Most of what I know about grief I learned walking with people  as they fight their way through the jungle of tangled feelings and emotions following the death of a loved one. Some of the best learning has happened in the times I have been able to have a grief group composed of just one immediate family. Most of the time, families are far too scattered for such a thing to happen, but when it is possible, it has proven to be a time of healing for them and a time of great learning for me.

I met with a family whose twenty-eight year old son died very suddenly with no known cause. This family was extremely close and loving, and were as crushed by the loss as any family I have ever known. I agreed to meet with them as a family for several sessions which were later extended. I also met with some of the family in private sessions. 

If you boil down everything those of us who write about grief have to say, it boils down to permission. The best thing to do with grief is grieve, but it is not always easy to find the place or the people who we feel give us permission to do so openly and without shame.

The very best place for permission to be available is within the family. Far too often, in an effort to protect other members, the family tends to hide their grief and act as if nothing has happened. No one wants to bring it up for fear of upsetting the others. It is hard to tell a family member how much we hurt until we know what they are feeling so the death becomes the Elephant in the Room no one wants to notice. Parents hide from the children to do their crying. Children swear they are okay to keep from worrying the parents. I believe it takes a family to grieve a loss. That belief led me to begin grief groups built around one family.

At first there is a great deal of hesitancy. We all have a natural fear of intimacy and nowhere is intimacy more prevalent and involved than within the family unit. It takes a couple of rather stiff meetings before the family can relax and realize that letting the rest of the family see their pain is not going to somehow destroy the other members or the family itself.

Usually, the first meetings are not the warm sharing times one would expect. When we hurt, all we can think about is our own pain, and it is hard to respond to the pain of others. That leaves us feeling selfish and cold, but the reality is, until some relief is found we do not have much to give to anyone else. The most important thing that happens is the honest sharing of feelings. As this happens the family discovers that each person responds to the grief in their own unique way and that it is all right for them to do so. They begin to accept each person's grief as unique unto them and do not form opinions on how the other person should feel or act.

All of this was true in this family. As their sessions continued, I was able to see the impact on the marriage up close and personal. I have long believed that the loss of a child is one of the hardest things a marriage can try to endure. There are no statistics to prove it, but I think the divorce rate in such families is much higher. Watching the dynamics of grief within this family setting, I can certainly see how a death could lead to a marital breakdown. 

This couple were a little different from the norm. The husband was far more emotional and seemed totally crushed and broken. The wife was more stoic and did not shed tears in front of the group, although she did do so in private. Then one night she let it all loose, and in the process told her husband how his pain was making it hard for her and the children to know how to function in front of him. 

That was not pretty and it was hard on the husband of course, but I realized how devastating those feelings would have become if they were not openly expressed and were allowed to fester unspoken for a few years. Her feelings could have driven a silent wedge in the relationship that could ultimately end in divorce. Sitting through her storm was painful and uncomfortable for everyone in the room, but that night proved to be a turning point in the family’s grief journey. Her feelings were now openly expressed and we could deal with them. The family saw that she was grieving as deeply as they were she just was not as open with her feelings. She realized that expressing feelings was not a sign of weakness and became much more accepting of her husbands need to do so. The true expression of feelings set them free. Honesty is never easy and sometimes it is painful, but it is an absolute necessity for the grief journey. Honesty within the family is even harder, but also even more necessary. 

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