TCF News, Issue 107 Summer 2021

Summer 2021 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 2 Joanne started with the quote by Katherine Anne Porter, ‘The past is never where you think you left it.’ She then read out a series of e-mails that illustrated the fact that grief has far-reaching effects which reverberate through history and through generations of families. A child’s death can almost always be classed as ‘traumatic’ because even when it is expected, the parents are often not prepared for it. She emphasised that trauma can be held in the body as a panic, an anxiety or fear, dreading the world we live in. She talked about ‘grief umbrella’ to explain that grief is not one thing. Each spoke is a different feeling – anger, guilt, sadness, regret, anxiety etc. She also gave the analogy of a room to illustrate that grief is not our enemy. In the beginning, grief occupies the entire space in a room but over time, we can open the doors and windows, we can build an extension around it and create space around it. That allows us to inhabit our grief fully by making our life bigger and expansive. The more time we spend suppressing our grief, the more energy we waste. Society at large does not know how to support grief. Workplaces, families and religious bodies can have little understanding and tolerance of it. Grief can scare people and they may withdraw or say inappropriate things from a place of discomfort rather than compassion. If that happens, Joanne recommended good use of voice to plainly say, “that’s not my truth”. Being a practitioner of Yoga, she compared this attitude with keeping a ‘strong back and soft belly’. Medicalisation of grief does not consider how the society interacts with those grieving and places the responsibility solely on the individuals. Grief is an emotional experience that needs full expression but often we are required to pretend we’re feeling / not feeling something to suit others. We need intentional spaces like the ones created by TCF to be able to communicate our needs. We need to be able to have rituals by which we can remember and honour our children. She quoted Richard von Weizsaecker: ‘Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.’ Our grief is sacred and holy. We can choose who deserves to share it and who not. Before taking questions, Joanne read out this poem: The Existence of Love by Marjorie Pizer I had thought that your death
 Was a waste and destruction
 A pain of grief hardly to be endured
 I am only beginning to learn
 That your life was a gift and a growing And a loving left with me.
 The desperation of death
 Destroyed the existence of love
 But the existence of death
 Cannot destroy what has been given. I am looking at your life again
 Instead of your death and departing. It was remarkable how Joanne asked the names of the deceased children whose mothers/fathers put forward the questions. She then repeated the names with love and honour. She answered questions on the feelings of impotence, anger, guilt and abandonment with great sensitivity. She shared the importance of embodied experiences such as running, yoga, chanting, dancing, drumming, bare- foot hiking and other such activities to help move our emotional energy through. We spoke briefly about ‘toxic positivity’ which is enforced by phrases like ‘Just choose joy’, which can be extremely unhelpful. Her answers came with real life examples and were found to be very helpful. At the end, it was clear that Joanne had not only helped herself but many others with their grief through her personal growth, learning, research and practice. I left the evening with a smile on my face, a strong sense of healing and connection with all present. It was an evening well spent. Sangeeta Mahajan Bearing the Unbearable & Grieving is Loving by Dr Joanne Cacciatore are available to buy from tcf.org.uk/shop or to borrow from TCF library at tcf.org.uk/library