The tip of the iceberg
On a recent once in a lifetime trip to Antarctica, an unexpected thing happened. I fell in love with icebergs. Yep. They fascinated me. I learned that the part you can see is only about 10%, with the other 90% hiding under the surface of the water. And if that wasn't a rich enough metaphor, I also learned that icebergs are constantly rotating to maintain equilibrium and that at times, they'll also completely flip upside down, exposing their crystalized glowing blue underside. Each one is unique and as I spent more time examining them, I noticed the different phases of the "life cycle" of an iceberg. Some were newer; younger, full of promise. Some had clearly been rotating for a while and were rounded and worn. Some, barely hanging on, almost ready to melt away forever. Others, just forming as they "calved" from the mountain side to begin their life of floating. And some, completely uprooted with their underside completely exposed. I think it's such a beautiful message from mother nature; a reminder that there's always more than meets the eye. And when it comes to being a "griever", someone actively grieving a loss like me, this couldn't be truer. It also reminded me that just like each of these icebergs, with its unique journey, we each have a story to tell...
It was the first night of this same expedition when I got to tell mine. What was once a bustling dining room, now left empty gave birth to an organic gathering of souls. And I talked about death. Risky for night one, I know. And I went all the way too. I used words like “died” rather than “passed away”. I cursed. I cried. I raised my voice. I was silent. I just let it flow and all of these people stayed. Others even joined, quietly sitting down, not knowing what they were walking in to. None left.
These people wanted to learn about me, my story, and what I had seen. What I had felt and how my journey had unfolded. They wanted to see the underside of my iceberg. They didn’t rush me, they didn’t need me to quickly get to the silver linings and the meaning making. They let the story be. I dont think they know what a gift they gave me by doing this.
It’s been 2 years since Owen died. When he first died, I went looking for stories of people who had lived this kind of loss. I went looking for stories of people living in pain so huge it obliterated everything else. I needed those stories. An example to live into. What I found were stories of how to get out of pain. How to fix it. How to transform grief as soon as possible. I read about butterflies emerging anew and meaning being made out of deep pain and basically I read over and over that there was something wrong with me for being so broken.
It wasn’t just the books that told me that. The people in my life, close friends, the wider community, and the therapists—they all wanted me to be OK. They needed me to be OK because pain like mine is incredibly hard to witness and my story is very hard to hear.
For those who have been close to me to hear that I was so broken is not easy. For those seeing me today, it seems almost unbelievable; after all the tip of my iceberg looks normal these days. But like all icebergs once they begin their journey from the mountain side into the icy waters, you are actually never the same.
When he died it was like the massive calving of the ice from the mountainside. The avalanche of destruction was too fast and strong to outrun. It was a time where everything seemed withheld. Breath was hard to find. Words were impossible. The path I took to get where I suddenly found myself had washed out. The way forward was concealed from me. The old was not old enough to have died away, but the new was too fresh. like the blinding snow, and burned my eyes every time I opened them. I tried to find my footing, to lay claim to anything in this place of dusk but my eyes were blurred and every time I caught my reflection in the mirror, I didn’t recognize my own face.
I truly believed I was going crazy and possibly near death myself because it all felt so overwhelming. I was not able to function because of distraction, exhaustion, and so many intense sensations. Everything was so bright, so loud, so sharp. When the sharpness faded, it was like I was a ghost…off searching for the one I’d lost, somewhere in the ether. I walked around, doing all the right things, putting one foot in front of another, living, but not. And I didn’t know it at the time, but more than anything, the salve my soul needed was acceptance. I needed others to let me be. I needed to be allowed to drift, to rotate, to flip. To melt. Broken, messy, no longer myself, my subjective experience needed to be re-framed as what was “right” against the social rules of grief that are just plain “wrong”.
It wasn’t until i began to personify grief, began to be curious about her, and be less afraid of spending time with her that I began to come back from the edge and begin to integrate. Grief isn’t about working through a linear process that ends with ‘acceptance’ or a ‘new life’, where you have moved on or compartmentalized your childs memory. It isn’t a straight line from pain to peace. Rather, when your child dies you slowly find ways to adjust and redefine your relationship with them, allowing for a continued bond with them that will endure, in different ways and to varying degrees, throughout your life. This relationship is not unhealthy, nor does it mean you are not grieving in a normal way.
Its called the “continuing bonds theory” and it suggests that this is not only normal and healthy, but that an important part of grief is continuing ties in this way. Rather than assuming detachment as a normal grief response, continuing bonds considers natural human attachment even in death.
I was there from my son’s entire lifetime from his conception to his death. That his life was expedited in this way still befuddles me. It feels unnatural. It’s confusing. At times, maddening. And yet, it is still a life. It is still a journey with a beginning a messy middle, and an end. Short. Desperately, devastatingly short. Most icebergs live longer than he did.
The pain of my lived experience, of witnessing his birth, life, and death in a way that was never supposed to be, never lessens. But it loosens. Loosens its vice grip on my throat and its chains on my heart. And for that I am grateful.
So if we want to be helpful to people in pain, we need to be willing to reject the dominant story of pain as an aberrant condition in need of transformation or redemption. We need to stop trotting out the stages of grief that were never meant to become universal scripts.
We need to be brave enough to sit down at the table, to invite the stories to be told. To hold space for them. We need to remember that what you see is only the tip of the iceberg, that there is more underneath. Everyone has a story of grief because it is a universal human experience. Our job is to tell these stories. To tell real stories. Better stories. In telling better stories, we weave a culture that knows how to bear witness, to simply show up and be present to that which can never be transformed. In telling better stories, we learn to be better companions, to ourselves, and to each other.
"I hope death is like
being carried to your bedroom
when you were a child
& fell asleep on the couch
during a family party.
I hope you can hear the laughter
from the next room"
Yorumlar