GROWING AROUND OUR GRIEF: LEARNING ABOUT GRIEF IN COMMUNITY

"People tend to believe that grief shrinks over time.  What really happens is that we grow around our grief. "

I have had this image on the wall in my office for some time now.  It has reminded me of the core understanding of the grief process.  This very concept was introduced in the first meeting of a Calmar community grief support group I have been a part of during the month of April.  

Every Tuesday morning for the last month, I have walked to the local community centre in my town to gather with other grievers from the surrounding communities.  We have averaged about 8-11 people every meeting with two facilitators: a registered psychologist and a community social worker.  It has been a transformative time for me and for the others.  

This has been the first time I have been in a in-person grief support group of any kind.  It offers a very different dynamic in the grief recovery process.  

"It's easier to talk to a stranger, than it is to my family members" 

This was mentioned in one of the meetings and I would agree with it.  I didn't know anyone in that room one month ago, and I have been able to pour out some of the depths of my heartache to them.  It has been encouraging and uplifting.  

Today is our last day together officially.  I don't know what happens after this morning.  Will any of us want to stay connected, or is the magic in the group that will dissipate after today.  

We have all learned a great deal thanks to the wisdom from great teachers that our facilitator Amy has brought to us.  I have been in several grief training seminars, and some of what Amy gave us was new and enlightening.  

It is tempting to walk alone in grief, because of the feeling that "no one understands me or my pain".  But what I have discovered this month is that sharing a common loss is not as necessary as sharing our loss and being in community with other grievers who understand what it is like to lose someone precious.  My heart can go out to someone who has lost a mother or a spouse, even through I still have both in my life.  Broken hearts don't need identification as much as they need compassion.  

I will end off this post with some of the grief wisdom that Amy shared with us in our class.  

“Grief is not a problem to be solved; it is an experience to be carried”- Megan Devine

“The brain cannot think its way out of grief. We must feel our way through.” -Gordon Neufeld

"We don’t need to feel all the time, but we all need the time to feel”- Gordon Neufeld

"Our brains are like Teflon for the positive experiences, and like Velcro for the negative experiences." Rick Hanson 

"The mind would rather be guilty than helpless."- David Kessler. 

"Guilt can become a burden too heavy to bear, and can keep us stuck in our grieving process." - David Kessler

“Real self-care is creating a life we don’t need to escape”- Anne Lamott

• We don’t get over our grief, our grief goes with us because it is how we love our person.
• Grief is not a linear process. We will oscillate between grieving and living in our new way of life.
• No feeling is final. No feeling is fatal.
• Grief is love with no where to go.
• Beating ourselves up over “what-ifs” does not move us forward.

MISSING THE MANY ALONG WITH THE MAN

When people ask me what I miss about Emco... I always say... the people.  It is really the only thing I miss.  I don't miss the drive. I don't miss time away from my home and family. I don't miss repetitive tasks that had me wondering of my purpose.  I don't miss the corporate machine.  I don't miss the move away from personal customer service towards automated answers.  I miss the people.  I miss the interactions I had with my coworkers and the customers.  I miss the social environment that I was a part of every week day.  I miss the casual interactions along with the deep conversations.  

I left Emco in 2020.  Along with leaving the company, the paycheque, the job... I left a family that I was unable to say goodbye to.  That was painful.  It took a few years before I found myself entering the doors again.  Even then, I only saw a handful of my former coworkers.  I had lost so much.  

On my last trip, I discovered that one of my coworkers, a man by the name of Brian, was in an automobile accident.  He was driving with another coworker and something happened to him that caused him to loose control of the wheel.  I can't remember all the details. I think he went unconscious while driving.  Joe was riding shotgun and had to get control of the vehicle.  When I last visited Emco, the story was that he was in a coma in the hospital.  I didn't hear anything more until yesterday.  

My husband and I were delivering heaters to a customer in Edmonton and I bumped into one of their employees that I knew from my customer interactions at Emco.  Tim recognized me and we chatted a bit.  He then asked me if I had heard about Brian.  I told him I heard Brian was in an accident.   

"No, Brian passed away."

That I didn't hear.  I did a google search for Brian's obituary and discovered that he died on March 26 which was over two weeks ago.  The immediate loss I felt, however,  was not for Brian, but for my disconnection from my former family that would allow two weeks to go by and no news of his death to reach my ears.   I found out, quite by chance, from a customer... not a former coworker.  

I tried to refocus my energy on Brian and how I felt about his dying.  I didn't really feel free to cry in that moment, but found solace in my sadness.  I read his obituary and discovered a few more things I didn't know about the man I worked with for more than a decade.  One hardly learns of the personal details of one's coworker's lives at work.  

I had a chance to connect outside of the workplace once with Brian.  It was at the Edmonton Rock Festival.  My husband's band was part of the lineup that weekend, and I saw Brian in the stands, so I went over to talk with him.  I discovered that he liked attending music shows.  He was a regular attendee at the Emco Blues Festival.  We had a nice visit.  

I was trying to rack my brain about Brian's qualities so I could share them on the obituary. What I came up with was caring.  I realized that maybe I didn't know him as well as I hoped.  But I remember that he valued his customers and co-workers.  I got to have an ear on his frustrations every once in a while, but he didn't take his frustrations out on his customers or his coworkers.  

As much as Brian's death is sad for me, the sadness is wrapped around my greater loss of the family that we were both a part of for so many years.  Had I still been a part of that family, I would now have a place to grieve and share that loss.  Now I don't know how to grieve and wonder if I am still grieving the loss of my Emco family.  

I have a video I made after my departure from Emco.  During Covid, the Emco teammates were sharing photos with each other.  I collected those photos along with some that I had from work and I made a video of my Emco Family.  I watched that video three times yesterday.  It's been four years and there are teammates that I have forgotten, but there are teammates that I greatly miss, (some not even alive anymore).   The song I chose was "The Living Years" from Mike and the Mechanics.  

I realize that in my grief for one person,  there is often a bigger picture and more losses that make the sadness for that one person even greater.  Do I miss Brian or my Emco Family or both?  Emotions are a strange thing to map out.  I do miss them both.  I miss each person, and I miss the team and family.  I am glad now that I am where I am and with whom I am with.  There are no regrets there.  Just a whole lot of sadness right now.  I am missing them all over again.  

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"Grief is hard work"  Rebecca Sorrells