- bkbaugher
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Working on Your Grief by
Writing Stories of Your Loved One
Bob Baugher, Ph.D.
Perhaps like you, when my children were little, I read them hundreds of stories. There were many times I realized I was enjoying the story as much as my child. Why are stories so captivating? One reason is that our brain is organized to resonate with a story. For example, how do you feel when someone says, “Now, let me tell you a story….” It’s usually a nice feeling. It’s like our brain responds, “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Someone you love has died. It makes little difference whether it happened today or years ago—you miss this person, you want them back. In this article we will look at the role of story following the death of a loved one by reviewing many different types of stories.
Public Stories
The public stories are those that everyone knows. If your loved one took his or her life, the public version of their story might begin something like this: He valiantly fought an internal civil war and won some of the battles, but ultimately lost the war.
Private Stories
The private story might contain secrets or information known only to a few such as: How the person actually died, the complicated relationship people had with this person, something you discovered that this person did while alive.
How the Message Was Delivered
Another story type has to do with manner of how the news of the death was delivered. Who told you? What did this person say? Did the way the message was delivered add to your trauma? Here’s my story: When my sister and I arrived at the hospital after being notified that our father was to be transferred from the care center, we were called into a room. The social worker walked in, sat down with us, and because she had mistakenly been informed that we knew the circumstances, casually stated, “Well, as you know, your father died on the way to the hospital.” Shocked, I blurted, “What do you mean he died?” My sister jumped up demanding, “We want to see him. We want to see him now!” This occurred more than 20 years ago and yet is a permanent part of our death notification story.
Change in Worldview
A fourth story type is how your Assumptive Worldview was not only changed, but perhaps shattered. People whose loved one died from a sudden death such as accident, suicide, overdose, or homicide often experience a sudden, painful shift in how they see the world. However, a death from a chronic illness can also result in such a change. The story may have “before” and “after” parts to it. For example, you may hear the person say something like, “Before he died, I thought…but now, I see the world differently.”
Unhelpful Responses from Others
Sometimes people can be downright cruel saying things that are hurtful either on purpose or because they don’t know any better. Cliches are often the culprit: I know just how you feel. Life goes on. It was God’s will. Everything happens for a reason. You must be strong. At least you had him this long. She’s in heaven now.
Replaying the Moment of Death
Another story type is when the death is replayed in our head over and over (and over). The story includes our version of what the last moments of our loved one’s life must have been like. Writer Stephen Levine put it well when he pointed out that, despite the fact that the death actually happened once, we survivors “see” our loved one die hundreds of times.
Seeing the Body
In this case, the story focuses on your reaction to viewing the body of your loved one. When my friend Eddie died after struggling for years with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), my last memory of him was the serene look on his face, demonstrating that the long struggle was over, leaving me with a sense of peace.
Not Seeing the Body
This type of story involves the scenario we imagine because we never saw the body. A student of mine whose 22-year-old son died of a drug overdose shared with me that her son’s body was not discovered until ten days after the death. When she brought his change of clothes to the funeral home, she was informed, “There’s not really a body that could use these clothes.” A year after the death, when she told me her story, she said she’s had disturbing thoughts and visions of what her son’s body must have looked like that clothes wouldn’t be needed. I asked if she had ever seen the Medical Examiner’s (ME) photos. She hadn’t. After we discussed the pros and cons of viewing the photos, she decided to contact the ME. The following week she reported back to me the following story:
I told him of my thoughts and images of my son’s body and asked him if there were any photos that I might be able to see. He looked over the file and found two photos that were taken about 7-8 feet away. The body was somewhat greenish, but it was clear that there was a body, not the terrible visions I’d imagined. What a relief!
Ambiguous Loss
Pauline Boss gave us this concept in her book Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief. It occurs when a loss isn’t clear, for example, when a body is never found or when the cause of death is never finalized. In this case your story is one of confusion, speculation, and unanswered questions.
Attribution Theory—Asking “Why?”
This theory states that, when a significant event occurs in our life, our brain demands to know why. Think about it, if today on the news we hear of a famous person suddenly dying, what is the first question that comes to mind: “Why and how did this person die?” It’s like we must know. In creating your story it can help you discover your own answers for why things happened the way they did; or, alternately, your story may help you accept that there will always be unanswered questions.
Positive Stories
In his research on the importance of writing our stories of tragedy, James Pennebaker, author of Writing to Heal, found that not only should negative and painful experiences be included in the story, but also the positive aspects of the experience. As you read this, you might be saying, “Positive aspects? My loved one died. There is nothing positive in this story.” Despite this, your challenge in writing the story is to find some ray of hope, some realization that you have reached as a result of this tragedy. I have met thousands of parents who despite the tragedy of losing a child, managed to find positives in their child’s story.
Comfort and Caring from Others
Another story category involves positive things people said or did in the midst of all your pain and grief. The day after my father died, the word quickly spread around the college where I taught. People came up to me and said all kinds of nice things. To this day, I don’t remember what anyone actually said. However, I still have a clear memory of what one of my colleagues did. Without saying a word, she walked up to me, hugged me for six or several seconds, and walked away. That was it. That gesture has become part of my story of what someone can do to show they care. This reminds me of my favorite quote. It is from Maya Angelou: “People may forget what you said or what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.”
There they are—a beginning list of the many ways you can begin to write stories of your loved one. Your loved one lived a life and you are one of the people who can get some of their life events down on paper.
So, put down this article, pick up a pen, go to your phone, or fire up your computer, and get writing.
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