Who Defines Your Grief?

by Peggy Haymes, Pinnacle Associate

I’d shared the story of having someone from hospice come to talk to our church’s grade schoolers about grief. The parents were supportive but some of them couldn’t see the point of it. After all, when did these kids have to deal with grief?

Turns out, they all had faced some kind of loss. I shared that some had lost grandparents or beloved pets, and a family was moving away so some were losing best friends.

A commentator jumped on to lecture me that she’d grown up as an Army brat, and had moved every 2-3 years throughout her childhood, and that moving away from a friend was nothing like losing a grandparent, and how dare I suggest that they were even in the same ballpark.

Of course, moving away from a friend wasn’t a big deal to her because she did it all the time. She never had the best friend with whom she’d grown up, the friend she saw multiple times a week, the friend who was as close as a sibling, the friend she’d never been without for her entire life.

Who defines your grief?

I have two saucepans that belonged to my grandmother. In them she made mashed potatoes, cooked green beans for so long that every shred of nutrition was boiled out of them, and cooked the pasta for her mac and cheese she made because it was my favorite. I treasure that connection.

I was away at college when she died. I was sad but also relieved for my mom that her heavy burden of care giving was done. I was sad but the grief didn't lay heavy on my heart.

On the other hand, in my adult life when my two dogs died within months of each other I wasn’t just sad. I was gutted. Absolutely gutted.

Sometimes we judge ourselves harshly because we don’t have the grief we feel that we should feel and the grief we do feel seems inappropriate.

Who defines our grief?

Although I loved my grandmother and I have no doubt she loved me, she wasn’t the kind to have me stay for a week for “grandparent’s camp.” We never did special things together.

Only in the last years of her life did I learn she’d been married before, that her first husband was an alcoholic whom she divorced. I wish I'd had a chance to talk with her about how a young woman at the turn of the twentieth century found such courage, but we didn't have those kinds of conversations.

My dogs, on the other hand, were intricately woven into the fabric of my everyday life. They were my routine minders, entertainment providers, and wellness partners who got me outside for walks and runs, all wrapped up in unconditional love. The loss of my dogs hit me harder because they were so glaringly absent over the course of my day.

When faced with someone in your congregation who is grieving, be curious about their grief. What does this loss mean to them? What doesn’t it mean? If someone is deeply struggling in grief, such curiosity can help you assess whether another layer of intervention is needed.

In conversations and in sermons acknowledge realities of grief; for example, the death of a friend may be as difficult as the death of a family member because they were as close or closer than your blood kin.

What does this loss mean to them? What does this loss mean for their worlds?

One of the unique things about Navigating GriefLand, the six week grief group from PInnacle, is it creates a space for people to grieve whatever loss is important to them, whatever shape that loss takes, regardless of whether or not someone else sees it as a legitimate loss.

Find out more about Navigating GriefLand here.