Healing after loss

Three catastrophic natural disasters, a war and a school shooting have made 2005 a year of communal grief

By Gail Rosenblum
Star Tribune

How do you grieve entire communities washed away? How do you help parents pick up the pieces after the death of a child who went to war? How do you feed, clothe and shelter tens of thousands of newly homeless men, women and children as a harsh winter engulfs them on the other side of the world?

As 2005 ends today, it will be difficult to remember the year without recalling numbing tragedy. The tsunami of epic proportions in Indonesia at the end of last year, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Pakistan. The continuing war in Iraq in which the death toll of American servicepeople has surpassed 2,000. And 10 dead in Red Lake, Minn., including six students.

One needn't have been affected personally by the year's events to feel touched and saddened by them. Seeing others suffer can bring back one's own unresolved trauma and loss. It can also make us feel less secure, especially when terrible things happen near us and no solutions are in sight.

Pauline Boss, professor emeritus in the Family Social Science department at the University of Minnesota, calls loss that has no apparent solution "ambiguous loss," a loss of home and the world as we knew it before the disaster occurred. Even if no one we knew died in war or lost a home in a hurricane, for example, "you can lose your sense of security," said Boss, author of the just-released "Loss, Trauma and Resilience" (Norton Press, $27.50).

"People in this country have taken security for granted," she said, "and now that is lost."

But it would be incomplete to remember 2005 only for its sorrows. The year's tragedies inspired limitless acts of generosity and compassion from schoolchildren and families, religious groups and businesses, doctors and nurses.

While even a worldwide outpouring of blankets, money, food and toys can't heal wounds this deep, it can show those grieving what goodness is possible, and help them to heal. And it can give greater meaning to the lives of those reaching out.

A life lesson for everyone

Tom Ellis, executive director of the Center for Grief, Loss and Transition in St. Paul, agrees that it is not uncommon for images of worldwide trauma to tap into deeply personal losses of our own.

"Seeing images of natural tragedies, like mothers looking for their children, spouses looking for one another, family members mourning their dead loved ones, triggers familiar reactions in us," he said.

But he sees potential for growth in all of us if we can willingly embrace "this thing called grief," which is also the title of his first book, to be published by Prism this spring.

Like catastrophic events, personal losses come in many sizes. The loss of a child is probably the largest, Ellis said. But even a job loss, which many experienced this year, can mean the end of a known life and a secure future. The birth of a child with disabilities can mean the loss of a dream for his or her parents.

Instead of retreating, Ellis encourages us to face our losses head-on. "Talk about them, name them. Ask, 'What is left in my life? Who are the people who are helpful? How can I regain a new sense of identity and move forward?' "

He admires the American Indian approach, "which brings in lots of nature to this process, lots of rituals," and the year of mourning in the Jewish tradition. "They are in a more healing and helpful place because this is part of their culture," he said.

For others, healing may come from reaching outside one's self, such as by volunteering, or through humor, journaling or focusing on what is good in life. "It is most helpful and healing to remain aware of the greater world out there," Ellis said. "The healing comes from giving and receiving support."

Celebrating life's journey

Few have put into practice the art of giving and receiving as eloquently as Bernie and Kay Saunders. Six years ago, 81-year-old Kay, an ailing poet living in Appleton, Wis., and Bernie, her 57-year-old photographer son, of Maple Plain, collaborated on a "little idea." It grew to become the self-published "The Grace of Ordinary Days: An Invitation to Celebrate Life's Journey" (Center for Living Art Inc., $24.95).

On the surface, it is a beautiful coffee table book melding Kay's wise and wistful poems about aging with Bernie's nature photography of flowers -- beginning with an eager poppy waiting to bud and ending with a dead flower resembling a dried apricot. A deeper study, though, reveals the tale of every parent and child, grasping at understanding before it is too late.

Kay died two years ago, before the book was finished, but Bernie completed it to honor her. Those years of moving toward one another, of feeling afraid and vulnerable, created a "relationship legacy" that made grief, and her death, more manageable.

"I felt tranquillity, peacefulness, satisfaction that she and I created something," Bernie said. "I felt a tremendous amount of liberation."

That liberation, born of doing, of creating, of facing grief and rising above it, can be experienced whether the loss and sadness are near and personal or distant, grief experts say.

"The image that always strikes me is seeing families in the earliest stages of grieving walking through the doors of the Center for Grief, barely able to get up the stairs," Ellis said. In their own time and in their own way, they return to life. "They're breathing fully again. They're choosing laughter. It's a huge victory for them."

Boss, too, is hopeful that those experiencing the direst days -- nationwide, worldwide -- will one day laugh again.

"It has been a tough year. But our elders got through the Great Depression and wars. The younger generation will get through what's been thrown at them, too."

Just last week, UNICEF released results of a survey on the well-being of children affected by the tsunami disaster of one year ago. In large measure, they are doing well and feel hopeful about their future. More than two-thirds of 1,633 children in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia said their situation has improved and that they are better off now compared with the weeks immediately following the tsunami.

But they also spoke of their hope that aid will continue, in the form of money to help them stay in school, as well as housing, clothing and jobs for their families.

In grief, and life, there is always more work to do.