individual changes or when someone leaves a family, the system must adapt to that loss.  Families and other systems that have a difficult time grieving may seek to keep individuals from leaving or changing so that the system might stay the same.

Comment on Types of Loss:
Almost any specific loss will be a mixture of more than one of the types mentioned above.  One type may predominate, but more than one type may be felt.  To be widowed, for example, obviously means relationship loss.  But widowhood may also mean role loss as the widow discovers that her social life has changed.  She is no longer "a wife" in her community.  If she has been inadequately provided for, she may undergo material loss.  If her sense of identity is dependent on being her husband's wife, the change may also be experienced as intrapsychic loss.

Other Variables in Loss:
1) Avoidable and unavoidable loss
2) Temporary and permanent loss
3) Actual and imagined loss
4) Anticipated and unanticipated loss
5) Leaving and being left


Material Loss:
Certainly all of us can recall an early 'material loss' in our lives.  I remember as a child when my Aunt Vida while staying with us while my Mother and Father were away, burned my favorite toy my teddy bear which I had named 'Red Teddy'.  Even after all these years I can remember how angry I was with her for destroying what was to me the most precious thing in my young life.  To her it was just a dirty ratty teddy bear and there were other teddy bears in our home that were not torn nor filthy, but to me he was the toy and champion that I'd had since I was an infant.  It's amazing how these early losses remain with us for so many decades, this is one memory that reading this book brought back to me.

Relationship Loss:
Here we have what is certainly one of the most scarring of the various forms of loss.  For me as for many of us the first relationship loss I remember is the loss of a grandparent due to death.  For others perhaps this loss represents the loss of a parent due to divorce or abandonment.  At any rate this type of loss will often have lifelong implications.  But we need to remember that this kind of loss can even come out of a broken friendship, where one or the other of the individuals may grieve over the loss of the friendship that has ended due to some circumstance or action.

Intrapsychic Loss:
I think of this type of loss as the 'Loss of a Dream'.  As the authors relay often this form of loss is totally unknown to others.  If we have in our hearts an unvoiced dream or goal, if something happens to prevent that dream from ever being realized, it is a crushing occurrence. As I've stated in previous posts, I think this form of loss can at times be the most damaging.  And a part of that damage I suspect comes from the fact that we often haven't shared this dream with anyone and now we suffer alone. 

This is a good reminder to not only work on our dreams rather than shuffling them off to the corners of our minds but to also share these dreams and aspirations with our loved ones.

Functional Loss:
To loss our ability to walk, see or communicate are terrifying and life altering losses.  For many today this loss of function is mental, as various forms of dementia seem to be ever on the increase in our society.  But the inability to see, walk, drive, or even stand without assistance are losses that nearly all of us will realize if we are fortunate enough to live that long into old age.

We can also be the victim of loss of bodily functions due to an accident or some forms of disease or incidents.  My mother in law has suffered for many years with loss of function (both physical and mental) due to a series of strokes that she has endured.  Sadly, there is little more she can do to try and regain any of the lost function and she must simply learn how to do the tasks she wishes to perform as best she can with her disabilities.  

Role Loss:
When I think of this loss I am reminded of my father and other men like him that I have known.  As he aged and reluctantly started to turn over more and more of the operation of his Ranch to my brothers, he was often very difficult to deal with.  He was floundering to be honest, his entire identity was not only wrapped up in being a Rancher but in being the man in charge.  His position in his family had always been that of the 'go to guy', his siblings and his mother always looked to him for direction and decision making.  And on the Ranch he had always been the one making all the decisions, he then delegated away the responsibility to accomplish those tasks but the decisions as to what to undertake even on a daily basis was always his alone.  Once he had to give up that role to his children he really never became comfortable with it.  Sadly, once he lost his eyesight and became unable to do any of the work or to make any of the decisions, he rapidly wasted away.

Systemic Loss:
This is really the situation that Gail and I have found ourselves in this year.  All of our children are now out of the house and we are having to reinvent our own relationship to one another.  To be honest though both of our children are having this same sense of loss.  Our son is out of school (for the time being) and trying to make it in the real world.  No longer does he have the confines of college and all of his college friends and activities, it's just him now trying to decide where to go next in life.  And Maddie is in college down in Lincoln, she has suddenly been thrown into college life and is away from home for the first time in her life.  No Mom or Dad there to help her out, she is entirely on her own with limited mobility since she has opted to leave her car at home.

In Closing:
In closing on this chapter, as the authors point out and as I've said before you really never have only one loss at a time.  Most if not all of these losses overlap.  My father's loss of 'Role' was a direct result of his loss of 'Function'.  Once he was no longer physically able to do the things needed to be done he was unable to be out and about and keeping in touch with what was needing to be done.  He was simply unable to make all the calls about what needed to be done and in what sequence.

I have glossed over this chapter pretty quickly and I would once again encourage all of you to consider buying this little book.  If you are in the Omaha area and would like to borrow a copy just give me a shout as I do have multiple copies to lend out.

God's Blessings to you all!

In His Love and Absolute Grace,
Roy

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs - order a copy here.

911 Remembrance... God Bless and Protect Us All.

A Christian Prayer 

Loving God of Peace: 

On this anniversary of unbelievable sorrow, comfort those who mourn, and guide our hearts toward healing and hope. Remind us of the love of Christ, love which leapt over 
cultural and ethnic boundaries to feed the hungry, seek the lost and care for the least. Make of Your children, no matter how we name You, one human family, bound together in the work of justice and peacemaking. Make us one with the Light that shines in the darkness and illumines a path toward understanding and reconciliation. Let love be our genuine call. Amen.

Chapter 2: All Our Losses / All Our Griefs, by Mitchell & Anderson

Chapter 2: Attachment, Separation and Grief

We begin life connected.  An unborn baby is joined to a mother who provides the nutrients and environment necessary for the development of a new life. The relationship of the fetus to the mother is one of utter dependence, a matter of sheer survival.  Every human being begins life's sojourn the same way.

The pregnancy ends; the uterine attachment is broken; the child is born.  The first experience of separation for every human being is birth.  Some writers argue that the turbulent experience of being expelled from the womb is the origin of all emotional disturbance.  Such a birth trauma may not be the root of all emotional problems, but it is true that being born is our first experience of separation.  Being thrust from the safety of the womb is likely to be a shock; but it is necessary for independent life.  Just as the connection between mother and child is necessary for survival before birth, so the separation at birth is necessary for the beginning of distinct human life.

This brings us to a fundamental thesis: The genesis of grief lies in the inevitability of both attachment and separation for the sustenance and development of human life.  The biological connection necessary for the survival of the fetus prior to birth continues in social forms throughout life. At the same time, the development of the person as a distinct human being requires separation; first from the mother biologically, then from mother and others psychologically.  Being born is the beginning of autonomous life, but it is also an experience of loss.  Just as there can be no life without attachment, there can be no attachments without eventual separation and loss.  Grief has it's beginnings in the twin necessities of attachment and separation.  There is no life without either attachment or loss; hence there is no life without grief.  To become a separate individual involves undergoing a first lesson in mortality.

Nearly the entire remainder of the 2nd Chapter discusses the theories put forth by;
- Margaret Mahler in her studies of 'The Mother-Child Relationship'
- Melanie Klein's theory of 'Object Relations'
- John Bowlby's writings concerning the process of 'Attachment'.

I won't go too much into these theories as after all, I want you all to buy the book.  LOL

It is stunning to read how much affect that the earliest experiences of life are thought to have on the way you approach life and particularly grief for the remainder of your days.  It seems that early on so very much of your future reactions are 'wired' into you.  As a parent it's troubling to no small degree as we wonder did we do the best job we could have done in those early stages.  The answer is of course, no we did not... none of us is perfect and we've all made mistakes in raising our respective children.

I go back and forth in my own mind of thinking that so much of these studies should be made known to young parents and then thinking that too much conflicting information at that stressful time of child rearing might drive the new parent bonkers.  We might well run the risk of over coddling the child or conversely trying to develop the act of 'separation' too early.  Text books give you time lines, individuals don't necessarily mature on schedule.  Perhaps it's better if we just let the parental instinct take the helm.

At the very end of the chapter the authors delve slightly into how these thoughts on grief intersect with Christian Theology.  They quote a short passage from Martin Luther in his 'Letters of Spiritual Counsel'.  Luther thought that grief and morning are necessary but should be moderate in nature and duration.  Sad to say though, I suspect that even while Luther certainly had a logical and theological point on this matter, his thought of moderation was taken to the point where grief and morning almost became 'scheduled'.  There often is a time line applied to how long you should grieve, when in reality many times grief simply never goes away.

One of my friends and his wife lost a son to suicide almost two years ago, to think that they will ever recover from that grief and loss would be in my opinion foolishness.  I have not told them even once that the ache in their heart would go away, I have always merely told them to look for and find coping mechanisms.  For the wife it has been posting on Facebook and a tattoo on her wrist (among other things) for my dear friend it has been focusing on his work.  But what has really buoyed them through these times are their grandchildren.  Without those little children to hold and love I don't think they could have honestly survived the depth of their grief.

Though it maybe as children that we learn to deal with grief in their case anyhow it's the children that have provided the means to absorb and rebound from what otherwise would have been suffocating despair.

Thank God for all the little children.

In His Grace & Mercy,
Roy

Lazy Labor Day today....

I finally have my library all shelved.  Though I do need to sort through the section on the Reformers as well as the section with Martin Luther King, Jr., CS Lewis, Bonnhoeffer, Tillich and others writings in it.  But the shelf space is dedicated to them I just need to get them into the proper order.

Today I'm reading and researching for my last ELM assignment, it's great to have my area all set up and to be surrounded by all these wonderful books.

While I'm reading and researching I'm listening to Melody Gardot on youtube.  If you haven't discovered her and you like Jazz then you don't know what you're missing.  I just love her!

Have a blessed day and enjoy a relaxed labor day.

In His Constant Care,
Roy

"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 

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

This is the start of my blogging about the wonderful little book by Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson entitled "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs"

I'll start this series off by quoting for you the entire 'Forward' from the book and then next I'll go through the book chapter by chapter.  I will however just give a few quotes from each chapter and then give you all an overview along with my own personal thoughts about each chapter.

So here we go, I hope you all enjoy this series of blogs and I assure you that you won't go wrong purchasing this little book.

In His absolute Grace & Love,
Roy

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

Forward:

This is a book about loss: how serious personal losses take place, why we react to loss as we do, how many important forms of loss go unnoticed, how we can recover from the impact of loss, and how we can help others to recover from loss.  So far we know, no other approach to the subject of grief has made use of resources similar to ours; furthermore, we have emphasized elements of loss in situations that do not at first appear to be situations of loss and grief.  What we have tried to accomplish in the following pages consists of several elements.

First, our resources.  For years, both of us have been collecting statements about loss and grief from a wide variety of persons: our friends, our parishioners, our students.  By the time we agreed to collaborate on this book, we had amassed records of more than a thousand experiences of loss.  We sifted through those records, allowing those with whom we worked to become our teachers.  What we have written here comes largely from them.  Some of our material is theoretical, but this book essentially comes from the losses and griefs of those who have trusted us with their experiences.

Second, it is our conviction that grief is a normal response to significant loss: grieving is not, as some writers have suggested, evidence of sickness or disease.  It is something to live through rather than to cure.  It is no more pathological than the rush of adrenalin experienced when one has narrowly escaped danger.  Grief is a normal response.  It is a disservice to grieving persons to interpret their feelings and behavior as though there were a warp in their psychological makeup, or a deficiency in their spiritual formation.

Third, we are convinced that many people, including such potential helpers as Christian pastors, are unaware of the many kinds of loss that are an ordinary part of life.  Grief is usually thought of as a response to the death of a loved one.  That is, to be sure, the most profound and personal form that loss takes for most people.  Powerful as that death of a loved one is, it is not death that teaches us what loss and grief are.  We learn about loss much earlier in life; it comes, in fact, before we know much about death at all.  Death is only one form of loss.  Our purpose is to help caring persons become more sensitive to the man instances in life when a "grief ministry" is called for.  We have intended to be thorough in our attention to this aspect, considering not only such losses as death and divorce, but also less easily noticeable experiences that involve significant loss.

Fourth, we also intend this book to be squarely within the discipline of pastoral theology.  There are several books on funerals and on ministering to the bereaved which are good indicators of "what to do".  There are other good books designed to help grief sufferers work their way through the grieving process.  As pastoral theologians, we have drawn upon the resources both of theology and of the human sciences to guide both private and public ministries with those who grieve.  We have included in one volume three questions that have often been dealt with separately: (1) Why do people grieve, or what is the genesis of grief in human life? (2) What are the dynamics of grief and the characteristics of grieving? (3) How can we help those who grieve?  That scope is part of the uniqueness of this book.

Although our original intention was to produce a source for the teaching of pastoral care in seminaries, we have also written this book as a resource  for all persons who care about others suffering from loss and grief.  We believe that pastoral work and mourners is the work of the congregation, not just of certain professionals.  Thus, this book is intended for any person who wants to understand loss and grief, whether to minister to others or to come to terms with one's own experience.

Our Last ELM class is complete. Just a paper to complete and graduation awaits...

I have no idea where this little Church is located
but I love the composition of this photo and the emotion
it invokes.  WmRoy Karlen

Well last Thursday, Friday and Saturday marked our last class for the 'Educating Lay Ministry' program.  My last class was over Presbyterian History & Polity, and all that is left to complete this class and the entire 'ELM' experience is to write a 7 page paper.  This class was held at the St. Benedict Center near Schuyler, NE.  The retreat there is just so serene, it's a wonderful place to stay and become refueled and renewed.

It was sad to end our last class, next is the graduation in October and then the reality that at least a few of us will likely never see each other again.  It has been a very interesting experience these last three years.  One in which I've seen myself grow and change a great deal.  My personal theological beliefs have changed considerably in this time.  This change is definitely for the better and it has been due to a combination of the ELM classes, life experiences both current and in looking back in meditative reflection on things long ago as well as reflections on the mentor ship of my late friend Jesse.  But to be honest the hand that shoved me off the cliff so to speak was a voice (in an e-mail actually) from the past bearing grace where grace was certainly not deserved.  For numerous reasons I cannot and will not go into more detail; but suffice to say that it was the greatest display of human grace I have personally experienced or witnessed.

Lately I have had so very many tragedies strike for folks around me.  Numerous diagnoses for cancer, deaths, abuse, family disruptions, divorce and hospitalizations.  My prayer list has expanded profoundly, so much that a couple of times at night I have fallen asleep as I was still praying my way through the list.  Part of this is a function of my age I'm sorry to say.  At this stage in life not only are my friends parents subject to disease and death, but my friends and contemporaries all too often are contracting disease and far too many have succumbed to their illnesses.  It's also a time where not only are my friends subject to divorce but they also have children who may have marital issues and become divorced.  Until one is older one fails to fully grasp the impact of marital unrest and divorce outside the immediate couple and their children.

For that reason I have taken my own advice and started once more reading through the book "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs".  I have mentioned this book several times in this blog and I will again say it is one of the most revelatory books I have ever read.  It is such a profound little book (it's only 173 pages) that I've decided that starting this week I will blog about it.  Starting with my next post I will go chapter by chapter through the book with direct quotes and then my personal reflections upon it.

I hope you'll like what I share enough that you'll run out and get a copy (or more they are well worth sharing) for yourself.

In His Love & Unending Grace!
Roy