For three years, grief pushed him to his knees and held him underground.
“I could work and laugh and function,” he said, “but I was on cruise control a lot of the time.” If something triggered him, the bad feeling would last for days or weeks. Saddest of all, he knew he had no tools to help Joseph work through his emotions.
There didn’t seem to be a way out. He consciously accepted that he would be depressed and unhappy the rest of his life.
But what he was willing to accept for himself, he couldn’t accept for his son. His love for Joseph was his saving grace, the catalyst that allowed change to come about.
In order to better guide his son, Daniel started reading about grief. Reading led to talking. He started therapy, and in doing his own grief work, he found a new professional calling, completing a grief-therapy certification program and envisioning the life he wanted, unwaveringly repeating and believing it would happen, even if he didn’t know how.
Now Daniel works with Child and Family Services and also runs boys’ grief groups in the public schools, counseling troubled children and teens, many of whom have been in care since they were two or three. He says that a lot of grief work is about being quiet—about holding space. Sometimes he and the boys go for walks, or build a fire outside, or sit in silence at McDonald’s.
“My career keeps me practicing,” he said. “Helping others through the forest I walked through, I’m always reflecting, doing my own constant tending, keeping Tracy in my heart, staying aware of where I am and how I’m doing.”
In my experience, grief brings us together—or it pushes us apart. Either way, we’re never the same. Daniel is a beautiful example of how it’s possible for grief to guide us in a positive direction.
And his story reminds us that grief isn’t something you only do once. Grief will always be a part of their lives and relationship. And as Joseph grows and matures, Daniel will have to figure out all over again how to talk to him about his mother. There will always be questions with no answers.
Some things you’ll never understand. Don’t even try to.
There are so many reasons why—why this or that happened, or didn’t; why we are where we are; why we do what we do. Grief forces us to get clear about what’s my business, what’s your business, and what’s God’s business.
When the kapo at Auschwitz pointed at the smoke rising from the crematorium and said, “You can start talking about your mother in the past tense. She’s already dead,” my sister Magda told me, “The spirit never dies.” She’s right. When I go and speak at a school, I’m doing it out of love for my parents, so I can keep their memories alive, to learn from the past so we don’t repeat it.
And I talk to my parents. Not in the bereft way my mother called on her mother for help. But to cultivate the place in my heart where their spirits still live. To call them to witness how rich and full my life is—to see what they allowed to grow and thrive in the world.
I inherited my father’s taste for fashion and couture, and every time I get dressed, I say to him, “Papa, look at me! You always said I was going to be the best-dressed girl in town.” When I put myself together well, when I feel that contentment and chutzpah, it’s a ritual of celebration for my father.
To my mother, I offer thanks. For her wisdom, for how she taught me to find the power within. I even thank her for the times she told me, “I’m glad you have brains, because you have no looks”! Thank you, Mama, for doing the best with what you had. Thank you for the strength you had to take care of your drunk, grief-stricken father, to feed and nourish your family and ours. Thank you for inspiring me to discover my inner resources. I love you. I’ll never forget you.
Grieving is difficult, but it can also feel good. You can revisit the past. You can even embrace it. You’re not stuck there. You’re here now. And you’re strong.
You can come to terms with what was and what wasn’t. And you can concentrate not on what you lost, but on what is left: the choice to live every moment as a gift, to embrace what is.
KEYS TO FREE YOURSELF FROM UNRESOLVED GRIEF
Let the dead be dead. Grief changes, but it doesn’t go away. Denying your grief won’t help you heal—nor will it help to spend more time with the dead than you do with the living. If someone you love has died, give yourself thirty minutes every day to honor the person and the loss. Take an imaginary key, unlock your heart, and free your grief. Cry, yell, listen to music that reminds you of your loved one, look at pictures, read old letters. Express and be with your grief, 100 percent. When the thirty minutes have passed, tuck your loved one safely inside your heart and get back to living.
The spirit never dies. It’s possible for grief to guide us in a positive direction, toward a life with more joy and meaning and purpose. Talk to the loved one who has passed. Say what you’re thankful for: the memories you cherish, the skills he or she taught you, the gifts you carry with you because that person touched your life. Then ask, “What do you wish for me?”
Chapter 7
NOTHING TO PROVE
The Prison of Rigidity
When a couple tells me they never fight, I say, “Then you don’t have intimacy, either.”
Conflict is human. When we avoid conflict, we’re actually moving closer to tyranny than to peace. Conflict itself isn’t imprisoning. What keeps us trapped is the rigid thinking we often use to manage conflict.
The prison bars
