I am not an expert on the grief process. However, I've lived long enough to know that it is not quickly nor easily resolved. Recently, a friend mentioned the desire to help a friend work through the recent death of his father. His father's death was the catalyst for a lot of "if only" kinds of thoughts.
You probably get the drift. The son could easily have thought: "If only once he had treated me with respect and civility, our relationship might have been different."
Hatred may be an overstatement in describing the relationship, but the relationship was often conflictual. Perhaps animosity is a softer term to use. Long-story-short, at the end of day, there was no love lost between them. Avoidance was easier than trying to mend fences. The relationship was closely akin to trying to mix oil and water.
If you try to mix oil and water, it is an exercise in futility. The water molecules attract each other, and the oil molecules stick together. That causes oil and water to form two separate layers. Water molecules pack closer together, so thy sink to the bottom, leaving the oil to form a top layer.
So why am I mentioning any of this? Do you have any idea how many adult sons and daughters opt not to go home again because of scars left over from childhood? Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. It is a season when healthy family relationships flourish and a time where multitudes of people intuitively don't feel good enough or at least they have the insight to avoid spending time with family. It is always a painful disaster.
Decades ago, a friend who had moved out of state sent me an email to ask for help. She prefaced her request by saying her decision to reach out to me was twofold. First, she perceived that I was one of the most positive people that she knew and that I somehow managed the holidays with a sense of hopefulness despite the cyclical reminder of the most painful experience of my life. My twin brother's plane had gone down in the Christmas bombing raids of 1972 over North Vietnam.
I felt honored that she perceived I was consistently upbeat and positive. She was giving me more credit than I can rightfully claim. At the same time, why not foster the fantasy? I didn't feel inclined to tell her she was wrong. Maybe, I wanted her to be right about me?
For some of my life, around the holidays I've had a desire to hold down the fast-forward button on the remote and not release it until after the New Year. Unfortunately, a remote doesn't exist that offers that option.
My friend needed help dealing with the painful memories she associated with her mother's death. Her mother had died unexpectedly three or four years earlier. She had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, but my friend was still in the denial face of grief when her mother's death occurred, and she was caught totally off-guard.
She reported that her mother's favorite time of the year was Christmas and that following her death, she could barely tolerate the Christmas season. She was immobilized by a shroud of regret for the conflict that had defined their relationship. Almost from the beginning of adolescence, she and her mother agreed on little.
She confessed: "I said so many hurtful things to her. I seldom ever met her expectations. There was nothing I could do to please her. I tried, honestly, I tried, but it was never good enough. I subsequently found it easier to hang out with my friends doing what I wanted and disregarded whatever she requested of me. Even when she died, I wasn't there."
In her email she talked about the shame associated with all the hurtful things she had said to her mother across the years. At the depth of her being, she wanted a close relationship with her mother, but it was not to be. There was simply no way to retrieve the time lost and now that her mother was gone, there was no way to repair the damage.
Consequently, she was immobilized with the Christmas season. She had fallen prey to debilitating depression. She was now turning to me for help. She needed an answer to her questions related to moving forward and managing what I would define as complicated grief.
The answer to my friend's question was way outside my pay group. She was looking to me, a fellow struggler, asking profound questions that were beyond my capability, yet I wanted to be helpful.
I can't take credit for my response; it simply filled my head and I had the privilege of writing it down. I didn't have to struggle with the concepts. I simply wrote down the concepts that came my way.
To begin, I communicated to my friend that I didn't have the answer to her questions. Why not be honest? I really didn't have the answers to her questions. I simply reminded her of the resourcefulness of God. What she wanted could be accomplished, but it would take His help, not mine. In the interim, I suggested that my friend do three things.
First, I suggested that she thoughtfully take the time to make a list of every painful memory she possessed related to the hurt and harm she was responsible for contributing to her mother's life. I cautioned that this was not going to be an easy assignment.
Most of us intuitively want to short-circuit that process. We don't like to acknowledge the downside of our humanity. We prefer to think of ways to justify our actions rather than to acknowledge they were the source of pain to another. We could have done it differently, but we didn't. Consequently, the actions of the past have contributed to the shame of the present. That is never a comfortable place to find oneself.
After the first list was completed and only after it was thoroughly processed and documented, I wanted my friend to move to step-two. I cautioned my friend that step two would be more difficult and far more painful that the first step. Conflict is always a two-way street.
Even though I knew intuitively that she would be resistive, I requested that following her recording of every despicable that she had ever done to promote a level of misery for her mother, I wanted her to make the same kind of list regarding her mother.
What? Isn't that disrespectful? I knew those would be her immediate questions regarding my suggestion. Consequently, I provided the rationale for my request. Just as her mother did not have a perfect daughter; she too, didn't have a perfect mother. If she wanted to promote healing for herself, she would have to acknowledge that her mother was also a participant in the conflict that surrounded their relationship. Broken is the only way that we come. That is true of children. It is also true of parents.
I asked that she make a list of every despicable thing she could think of that her mother had said or done that left her feeling devalued and unloved. That is a tough assignment, but it is necessary that it be thoroughly documented before she could move to step three.
When she got to step three, I asked that she record in detail the things she valued most about her mother. Identify the strengths - Identify the feel-good moments - Identify the times shared that left you feeling loved and cared for and special - Identify all the things about your mother's life that you'd subsequently like to see in your own life; the things that could be defining characteristics in your life that others would value and appreciate.
Somehow, through the veil of many tears, my friend managed to accomplish completion of the three lists. It reportedly was not an easy process, and it was not quickly achieved. The lists were for her eyes only. No one needed to know other than herself.
I asked that she carefully review all three lists in detail and then select the list she wanted to keep. Write it all down, review it all and then decide to offer forgiveness for two of the three lists.
She had to be willing to forgive herself for all the things she wished that she had done differently regarding her mother. She also had to forgive her mother posthumously for all the things she had done to contribute to the level of conflict that defined their relationship. She then had the wonderful privilege of choosing to keep the best portion, the list of what she valued most about her mother.
The process was life-changing for my friend. I can't claim any of the credit. My friend invested the work. God provided the capacity to be forgiving. My part was simply having the privilege of writing down the random thoughts that came to me as I attempted to answer the question. I wish life were always that easy.
All My Best!
Don
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