But I am so not their mother. Because I’m married to their dad, Jim, there is a danger that I could now be seen as their mother. That’s not OK. Because I’m not. They have a mom, and she’s not here. So, I think sometimes, they have to stay extra far away from having tender conversations with me.
Not to mention—what kind of adolescent boy would like that the new bonus parent in the house is a therapist? One more solid reason that I am not a person in which to confide!
Jay is a boy in North American culture. Tell me, how is it that a boy entering adolescence is supposed to grieve? Those middle school years are a time when the school yard eats vulnerability for lunch. It’s widely believed (wrongly, by the way) at that age that crying is for wimps. Sharing your heart is something that normal guys aren’t supposed to do. And feeling sad feelings in a raw, honest way just isn’t seen in popular media. Video games are excellent at numbing out life—but leave little room for feelings one’s feelings. We don’t give adolescent boys a lot of space to grieve in our culture. The news in our lives moves from one top story to another in a few hours—maybe a day or two. Grieving a parent takes years—which is inconvenient in an instant society. The hole in his life because of his mother’s death was huge—and remained unprocessed and un-cried-for.
My husband’s and my attempts to create opportunity to have him grieve were well intentioned, but relatively unsuccessful. Jim would take him to the gravesite, or I would make a recipe from her recipe box for supper. Not much response. We wanted to respect his timing and his discomfort with the whole process. I don’t think you can push grieving onto anyone. We were aware the grief was there. We could see grief’s effects. It leaked through to us via his sullen quietness, the lethargy of hours spent on the couch, his cynicism and sarcasm, and his lack of initiative and engagement.
One evening, we watched a video online of a family friend. Her school had a speech competition and her topic was about her mother’s illness and death. The young teen spoke openly and bravely about how this difficult experience changed her. As we noted her own understanding of her grief, it sparked a conversation. Jay was just beginning to be aware of the “dark hole” inside that he was having trouble articulating.
I asked him: “Jay, if I were to make you talk to someone, would you be furious at me and hate me for it, or would you pretend to hate it, but secretly be relieved?”
He told me, “Yes”.
Typical teenager—answering multiple choice with a yes response! I took it as permission and pressed further.
“Would you rather talk to a counselor or to a mom of one of your friends?”
He told us he preferred a mother and named one of his friend’s moms who has often driven him in carpool to practices.
I contacted the mom, Bonnie, the next evening to find out if she would be willing and interested. She said that Jay had already asked her during school pick up that day if I had been in contact with her!
Jaw drop number one!
She willingly agreed to spend time with Jay, her son’s friend.
Bonnie arranged a time for her to pick him up the next day. He came home after about 90 minutes—and announced to me: “Carolyn, let me tell you how a grown up gets a 14-year-old boy to talk. You pick up drinks at Starbucks and then just drive around. You don’t look at me. You make the drive interesting so we can just look if there’s a long time when it’s quiet. I need to look at stuff through the window and be a little distracted before I can talk.” He added, knowingly: “Just sitting across the table from a boy is not a good idea if you want him to talk.”
Jaw drop number two!
He was giving me lessons on how to talk to him.
Lesson noted and learned.
I thanked Bonnie the next time I saw her. Bonnie owns a business with multiple staff. She travels across North America for work. And she took time to meet with my Jay. It moved me. So humbling to have someone be willing to spend time with one of my family for no other purpose that that he wanted to, and he requested her.
Her eyes filled with tears and she gave me a hug. She told me she was so very, very grateful to the many men who had spent countless hours with her son in the gym coaching him. She knows that coaching young boys isn’t just about teaching them better ball handling or more strategy to play the game. Bonnie understands that coaching boys is about perseverance, collaboration, and characters. She knows that men coach to help fine young boys become better young men.
Bonnie told me that men had poured into her son’s life and she told me how grateful she felt. It seemed as if there was nothing she could contribute to the community and to the children. My husband, Jim, was her son’s basketball coach for a few years. She told me she loved the opportunity to meet with Jay because it was a cool opportunity to “pay it forward”. Even better, she said she liked Jay and investing in him was a privilege.
She texted me the three conditions she had given Jay when they first started meeting:
She wouldn’t tell anyone but her husband they were meeting. Jay could tell who he wanted.
She would keep the conversations between them private, unless something came up that for safety reasons, his parents would need to know.
We should all understand she didn’t know what she is doing. She runs a welding company, not a therapy company.
I let her know that we trusted her to listen to him. We trusted her to provide a space where he could begin to wrap language around the very painful experience of losing his mom. We valued her willingness just to be someone he trusted to spend time with the tender feelings he was just beginning to acknowledge.
The next week, I tucked a gift card to a coffee shop on Jay’s pillow. I wrote a note inside letting him know that I supported his car rides with Bonnie. He was to let me know when the coffee card needed reloading, and I would take care of it.
I checked in with Bonnie a few weeks later. She told me of a cute moment when an hour into a visit she heard him say something about the upcoming supper. Bonnie took that as “adolescent speak” for “I want to go home for dinner now”. She turned the corner towards home, and he said, “Are you taking me home? I thought we had an hour and a half?”
Jaw drop number three.
He was asking to keep talking.
Tears in my eyes.
I know nothing about their conversations—except that their time together is worthwhile. I’m not sure how to put it—but I think Jay as a little looser. He’s a little more relaxed. Jay is a little more active in conversations. He pushes back a little more sometimes when we ask him about his behavior. Jay is more engaged in his life.
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Jay wasn’t best served by being with a therapist.
He felt better able to open up with a trusted friend who would be a therapeutic presence in his life. He knew that he had someone already in his circle with whom he felt he could explore the hardest, most painful loss of his life.
Many of us have the gift of someone that can provide a safe space to talk about the hard stuff that is super hard to talk about. May you have someone that you already know that you can trust to listen to you non-judgementally, so you have the opportunity to hear yourself out loud.
If you have even one or two friends in your life that will be curious with you about the painful decision you face, or the complex web of emotions you have, you may well have all you need.
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So many of our hurts and wounds arise out of the painful relationships we have had. It makes sense then, that healing would come from the caring relationships in our lives. If you are fortunate enough to know someone who has been, or can become a healing presence in your life, professional therapy may well be unnecessary.
Therapists work in your life in an ordinary, human way—through listening, reflecting, empathy, conversation, challenge, providing different perspectives.
Make no mistake—therapists have gone to school for years to become expert at these skills. They have tools in their helping toolbox that others don’t have. Jus
t like plumbers and electricians and bakers have tools specific to their trade.
Maybe you don’t need the fancy tools—maybe you just need the regular tools that a caring, warm person who wants to listen can provide.
Perhaps someone just listening to you, as you dare to try telling your story is enough. Maybe bouncing your troubling situation off a person who’s not a professional but their caring is qualification enough is what you need?
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Merely having someone in your life that you can lean on and share a challenging situation with isn’t enough. Just knowing they are there and would have a conversation with you is one thing—but actually having the conversation with that person is another.
So often, the words get unsaid, the stories are unshared. You may be dying inside, wanting to tell your story. The other person may be kind and compassionate and very willing to listen. But unless the conversation happens, you don’t get the benefit of it.
That sounds rather obvious doesn’t it?
Often people have the idea that it could be right to talk to someone, but it remains just that— an idea. It requires another whole level of courage to deliberately create the space for these conversations to actually occur.
The person you know would be good to talk to can’t read your mind. She doesn’t know why you’ve been preoccupied and quiet, or irritable and testy. He doesn’t know that there is a situation going on in your life that preoccupies you.
Or maybe she has an inkling that something is going on for you. But she can’t read your mind to know that you want to talk.
You can’t read his mind. You can’t know what she is thinking. You can’t know if the other person has what it takes in time, and internal resources to give you the support you need.
Asking for someone to listen to you is hard. Asking for help is brutal for most of us.
Can you ask for what you need? Can you fire off a text or an email—or even pick up the phone and say, “There’s something I need to talk about. I think you might be a good person to listen to me. Do you have time to meet with me? I’m not good at talking, but maybe I could try to talk with you?”
Can you know that if that person says, “Sorry, it doesn’t work for me”, it’s that they have reasons unrelated to your worth as a human being? It’s legitimate when people say, “My kids are taking everything from me right now,” or “My work has some brutal deadlines,” or “I might not look it, but I’m in my own hell of depression right now.” There are valid reasons that a person is maxed out and therefore, not able to invest deeply into walking with you during a hard time. It may be too hard for them to give you the reason out loud. I know that you will be tempted to think it reflects poorly on you if you get turned down. It will be hard for you to hear—and then even harder to ask someone else.
However, when you ask someone to be a part of your life in a healing way, you are also implicitly saying, “I trust you and value you. I believe that you have what it takes to help me.” That sort of compliment is a gift to the person you will ask. You honor the person you invite into a tender part of your heart.
So, it may be hard to let someone in, but, if you have someone in your life that may be a candidate, can you give it a shot? Can you dare to ask them for help?
Then keep asking for what you need when you meet with them.
If it’s too hard to look at her when you talk, ask to go for a car ride.
If you need to keep moving, tell him that you want to meet at the park and walk.
If you like to hold something with your hands when you talk, meet at a coffee shop and hold a mug.
If it is best that person just listens, tell her that.
If he starts saying things that aren’t helpful, it’s ok to say, “Dude—let me tell my story. Don’t give me advice.”
If you don’t want them to hug you, let them know.
If you feel like a hug would be just the thing, don’t wait and hope for it—make it happen.
It’s OK to teach people what you need.
It might not occur to someone you trust that they need to allow you to tell your story in a way that is meaningful to you, in a style that fits you. Most people relate to others in a style that they think works, because it is what works for them. It’s natural for a person to hug you if they think they would want a hug in the same situation. If they are a person who likes to tell a story uninterrupted, they may stay silent out of respect. Unless you know that, you may wonder if they are uninterested or if they are even listening. Give yourselves both a gift by figuring out how to make it work.
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Maybe you are like my son, Jay—someone who is having some trouble working through a difficult circumstance. He’s doing well in school and has friends. He’s actually bumping along through life fairly well—he just misses his mom literally unspeakably much. Jay is fortunate to have a person in his life whom he trusts to confide in—and a bonus parent who was willing to set it up for him. Bonnie made the conversations safe for him. Rather than do the work with a therapist, he’s doing it with a friend while driving endless laps around our city park with a grande Iced Tango Passion Tea Lemonade in his hand.
It’s working for him.
And if it works for you too, you don’t need a therapist.
4 Y
ou are grieving normally (and painfully)
My first pregnancy ended in tragedy.
We were looking forward to being first-time parents. We just finished grad school in California and moved back to Canada for my husband to begin a new position. Eager to become parents, we had forced ourselves to hold off trying to conceive a child so I wouldn’t be over 5 months pregnant before we moved to Canada. Our insurance didn’t cover the last trimester of pregnancy in the United States.
I was one of those little girls that loved baby dolls and always dreamed of becoming a mother. I was more than ready to become a mom. I was so excited to be pregnant. Friends at the seminary and friends at work both held baby showers for us before we left our California home. I had the stroller waiting for a bundle to push around the block, a baby carrier waiting for an infant to snuggle, little outfits and a teddy bear I couldn’t wait to put in the corner of the bassinet. I couldn’t wait to be a mom.
We weren’t back in Canada long before we became aware one evening that something was very wrong. My obstetrician admitted me to hospital. When she did tests to determine what was going wrong, there was an unexpected turn of events. We discovered that my belly was holding two babies. Twins! But we also discovered that my body was not hosting them well, and they were in terrible danger.
We were delighted, except, now we knew not one, but two, lives were held in the balance. I was on complete bedrest with my head lower than my feet in the bed. For two weeks I lay somewhat upside down, hoping we would have enough time to give these little two the chance they needed to live.
My favorite times of the day were in the morning and evening when the nurse would come and find their heartbeats and we would listen. One little guy’s heart rate was steady and constant—the other little guy’s heart beat would fluctuate a bunch. That explained the wild rolling on the top left side of my belly! I loved to feel these little guys inside.
The odds were against us, and we knew it. But we hoped that if I did everything right (which meant I would do exactly nothing except incubate these babies) that maybe they would live. We were just starting to believe that these tiny guys might have a chance.
Then, one morning they couldn’t find the heartbeats. We all hoped the babies had just moved around and weren’t in position for the nurse to detect the rhythmic thumping. They sent me for an ultrasound—and there it was: no heartbeats.
My babies had died in the night.
Nurses and doctors floated in and out of the room as they made arrangements. The resident who was clearly new on the unit, and it seemed, very new to telling expectant mothers that her babies were dead, was awkward—to the max. He shifted his weight from one foot t
o the other, stood on the very far side of the room very near the door, eager to make his getaway as soon as he blurted out the news. It seemed he met every question we asked with leaving the room to get an answer. He seemed relieved to find reasons to dash out of the room.
The one redeeming bit about this baby doctor, bless his heart, was that his fly was open. He provided some very necessary comic relief. We were devastated and crying for most of the hours following his news. But every time he left the room, my husband and I would notice the current status of his fly (yep, still down!) and lose ourselves in giggles. Sometimes, tears and laughter are very near each other, aren’t they?
My body figured out the work it needed to do, and contractions began that afternoon. I delivered two tiny but very perfect babies that evening.
We held Branden Calvin and Matthew Peter and cuddled them for a long time. I still remember trying to memorize their weight, their softness, and of what their fingers and toes were like to look at. I was hazy from all the drugs, but I was determined to imprint that time forever.
The next day, as I left the hospital, they gave me the blankets they had wrapped my sons in when I was holding them.
We invited family and a few friends to gather in our living room later that day with a pastor who said some things, and everybody went around the room and said more somethings. Emphasis on something—likely very kind and thoughtful. However, I have no idea about very much of anything that day. It’s all a blur.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I remember I sent my husband out to buy blue napkins for the snacks we would eat after the service. I was irrationally passionate that the napkins be light baby blue—no other napkins could possibly work. I believe he needed to go to a few stores to find them. He knew that I would be a crazy woman if he didn’t show up with light baby blue napkins. Grief can be funny like that—emphasizing some tiny matter and ignoring other, much bigger things.
Hell No to Hmmm, Maybe Page 3
