By Helen Harris
The banner outside the auditorium proclaimed: “Thank you for coming. Tucson is hurting.” The message, directed to President Obama at the memorial service for those killed in the nation’s latest tragedy, speaks volumes.
We are a nation hurting, and President Obama’s service at the University of Arizona Jan. 12 was the national equivalent of family and friends of the bereaved gathering in the living room to comfort one another — 14,300 in person; countless others via media.
In the best circumstances of death — a death anticipated because of age or disease and one for which we have had time to emotionally prepare — we hardly know how to respond well. Americans don’t do death well. But in the face of such a mindless tragedy, we can be almost paralyzed.
We need each other in times such as this. We need the reassurance that all is not madness and chaos. We need the presence of those who care about our pain and are willing to walk through the darkness with us. From my more than 25 years of work in grief therapy, I know that the only way out of the pain is through pain. That difficult journey is the only path to healing.
In Tucson, the president began us on the journey we must travel together toward healing. In the President and Mrs. Obama’s transparency about their own anguish, they assured us that we also could cry, and that such emotion is not weakness, but the beginning of strength.
After the memorial service, we still must take the next step forward. Grief therapy provides a path — if sometimes dimly lit — through the experience of loss. While no one experiences grief in exactly the same way, there are markers to guide us.
We cannot say with authority that we know exactly how someone else feels. We can say that we care how someone else feels and that we are willing to listen. We cannot change what has happened. We can change the feeling of total abandonment and desperation by being present, not just today but in the many hard, lonely days ahead.
Death through tragedy and crisis brings complex emotional layers — doubt, confusion, anger, blame and despair. There are the haunting questions for survivors of whether anything could have made the situation different — the second-guessing and the what-ifs. The tendency to blame, including self-blame, is common. For the rest of us comes a sudden vulnerability and awareness that, if it could happen outside that grocery store, it could happen outside ours.
Why didn’t we schedule differently or go earlier or protect better? Why didn’t this person or that person respond more adequately to a warning sign? It is part of our attempt to figure out if there is something that could have changed the outcome. Is there a way we might have gained control of such an out-of-control situation? Although this thought process is normal, it is not a place to linger. It is what it is, and sometimes it is just horrible.
The anger we feel about the injustice, the unfairness, the evil — this, too, is to be expected and is a necessary part of the healing process. As Obama said in his speech, we may not always be able to control evil, but we can control how we respond to one another. We must be kind, to others and to ourselves. We are challenged to manage frustration and anger even while we try to maintain civility and respect. There is no benefit in judging ourselves or others; none of us knows the full story of another. Lack of reason is the very reason we need each other.
In the beginning of grief work, one of the most important things we can do is show up. We show up at memorial services and funerals. We take stuffed animals and mementos and leave them as a visible memorial. We send cards and letters. We take casseroles and desserts to provide respite, nourishment and comfort. Even so, we feel helpless. We call in counselors and therapists and pastors and rabbis.
These rituals, which may seem so inadequate, are important — for the bereaved and for ourselves. In these actions, we offer our presence, and we have learned from hard experience, individually and as a nation, that shared grief is diminished grief.
We have only to look at the outpouring sent to Ground Zero after 9/11 to realize the importance of this. A decade later, people from around the world still come to honor those who were killed — in the attack and in the rescue attempts. Tears still fall, the healing continues.
The Twin Towers tragedy teaches us yet another lesson about the journey of grief. It doesn’t ever completely end. We are changed. Pieces of us are missing. One thing we know for certain in grief work — silence is never a good course. We must find ways to bring the pain we feel out into the open so that we can begin to heal.
The president’s memorial service spoke a nation’s pain. Tucscon, we are hurting with you.