Passing Reflections is a book that explores the terrain of traumatic loss.  While mostly poems, it is in fact a story, a chronological account of my journey through the hours, days and months following the loss of my eldest son, Colby, to suicide.  He was twenty-two.  My intention in sharing this work is to reach out to others suffering loss and also to reach out to those who would serve them.  I often found a void of understanding separating these groups.  My aspiration is to help bridge the gap.

 

I know that when in need it can be difficult to find genuine help.  Sometimes people hesitate to reach out because they cannot bear to witness another’s pain.  And, too, it can be hard to connect with survivors of traumatic loss.  Trauma undermines the foundations of one’s being—the ground gives way, time stops, we cease to exist as once we did, almost as if there was no one there to reach.  When Colby died I felt profoundly alienated from everyone and everything, even from loving family and friends who were trying to help me, and even as I had a pressing need to connect with them in a meaningful way.  I found myself inhabiting a parallel world , isolated in the midst of other’s normalcy.  It can be frightening to find oneself utterly transformed and apparently alone in a strange but vital, new reality.

 

            The stress of being unable to communicate what was real for me set in motion the writing of this book.  I desperately needed to connect with others and failing miserably in most of my attempts, I fell back on the written word.  Deep in shock, at first the writing was simply witnessing; documenting where I was and what was happening inside of me.  Later, as I experienced awkward and sometimes hurtful interactions with friends and caregivers, I wrote, trying to help people understand what it is to grieve traumatic loss.

 

            The valuable insights by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and others into its process, gave us an understanding of the stages of grief.  While helping elucidate the fact that grief moves through shock, confusion, guilt, anger and eventually forgiveness and compassion, this process is sometimes misread as a linear progression, a road that starts at one place and ends up in another.  I found the stages of grief to be more circular or spiral than linear, always revisiting the beginning, but in a whole new way.  Eventually, as I went round and round, I learned to not fear the sudden seismic waves of sadness and guilt that seemed to come out of nowhere.  I learned to ride them out.  They passed, and at each pass I grew better able to open to, and face what was.

 

It is hard to watch someone you care for suffer whether from physical or emotional pain.  And how do we separate those anyway, the physical from the mental?  Wanting to help us ‘get over it’ is such a natural human response.  But traumatized by loss, our bodies, hearts and minds undergo physiological and mental processes that are of vital importance to our well-being.  There is no right or wrong way to grieve and healing takes time, sometimes years.  Even so, it often seems that almost everyone wants grief to just go away. In an effort to help, family members, friends and caregivers can cause further trauma attempting to ‘fix’ what is ‘wrong’. 

 

The loving intention to help when coming from an urgent need to eradicate pain sometimes goes awry: first, in the aversion to feeling any pain; and second, in the refusal to acknowledge that there might, in fact, be some benefit to experiencing pain.  My understanding now is that there is no ‘getting over it’.  Instead, recovery is a process where we learn to incorporate the pain of loss into the fabric of our lives.  This takes time and help from those who can listen without the overlay of their hopes and fears, in other words, without judgments.  In time pain softens but it does not go away.

 

            Sometimes I felt a need in others for me to be anyplace but where I was.  So great was this pressure  that I tried to document my reality, to show the futility of trying to make someone other than what they are.  Besides being impossible, it is not helpful.  Tears are an interesting case in point.  The cultural need to edit our feelings so others will not be uncomfortable is hard on those who grieve.  And so I wrote, trying to help people see that if they truly wanted to be supportive, simply listening to, or just sitting quietly and being with me without the need to do or change anything would be the greatest kindness.  Bottling tears does not make a good brew.  Eventually, unwept grief sours and becomes even harder to bear.  And then there were times when I experienced joy  and laughter and I was stricken by the thought, “How could I feel joy when he is dead?”  And so I wrote, noting that as grief moves we often travel the full range of emotions. 

 

Not only was I surprised by changes in me, I also learned a great deal about those around me.  Many family members and friends and even strangers offered their heartfelt support, while others, even some I thought would, did not.  Not everyone can engage the pain of loss.  I am grateful to all those who were able to be with me in pain; they helped me to survive.  Finding a grief group or counselor who will sit with you and genuinely listen is especially important since it is so difficult for others to approach our pain. 

 

In my search for help after Colby died I saw several counselors.  Early on, one of them said, “Never let anyone tell you that you are doing it wrong.”  Eventually we find a path through loss, sometimes in awkward and uncomfortable ways, but all paths are correct.  I derived the greatest benefit from the grief group called Survivors of Suicide (SOS) sponsored by the King County Crisis Clinic in Seattle, Washington, where I had the chance to speak my truth and listen to others suffering loss do the same.  I was also fortunate to find and join a spiritual community that has helped me in my healing.

 

            Forgiveness of those who seem to have let us down comes as we gain perspective.  Every one of us is doing the best she or he can, including those who suicide, including those so locked inside their judgments they cannot extend.  If we could do it differently we would be doing so.  Letting go of judgments begins when our hearts are broken open and we understand that there is fundamentally no difference between us, and ultimately nothing missing from what is. At that moment, instead of being frightened by and turning away from hardship or joy, we become able to embrace both  and offer each other a helping hand.

 

            Losing my son changed my whole orientation to living.  I realized if I was to survive I needed to reach out to others.  I am neither a therapist nor do I imagine the poems will be a prescription for all.  I simply offer this work to you, hoping you will find in it threads of correspondence, for that is where healing begins.  May it be of benefit.