Issues, concerns, concepts & theories surrounding our “final challenge,” death and dying, are thoroughly discussed in CH 17 of Life-Span: Human Development. Questions such as “what is death?” and “what kills us and when?” are addressed before delving into various theories that attempt to answer our concerns about a subject that affects us all on multiple occasions throughout our life span.
One topic I found interesting during my reading discussed the various behavior, culturally, that we as humans express in response to death. For instance, Japanese Americans tend not to express their grief in public for fear of shaming themselves. I find that to be a cruel and unhelpful practice. I feel expressing one’s grief is liberating, comforting and appropriate. It’s healthy for loved ones of a person who has died to see that friends and family cared for him or her. I ball my eyes out at every funeral I attend as long as I had made some sort of connection with the person who has passed. It’s even possible for me to merely look at the pictures of someone I was only acquainted with and start getting teary-eyed. It’s perfectly natural, and I’m not ashamed of crying as a form of mourning, whether for myself or for the people who were most close to the person who just passed. This leads me to some of the theories addressing our reactions to the prognosis of death on one’s doorstep.
Kubler-Ross’s “Stages of Dying” include (1) denial and isolation, (2) anger, (3) bargaining, (4) depression and (5) acceptance. While an interesting and in some areas plausible theory, I don’t think the third stage, bargaining, functions for everyone who faces death. Bargaining is said to occur between a person who’s learned he/she is dying and God. The dying individual allegedly asks for either a pass or more time to experience aspects of life they’ve put off until that moment of desperation. That being said, atheists would seemingly skip that step in the process toward acceptance.
This fallibility in the theory is touched upon in other ways. Criticisms of Kubler-Ross’s stages take shape in the idea that only a minority of dying people experience all the emotions suggested and medical professionals naively feel it is important to push patients to experience the emotional stages in order.
Despite some of the uncertainties about the accuracy of particular theories, one thing is certain: bereavement is unmistakable and an experience we all must bear. Bereavement is said to be expressed through grief, an emotional response to the loss, and mourning, a cultural reaction to the loss such as funeral attendance or visiting graves with flowers every year.
The Parkes/Bowlby Attachment Model serves as a clarifying paradigm that helps explain the bereavement process just noted in the preceding paragraph. According to the model, (1) numbness is followed by (2) yearning, which is followed by (3) disorganization and despair and lastly (4) reorganization. From my own perspective, the Parkes/Bowlby Attachment Model is perfectly plausible, believable and relevant. The numbness stage certainly correlates to the disbelief feeling that so many loved ones of those lost tend to express. As reality sets in, yearning of course follows because the loss is unmistakable and undoubtedly irreversible; the result is agony and emotional pain. This leads to depression, despair and a lack of organization in one’s life. This culminates into feelings of apathy, which eventually comes to an end in the form of reorganization.
I relate to this model (Parkes/Bowlby…) in its entirety. My best friend from college (Cal-U) committed suicide almost 2 years ago now. He jumped off the Homestead bridge a few days before Christmas in 2009. I learned of his death through my mother in law who recognized his name from my wife and I’s wedding invitations when his suicide was reported on the local news. I couldn’t believe the news. I had to see for myself, and when I saw what seemed like a high school photo of him in the news report online, I immediately started to weep. I called our closest mutual friends with the terrible news.
It was at my friend’s viewing in Pittsburgh that I met his parents for the first time. They immediately knew who I was when I told them my name. His mother cried in my arms repeating my name over and over again. Apparently I was talked about in my friend’s home. It touched me, but I felt so bad for my friend’s parents. I still run through in my head how “I could have done this” or “done that” and my humorous, talented and amazing great friend might still be alive today.
I cried for a long time. I still visit the online guest book that his mother set up in his memory. She visits the page often to write to her son; to tell him how much she misses him. I can’t imagine how hard it is for her and her husband to wake up every morning remembering that their son is no longer around. I hope they’ve begun to reorganize their lives, despite the indescribable grief they must still feel over their son’s suicide. Most of all, I hope they don’t blame themselves.
Like the chapter notes, due to family attachments, deaths of family members are usually the hardest to bear. Statistically, in terms of the loss of a spouse, women are more likely to experience this damage to the family system. The loss of a husband tends to have an extensive impact on the life of a widow. Emotional issues aside, the widow might need to move, get a job or change careers and/or take on single-parenthood.
Relevant to the emotional states of my late friend’s parents, the loss of a child is said to be more difficult than any other loss for adults. Mixed emotions begin to take over: anger, guilt, depression and longing. Unfortunately, the book notes that only 12% of parents whose young adult child committed suicide found meaning in the loss a year after the tragic event. Honestly though, why would they? The number purportedly jumps to over 50% after 5 years, but the study included accidental deaths and homicides as well, so it’s hard to say how much the parents of adolescents and young adult children who committed suicide augment that statistic.
As hard as it is for me to imagine the feelings of loss my late friend’s parents must experience on a day to day basis, the grief work perspective, a process that essentially leads to reorganization, provides some comfort when concerning their health. According to the perspective, “bereaved people must confront their loss, experience painful emotions, work through those emotions, and move toward a detachment from the deceased.”
While I highly doubt my friend’s mother will ever reach detachment from her son, I do feel, judging from the online guestbook, that she has confronted and continues to confront the loss, is certainly experiencing painful emotions, and working toward getting a handle on her intense emotions and moving forward with the family she still has and the life she still must live. A degree of detachment for one’s mere sanity is possible, but full detachment–especially a mother from her son–is unlikely. There will never be a day she doesn’t wake up thinking about him. The bonds will never be severed, and the idea that they must be is partially responsible for the grief work perspective recently coming under some criticism.
Critics argue that the grief work perspective is culturally biased, and incidentally, I’d like to note that just like the cultural differences expressed through our public responses to death (see page 1 “…Japanese Americans…”), our private handling of bereavement may vary as a result of differences among cultural norms.
In conclusion, it seems grief takes many forms and isn’t always a cut and dry response to loss. That being said, it is very clear to me that the most important factor in reaching reorganization after the loss of a loved one is social support. This could come in the form of close friends, family members, spouses, churches and community organizations and anyone kind enough to be compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic and sensitive toward a person experiencing bereavement.
References:
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2006). Life-span: Human development . (5 ed., p. 521). Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.