On Grief & Mending: finding courage for the next breath

An early morning bumble bee napping, tucked in out of the rain under a pink zinnia blossom.

Our Grief & Mending group met this evening and its time to share what I am learning. This is my current experiment in holding space that is safe for grieving people. We've been meeting the 2^nd and 4^th Mondays for 6 months now. Well, I have been. Tonight there were 5 guests. More often there are two or three, though not the same people every time, and twice the group has swelled to seven. Sometimes it is just me, and when no one else comes I still hold space for grieving; for earth, for children, for oceans, for all of us.

This is a drop-in group, you don't have to register or commit to attending. Its free so we are not hindered by a pay wall. Sometimes grief is fresh, sometimes a familiar companion. Unusually for bereavement support, we don't screen to be sure you've waited an 'appropriate' time before joining us, because genuine compassionate witness for a person whose grief is new and raw is so hard to come by. We all breathe together.

Generally, we chat for a little about this and that and once it seems like most of us have arrived we settle in to share grief journeys, offering one another witness, empathy, and support. Grieving people have some pretty basic needs. To be checked in on and to feel NOT invisible goes hand in hand with the need for privacy. Isn't that a conundrum!? And to feel safe talking about our person who has died or our relationship that has ended or our struggle to find new footing. We need to hear that other people remember our person too! To be given space to speak aloud our bewilderment without having to tuck in the wild sorrow that attends it. To have no words at all for how it feels and still to have our truth held and witnessed. Tonight someone was stitching a fresh hem in an old familiar garment and somehow, for me, their mending brought us all through the eye of the needle.

We gather in mismatched chairs around a big wooden work table in the 'living room' end of a textile maker space and up-cycled fabric store. Its the kind of dynamic environment where things get moved around the room week-to-week so it never feels quite the same. There is always a riot of color, cubbies with projects in progress and sewing machines at the ready. It is decidedly not an office, or tidy, or arranged for a therapeutic milieu. There are supplies for our mending activities, but even when people bring projects it turns out most of the mending is of the heart and soul sort.

Guests range in age from mid twenties to mid seventies. Grieving spouses, mothers, siblings, adult children, pet parents, and bff's. More than one person ending a long relationship has dropped in, realizing they are in grief and need support. The door opens at 5pm and you don't have to come on time. There is one person who tends to come only occasionally and only for the last forty five minutes of our two-hour sessions. We have agreed on three ground rules: 1) respect confidentiality, 2) listen well, 3) its ok just to be - no obligation to speak. There are two resident cats who sometimes visit with us. One or another person usually brings fruit or cookies to share. There are clean hankies on the table and hugs before we head home.

In my work as an End-of-life Navigator, funeral celebrant, and grief educator I've observed gaps in support for people with fresh grief, as well as for people experiencing acute anticipatory grief. I've heard again and again from grievers that in early grief there are few safe places where they are welcome. There's more than one school of thought about the grief support participation schedule. Because in early mourning we are so prone to being overcome with emotion, the common practice is to supply timing guardrails with the idea that when we are less raw we can benefit more from attending a group. This is mainly a reasonable practice, I am not suggesting otherwise.

And. I was told after my dad died that I had to wait 12 weeks before I could join a local hospice grief group. In an online discussion I read about people instructed to wait six months to a year. I remember how counterintuitive it felt being told to cope on my own for what seemed like a contrived period of time, and when I said so the response being a flat 'this is how we do it'. I remember feeling like my own bootstraps could not possibly be strong enough to pull myself up on. I followed the rules and waited, sad and isolated, it was not optimal for my loss-repair.

Creating Grief & Mending, my curiosity lies in what might happen when we loosen the typical time constraints around bereavement support. To be honest, without those guardrails facilitating a group when someone brings fresh loss to the table takes great heart. But instead of finding it scary I am in awe. I sometimes feel ridiculously awkward and vulnerable. Oh well! Where'd I cook up the chutzpah to lead something as intensely real, delicate, and fierce as a group where people share tremendous loss? Here's the thing, whoever is in the room, we create this safe space together and we hold it in collaboration. I may be the catalyst/guide but in the true spirit of peer support it is the whole group together, in witness and with collective wisdom, stitching genuine healing into our shared time.

To wake up each morning in a world profoundly rearranged by loss requires a courage we often think we lack. But I have seen this courage find it's person even when, bewildered by loss, they cannot find it on their own and don't even know how or where to look. It is so-so-so scary to walk through each day carrying the intense emotions unloosed by great change and death. Still, we rise to the occasion. We lean into the tasks of living through each long day while keeping our grief all buttoned up and set straight, so that folks around us won't be uncomfortable. We learn to grow around our grief, to befriend it even - rather than wishing it away. Not in a maudlin manner! The way it ebbs and flows grief becomes a part of who we are, along with all the other gifts we carry.

Here's what I'm learning from Grief & Mending and the gentle people who come through the door to be present for one another: Being witnessed is the foundation of healing. Being heard resolves obstacles on the road forward. Telling our stories reduces suffering and makes room for peace. Not being alone in grief helps us mend and lends a healing hand to our companions. There is no optimal waiting period for this goodness. AND whether its just me in the room or a half dozen of us, support makes a difference. What I've learned is that when the lamp is lit and the door is held open, people find courage for the next breath.

Grief heals the same way a garment is mended, one stitch at a time. Sometimes you may have to tear a seam out and start again. Sometimes a repair in one corner causes stress in another and we have to come up with creative reinforcements. At Grief & Mending we hold space for the possibility of feeling whole, even when its momentary and ephemeral. At Grief & Mending we don't think you need to get over it any time soon. We honor what is most sacred in human connection: loving and being loved ~ cherishing and letting go.

Here is the invitation to our group, this is how people find us. Yes, I know there is a typo but it made me laugh out loud so I left it there ;-)