Grief | Hank Dunn

Compassionate, informed advice about healthcare decision making

Archive for the ‘Grief’ Category

“God has a lot of explaining to do.”

Posted March 24, 2022 by [email protected]

The daughter started her eulogy, “I am so angry. God has a lot of explaining to do….” I sat there, stunned, now wondering how in the world I could follow such a performance.

I’ve had the opportunity to officiate many funerals over the years. This was supposed to be one of the “easy” ones. The dead man’s family had a relative who once was a member of my church in Vienna, Virginia, back in the day. None of the family attended that church now — or any church. So, when the man died suddenly of a heart attack at 64, they turned to us for a minister to conduct the service — kind of a rent-a-preacher.

Our pastor was out of town, and it fell to me to fill in. It sounded straightforward enough. They just needed me to be an emcee, so to speak. The daughter would do a eulogy, and we would open the floor for others to give tribute to the recently departed.

As I met with the daughter and granddaughter to plan the funeral, they made it clear that this family was not religious and did not want a lot of God-talk. They agreed to a prayer and Psalm 23. That was that. No sermon. Little religion. I would just show up at the funeral home, conduct the service, get paid, and go home.

I walked into a whole new world

When I entered the funeral home before the service, I walked into a whole new world (for me, at least). At the front of the chapel, a NASCAR flag draped the casket. The deceased’s helmet sat on top — a tribute to his years as a driver on the small-town racing circuit. Scores of people milled around, some laughed, some cried.

Vince Gill

Overhead speakers pumped in country music. Vince Gill sang, “I know your life on earth was troubled / And only you could know the pain… Go rest high on that mountain / Son, your work on earth is done.”

People took their seats in the pews, and I started the service with a few opening remarks. Then it was the daughter’s turn. “I am so angry. God has a lot of explaining to do. My father was a good man. He had no enemies. He loved his children and grandkids. He worked hard and provided for us. God has a lot of explaining to do.”

This was no time for theological argument

As she spoke, I sat there running through my mind things to say to offer another view of her father’s sudden, unexpected death. I thought about referencing Rabbi Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner believed some things, including some deaths of people we love, just happen at random — a belief I share. But obviously, this was not the time nor place to get in a theological argument.

Then the wisdom of Fr. Seamus O’Reilly came to mind. As he talked to his parishioners about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, which some Catholics believed was punishment for sin, the wise priest said:

“God always forgives.
“Humans sometimes forgive.
“Nature never forgives.”

The man had died from a malfunction of his heart. Nature requires that our hearts pump life-giving blood in our veins. This man died of natural causes. “Nature never forgives”? No, that wouldn’t do.

Bless her heart — she was deeply grieving

The daughter’s angry tone did soften partway through her speech. It was clear she was an adoring daughter. She gave a touching and loving tribute to her father, as good a eulogy as I had ever heard from a family member. But she ended where she began, “God has a lot of explaining to do.”

When my turn came, I know I started with, “Death is always a mystery…” and kept it brief. I was speechless after witnessing this woman’s pain. I think everyone else was speechless, too, because few spoke when I opened the floor.

I’m always amazed when those who claim not to be religious will often blame God for tragedy. The funeral could have been a wonderful opportunity to be thankful for the great gift of the time she had with her father. But, bless her heart, she was deeply grieving the loss of her beloved father. I felt so sorry for her that her hurt had turned to anger.

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Chaplain Hank Dunn is the author of Hard Choices for Loving People: CPR, Feeding Tubes, Palliative Care, Comfort Measures and the Patient with a Serious Illness and Light in the Shadows. Together they have sold over 4 million copies. You can purchase his books at hankdunn.com or on Amazon.

When a Wartime Death Brings Complicated Grief

Posted March 3, 2022 by [email protected]

FORT BLAKELEY, ALA. March 1, 2022: What if your teenage son went off to war — fought in one battle — died in that battle — and then you find out his death was actually after the war had ended — AND your side lost the war? Today, we would say parents of these dead soldiers would have complicated grief. Indeed.

Alabama built a state park surrounding the site of the Battle of Fort Blakeley. Tonight, while camping, I will be sleeping in that park on the earth that received the blood of hundreds of dead and wounded Americans. That was in April, 1865, and this fort was the last line of defense for the vital port city of Mobile.

“Boy Brigade”

Display at battlefield

Late in the war, the Confederate States expanded the draft to include younger and older men. So, men in their forties and fifties were conscripted next to teenagers. There were so many teens in two Alabama infantries that some referred to them as the “Boy Brigade.”

Outnumbered 16,000 to 4,000, the Southern troops, including the Boy Brigade, built breastworks still visible today. April 9^th was the first – and last – day of combat many young soldiers faced.

The final assault of the U.S. Army on the fort began at 5:30 PM on April 9^th. But the Civil War effectively ended about two hours earlier when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in Virginia. News traveled slower then, and those poor souls fought a battle that had nothing to do with the outcome of the Civil War.

Complicated Grief

Many factors can complicate grief. Even in today’s world, many ponder the meaning of the death of someone they loved. Deaths by suicide, murder, drunk driving, or other accidents complicate the grief process that is painful even in the most “normal” circumstances.

Then there are the deaths of people with whom we have a conflicted relationship. The passing of a physically abusive father, a sexually exploitive uncle, or a verbally abusive mother can make the grief process most difficult.

I remember the daughter of a patient once said, “My mother never said, ‘I love you’ to me.” She told me that as we were making preparations for the mother’s funeral. Any chance of hearing, “I love you,” also died. We truly don’t know what goes into another’s grief.

All of a sudden, her story made sense

Another family comes to mind when I think about complicated grief. I was sitting vigil at a nursing home patient’s bedside with her daughter. The patient seemed like so many of these sweet old ladies who came to us with advanced dementia. Over the months that the patient was with us, I gathered her daughter’s story on her daily visits.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

At age 16, fifty years earlier, the daughter and her husband-to-be eloped under cover of darkness. She hid a packed suitcase under the front porch as she made her plans. Her younger brother happened upon the suitcase but kept the secret.

In the silence of our vigil, the daughter blurted out, “God. She was a hard woman.” Immediately, I thought to myself, “Now, I understand. The woman was abusive. THAT explains everything.”

When the daughter broke the silence as we sat by her mother, this story finally made sense. She was abused. The brother knew it. He conspired to help his sister make her escape. Yet fifty years later, here she was, sitting beside her mother as she lay dying. Complicated.

My mind comes back to those Confederate parents whose teenage sons went off to war, fought in one battle, and died in that battle after the war was over…and their side lost. Talk about complicated grief.

Grief can be complicated, indeed.

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Curious After Seven Decades Above Ground

Posted February 24, 2022 by [email protected]

Hank and his sister Janice with their brother Dennis two weeks before he died

My birthday passed last week. Number 74. Now, a bitter-sweet day.

Bitter-sweet because I miss my younger brother, Dennis. He died on my birthday five years ago. When his wife called my sister to tell her Dennis had died, she said, “Don’t tell Hank. It will ruin his birthday.” She was right. My sister immediately called me, and it ruined my birthday.

The day now brings the appropriate mix of gratitude for another year of life and grief that my brother is no longer here to call me with birthday wishes. Bitter-sweet.

I find I’m getting more curious about myself as I settle into over seven decades above ground. What am I curious about? About me. My thinking. My spiritual beliefs. I’m curious how can I still find new ways of thinking about and experiencing things spiritual. Curious how I find new ways of verbalizing these experiences.

An old man listening to books

Hank’s 74-year-old self

Last week, I told the story of an old man at the nursing home where I was the chaplain. I was in my 30s and he was in his 90s. The story was about his loveless marriage (according to his wife), but I mentioned that he listened to recorded books.

Every day, he’d be bent over in his wheelchair, leaning down, straining to hear history books being read on a record player. As a young man, I thought, “What is he doing? What is this 90-year-old man going to do with this new knowledge?” He talked very little. He was years past teaching children, or anyone for that matter. He just sat in his room and listened as the day crept slowly by. Now, I think, “I am the old man!”

You start dying slowly

Late last year I was introduced to the poem “You Start Dying Slowly” by Martha Medeiros. In Portuguese it is A Morte Devagar — “A slow death”. This poem meant so much to me that I printed it out and glued it to the inside of the journal I just started in November.

Here are a few lines:

You start dying slowly…
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…

Referring to the poem, I wrote in the journal on November 21, 2021, “I am profoundly moved by this piece. I still marvel that, at my age, I am still wanting to make something of my life. I still struggle with taking risks.” Weeks later, on January 4^th I wrote, “‘Who are you God and who am I?’ St. Francis said and I BOTH say. I am almost 74 and have not settled this.”

My 24-year-old self meets my 74-year-old self — it is not pretty

Hank’s 24-year-old self

Fifty years ago, if my 24-year-old self met my now 74-year-old self, he would have called me a heretic. I was so certain about things at 24. Now, being “right” is less important. Rather, following the teaching of Jesus, right action is more important that right theology.

Now, questions are more important than answers. Curiosity feels better than certainty. I am the old man listening to books. I listen not to know more but to be comfortable with not knowing. The mystics are my favorite guides. Thomas Merton summed up, for me, the mystery of knowing and not knowing God:

Thomas Merton

“Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. The darkness is enough.”

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Can a POW have a “Good Death” Hundreds of Miles from Home?

Posted February 10, 2022 by [email protected]

A young soldier named William Gaston Barringer turned 18 on October 5, 1862. Less than three months later, he was wounded and died as a prisoner of war 200 miles from home. Yet, there is evidence he had a good death. How could this be?

Barringer’s marker caught my eye as I wandered around St. Peter’s Cemetery in Oxford, Mississippi. The epitaph, “I was not afraid to die; my Mother taught me to pray in early life,” got me thinking about what it means to have a good death. (See my “Hank’s Deep Thoughts” video at the monument.)

Let me clarify; a “good death” does not mean that it was good that William died. Death to the young is, of course, a tragedy. And, as a POW, he likely did not die in ideal conditions.

Being a prisoner of war was not mentioned on the monument. I did an internet search and found him on a list of soldiers who died in captivity, hundreds of miles away in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

A “good death” through the centuries

Plagues in the 1300s killed 40-60% of the European population. Such widespread death led to the release of a couple of books known as the Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”). These were Christian instructions on how to have a good death. There were accompanying woodcuts, like one showing demons tempting the dying man with crowns symbolizing earthly pride.

By the American Civil War (1861-65), the dying and their families knew what was expected. Drew Gilpin Faust identified four elements of a good death in her moving book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and The American Civil War. According to Faust, a good death in the 19^th century was one where the dying person:

Was conscious
Was not afraid of dying
Was prepared spiritually to meet their maker
Left dying words for the family

Even the atheist Charles Darwin, who died in 1882 in England, kept to this script. He told his wife on his deathbed, “I am not the least afraid of death—Remember what a good wife you have been to me—Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me.”

Though a reference to spiritual things was conspicuously absent, Darwin was conscious, was not afraid of dying, and left last words for his family. In my interpretation, he wanted to emphasize that even though he had no spiritual leanings, he was still “not the least afraid of death.”

Much has changed since the Civil War, including our expectations about our deaths. Today, medical literaturedescribes what many now consider a good death: being in control, being comfortable and free of pain, having a sense of closure, etc.

This sense of control has recently manifested itself through eleven U.S. jurisdictions adopting medical aid in dying. In those places, patients can ask a physician to give them medication to hasten their dying.

Back to Mr. Barringer

The words on Barringer’s marker were an assurance to his family that he died a good death: “I was not afraid to die; my Mother taught me to pray in early life.” These seem like the dying words of a conscious man.

And there it is. William was conscious, he was not afraid of dying, he was prepared spiritually (thanks to his mother), and these are the words he left for others. I can imagine his mother visiting this monument often in her grief and being consoled, “At least he had a good death.”

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Charlie and His Last Days in Hospice

Posted January 17, 2022 by [email protected]

Katie meets Charlie on her 9th birthday

Charlie was born on October 4, 2007. The Feast of St. Francis. A bookend.

He recently came to his last days, loved, and surrounded by family. We didn’t use the word at the time, but he had a “hospice death.” My heart is so grateful.

Charlie grew with our family. He was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a gift to our daughter, Katie, for her ninth birthday. Good friends raved about their Cavalier and their breeder. We didn’t know what it took to own and raise a dog, and we were sucked in. It sounded so fun.

The breeder required that the adopting family have someone at home during the day. After making a “social work” home visit, she approved us. Of course, she received a hefty fee, which we gladly paid.

Charlie took to sleeping with humans

“Charlie” was not a very creative name, but it just seemed to fit a male King Charles Spaniel. At first, we crated him at night. After weeks of barking, he finally settled into his crate and his place at home. Until…

Our good friend, Roxanne, took Charlie in while we traveled. In her house, dogs slept with humans. Charlie would never again spend the night in a crate.

There is something very endearing about sleeping with a dog. Charlie would push up against my body or between my wife and me. He would snore and shift his position in the night.

Charlie joined Katie in Oxford her second year at Ole Miss, where he supported her during roommate issues and dating cycles. Their deep bond reached new depths. A dog just loves unconditionally.

In a freak accident, Charlie broke his hip and required surgery. Katie and Charlie made it through those days together, and forever one of his hind legs stuck out to the side. It was quite loveable to see when he sat on his haunches, one leg akimbo.

Charlie goes to Washington

High five on Katie’s graduation from college

After graduation, Katie moved to Arlington, Virginia, with Charlie and eventually took a job on Capitol Hill. Long days, especially when the Senate was in session, made keeping Charlie with her impossible. I picked him up last September, and we drove the 900 miles back to Oxford. He was the best road trip buddy. I will miss that.

Like I heard from so many of my hospice families, there were many signs that the end was approaching, but we didn’t think of it until after he died. Arthritis was setting in, and we gave him a daily pain pill. We noticed that he had become deaf. No more did he cock his head to the side when we spoke to him. (The way he used to do that was the best.)

Charlie made one last kayak trip to the swamp

Charlie’s last wilderness trip

I made one last kayak trip with Charlie in October. I featured him in my “Hank’s Deep Thoughts” video filmed that day. It was about how dogs practice mindfulness naturally when humans have to work at it. Charlie has hiked and camped and canoed and road tripped. This crisp October morning was his last wilderness outing.

The first of November, he had some serious intestinal issues, and we took him to the vet. With a change in diet and some meds, he stopped going outside hourly all night long. We thought we had settled into a “new normal.” But we were settling into his last days.

Katie was home for Thanksgiving, and all seemed normal. On Tuesday, November 30, it all changed. His eating and drinking fell off. He stopped walking. For days, I held him up as he took a few bites of food or sips of water. His legs would not support him to poop or pee. We knew this was the end.

A mother’s intuition brought Katie home for one last visit

On Sunday afternoon, my wife and I were pulling into the Walmart parking lot, and she blurted out, “Katie has to come home tonight.” It was a mother’s flash of insight for her soon-to-be grieving daughter. She called Katie and told her to get to National airport and get on a plane. I picked her up in Memphis with Charlie a few hours later. They slept together on our bedroom floor that night before she returned to D.C., Monday. In the car on the way to the Memphis airport, she “Snapped” a photo to friends, “my last photo I’ll ever take with my baby.” Indeed, it was.

Three days before dying a comfortable death at home

We kept Charlie comfortable. He neither ate nor drank all day. He could not stand. We called the vet, but he was out of town. It was just as well. We wanted to avoid anything that might make his passing painful, like needle sticks. This was hospice. Comfort care and just love. We were spared having to decide to put him down. He died peacefully on our bed Monday afternoon.

It was December 6, 2021. The Feast of St. Nicolas. A bookend.

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The Vietnam War and the Wall of Grief

Posted December 1, 2021 by [email protected]

The lone figure of a man at sunrise leaned in and touched a name. Was this a daily or weekly ritual? Was it the first time or one of many? Why at first light?

I had come to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington with my own agenda. I wanted to film one of my “Hank’s Deep Thoughts” videos at dawn. I was hoping to beat the crowds, and I like how the early morning light brings long shadows.

I was here to ponder how one place can hold so much grief and healing.

The Vietnam War, to me, was personal. I had come of age as my friends were going off to war. Mass demonstrations, draft card burnings, and men fleeing to Canada marked the era. The war drove one president from office and marred the legacy to two others. I got my draft induction orders in 1969 but was spared from service by staying in college and getting a high lottery number.

The Wall of Grief

By chance, I ended up with a backstage view of the design of “The Wall,” as it has become known. It was a long and winding road for me from Gainesville, Florida, through Louisville, Kentucky, and Macon, Georgia to therapy group in a church on Embassy Row near Dupont Circle in D.C. We all came to the group with our own issues and often reminded each other, “We’re all Bozos on this bus.”

Hank asked his friend who was not in the group, David Wear, to draw the therapy group motto, “We’re all Bozos on this bus!”

One of the group members was an artist and Vietnam vet who submitted a design for the memorial. His was one of 1,421 designs entered in the competition to honor more than 57,000 Americans who died in a war that divided the nation.

The winning design came from a 21-year-old architecture student from Athens, Ohio, Maya Ying Lin. Her idea was quite simple: Two polished black granite walls below ground level forming a V-shape in the earth. The names of the dead and missing were each listed in chronological order — 1959-1975.

A firestorm of opposition to the design quickly arose. The artist-vet, of course, felt his idea of showing soldiers’ courage in battle was better. Others said the black of the wall was the color of shame. They saw it as a “wall of shame” — a ditch in the ground. Lin’s view was that it represented a gash, a wound in the earth that needed healing.

A place of grief and healing

It turns out her idea was masterful. The Wall has become a place of reflection and healing, a public place to grieve privately. Annually, millions walk the path by the wall in silence, as if in a sacred space — indeed it is. Grown men weep as they touch the name of a fallen comrade. Children visit the names of fathers they never knew.

That lone man who touched the wall silently at dawn — what’s his story? I don’t know. It was too private of a moment for me to interrupt. He walked past me into the morning light.

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Just Plain “Thank You” Period

Posted November 22, 2021 by [email protected]

[NOTE: This is an update of a blog first published in 2013.]

Can we be overwhelmed with gratitude but have no need to thank anyone or anything?

This question came to me as I finished the last pages of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. This 2012 memoir was reviewed in The New York Times and made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon in 2014.

She took her grief on a 1,100-mile backpacking trip

The story is about loss and backpacking, two abiding interests in my life. I’d probably write favorably of anyone who takes their grief on a 1,100-mile backpacking trip. Cheryl Strayed did and wrote about it.

Strayed has an abusive father, her beloved mother dies prematurely, and her stepfather and siblings later drift away. After Strayed’s destructive behavior ends her marriage and leads her to addiction, she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, inexperienced and alone. She encounters the elements, animals, people, and her own demons and angels on her months-long journey.

I have never attempted long-distance backpacking. The most I have ever lasted was four nights. So, I only have a hint of what Strayed went through on her arduous journey. I met many through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail within a half-hour of my home in Virginia. The people I met on the AT had completed one thousand miles on their way to Maine, another thousand miles to the north. Strayed’s stories of the people she hikes with for a few days at a time ring true.

In the end, GRATITUDE was the feeling at her core

At bottom, Strayed’s story is about her spiritual journey to emotional wholeness from what was once the wreck of her life. She never portrayed herself as a religious person in any sense of the word. But, in the end, gratitude was the feeling at her core.

There are many moving passages in the book, but I was caught by one line on the next-to-last page of the book. Cheryl touches the bridge on the Columbia River, the site at the end of her journey. She walks back to an ice cream stand to buy herself a treat with the last two dollars she has to her name. She enjoys her ice cream, chatting with a lawyer from Portland who stops for ice cream, too. She says goodbye to him and

“I leaned my head back and closed my eyes against the sun as the tears I’d expected earlier at the bridge began to seep from my eyes. Thank you, I thought over and over again. Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know, though I felt it somehow already contained within me.”

Religious types thank God. Others thank a “higher power” or “the universe.” Strayed felt no need to tell us who the “you” was in her “thank you.” In my life-long quest to understand the spiritual journey, I have never encountered a simpler yet profound expression of gratitude for being a recipient of the graciousness of life. Most of the dying people I met in my 30 years as a chaplain had that same humility and gratitude.

Thank you.

Just “thank you,” period.

Cheryl Strayed ends her book acknowledging the truth I try to capture in my poem “Giving Up, Letting Go, and Letting Be” with the words,

“How wild it was, to let it be.”

Thank you,

Hank

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My Life At 100

Posted September 1, 2021 by [email protected]

I made it to one hundred! 100. The Big One-Oh-Oh.

This is my 100th blog post. It took a while. I started blogging in 2011 and made six blog posts that year. For the first nine years, I only published 51.

From my very first blog post, May 11, 2011: “How to start a blog about end-of-life decisions? I have been professionally dealing with these issues for 27 years.… One thing for certain . . . the fact that patients and families often struggle with decisions about medical treatment at the end of life will not go away.”

(BTW, shout out to Kelly Brachle, of Quality of Life Publishing Co., who edits my ramblings into a coherent thought. And while I am shouting out, nothing leaves our home without the approval of my wife as she stands in for the “average reader” [when I showed her this post, she reminded me she is “above average”]. More than once, her suggestions have saved me some embarrassment.)

It’s all about the stories — family, friends, wilderness

Although I often stick to the theme of making end-of-life decisions, other topics get some attention. I share my own family’s experience with death and dying, like with my mom’s decline and death in “How did your mom feel about her dementia?” Grief is a repeated theme, like my recent post on the funeral ritual for my brother 42 years after he died.

I really try to tell stories, like the post about my friend who died with dementia. I wrote about our friendship since junior high and how we fished together in the years before his death. Occasionally, I share my adventures in the wilderness, like the one about my love of swamps.

I have been writing my whole adult life – before the days of the blog. A few of those older writings made it into the collection. I reprinted a story about riding my bicycle the length of the Outer Banks from a 1993 newsletter published by the nursing home where I was chaplain. For several years following a difficult time in my life, I sent letters (essays, really) to family and friends. In a 2014 post, I shared a piece I did in 1998 about my friend, mentor, and author, Elizabeth O’Connor.

Writing and videos for short attention spans

We have become a people with short attention spans, so I try to limit each post to about 500 words. I have even ventured into producing two-minute videos on various topics. Sometimes I’ll tell the same story in both formats. I did a blog about the lesson my father taught me about letting go in the blog “How to get to ‘It doesn’t Matter!’” I then did a YouTube video about the same story.

By the way, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel and look through my “Hank’s Deep Thoughts” playlist.

I have found that writing for others helps me think things through. I can clarify thoughts in my mind when I have to explain things in a way others can understand. So even if no one else reads these, I will keep on writing these blog posts.

Oops! I just passed 500 words. Bye!

The Health Risks of Loneliness

Posted August 25, 2021 by [email protected]

“Oh. It’s the chaplain. How nice,” she greeted me as I entered her room at the nursing home. Mable was often alone in her room by choice. She was blind and over 100 years old.

This is the same Mable from my book, who, when I asked her, “How do you live to be 102?” responded, “Just keep breathing!”

I thought of Mable as I listened to a recent GeriPal podcast titled “Loneliness and Social Isolation: Podcast with Carla Perissinotto and Ashwin Kotwal.” (“GeriPal,” as in, Geriatrics and Palliative Care.)

As I said, Mable was often alone in her room, isolated. But was she lonely? I don’t recall if I ever asked her. The researchers on the podcast did point out that some elderly folks may be isolated but not lonely.*

Listening to the podcast, one particular visit with Mable came to mind. When I walked into her room, she was in bed, her eyes closed. I gently touched her hand and quietly said her name, “Mable.” She opened her blind eyes suddenly, startled.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I assured her.

“That’s okay. I was in my dream world,” Mable said.

“What’s it like in your dream world?” I asked.

“It’s wonderful!”

A couple of quotes from the podcast:

“Loneliness is different than isolation and solitude. Loneliness is a subjective feeling where the connections we need are greater than the connections we have. In the gap, we experience loneliness. It’s distinct from the objective state of isolation, which is determined by the number of people around you.” – Vivek Murthy, two-time (and current) U.S. Surgeon General.

“Loneliness and isolation…are linked with pretty serious health outcomes.… [We] demonstrated that over a six-year period, people that reported higher rates of loneliness had higher risk of dying, 45% increased risk of dying, and 59% increased risk of loss of independence and functional decline, outcomes that are significant and important to our patients.”

Fighting Covid AND loneliness

Photo by Hank Dunn, Fairfax Nursing Center

Now keep in mind, the researchers completed their findings BEFORE the pandemic. COVID made their research even more relevant. Nursing homes kept residents in their rooms, and facilities were closed to visitors to prevent the spread of the virus. This isolation may have reduced deaths by COVID but, perhaps, invited death by loneliness.

There must be a better way to mitigate the risk of both these health threats. Yes, we need to avoid the spread of COVID among residents and staff. And, so too, loneliness.

*“Loneliness in Older Persons: A Predictor of Functional Decline and Death,” JAMA Internal Medicine; July 23, 2012. “The epidemiology of social isolation and loneliness among older adults during the last years of life, ” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; July 11, 2021.

Grief Upon Grief, Upon Grief — A Funeral, FINALLY, 42 Years Later

Posted August 12, 2021 by [email protected]

Can you have a funeral for someone who died 42 years ago? Last week, I wrote about having to delay the burial of my mother-in-law’s ashes for ten months because of COVID. Why not 42 years? In 1996, I officiated this long-delayed funeral, choking back tears.

The summer of 1996 turned out to be a terrible one for me. I went through an unspeakable loss that involved a major betrayal and abandonment. By August, I couldn’t get my dead brother, Randy, out of my mind amidst my grief and sadness. By that time, he had been gone over 41 years.

Randy only lived a week, and never left the hospital. He was born without functioning intestines. It was clear that he would die within days. This was back when children were not permitted to visit hospitals, and I was just six years old. I never saw Randy. I never held him. I did not know what it was like to look upon his face.

And yet, during that summer, I missed him. Fresh grief has a way of bringing up old grief you didn’t even know you had.

The backstory

Mom and Dad were visiting for our son’s high school graduation in 1993. After dinner one evening, Randy somehow came up in conversation. I said to my parents, “Tell me about Randy’s death.”

Instantly, Mom burst into tears. Once she could speak, she said, “My father would not let me go to Randy’s funeral.”

My grandfather was a funeral director and arranged to remove my brother’s body quickly from the hospital. Mom had already been sent home, leaving her newborn son behind to die alone. Dad attended the graveside service, but my grieving mother was not allowed. My controlling, alcoholic grandfather decided it would be better for Mom to avoid the pain of putting her child in the ground.

In somewhat of a defense of my grandfather, this was how things were done in 1954. Avoid the pain and go on with your life as if nothing happened. At the time, funeral directors were the only grief experts. Granddaddy was doing what he thought best.

Nowadays, we encourage the parents, and even siblings, to hold their lifeless child. Some families even wash their children, preparing them for burial. These rituals are such an important part of the grief process.

Fresh grief, old grief

Although I always was aware of Randy’s short life, I can never remember him coming up in conversation until my inquiry in 1993. Just mentioning his name opened the floodgates. My mother carried that huge ocean of grief just below the surface all these years.

Did thoughts about Randy painfully arise when Granddaddy died? Randy died on November 22nd. Did Mom think about Randy when President Kennedy was killed on that same day nine years later? Did she think about Randy at my graduation from high school? I am guessing she thought of Randy all the time. I never knew.

When my father was taking his last breath in 2002, Mom’s parting words to him were, “You’re going to see Randy before me.”

Grief never goes away

Although I was not conscious of it, the loss of my brother was always a part of me, too. It didn’t occur to me until I was in the depths of despair that summer of 1996.

As Thanksgiving approached that year, I got an idea. My daughter and I were going to spend it with my parents in Florida. I decided to go to Randy’s grave and conduct a personal graveside service — a ritual. I called Mom and Dad and told them my plan, inviting them to join me. Mom said, “I would love to. You know what I told you about my father.” Indeed, I did.

So, on Thanksgiving 1996, 42 years after his death, we had a funeral for my brother. Mom, Dad in his wheelchair, my brother, his wife, my daughter, and I gathered at the grave. I read the words of committal (“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”) and Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”), we said the Lord’s Prayer, and I stammered through a prayer about Randy.

We turned toward each other. We embraced. We wept deeply. Forty-two years of sorrow ran down our cheeks.

Archive for the ‘Grief’ Category

I walked into a whole new world

This was no time for theological argument

Bless her heart — she was deeply grieving

“Boy Brigade”

Complicated Grief

All of a sudden, her story made sense

An old man listening to books

You start dying slowly

My 24-year-old self meets my 74-year-old self — it is not pretty

A “good death” through the centuries

Back to Mr. Barringer

Charlie took to sleeping with humans

Charlie goes to Washington

Charlie made one last kayak trip to the swamp

A mother’s intuition brought Katie home for one last visit

The Wall of Grief

A place of grief and healing

She took her grief on a 1,100-mile backpacking trip

In the end, GRATITUDE was the feeling at her core

I made it to one hundred! 100. The Big One-Oh-Oh.

It’s all about the stories — family, friends, wilderness

Writing and videos for short attention spans

A couple of quotes from the podcast:

Fighting Covid AND loneliness

The backstory

Fresh grief, old grief

Grief never goes away

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