A Grief Better than the Sum of its Elements

I discovered a brand new phrase not too long ago – ending. It was coined by doctor Robert Webster, describing the final residing member of a lineage or a species. I used to be chatting with a lady who didn’t have youngsters, nor did she plan to. Her mother and father and solely sibling, who additionally had no youngsters, had all died. Although she described an exquisite ‘discovered household’, she’d at all times sought a phrase to explain this sense of being the final of her organic household. When she discovered the phrase endling she tried it on for dimension and has been utilizing it ever since.

She described consolation in a phrase for the facet of her loss that was usually neglected. She felt being an ‘endling’ conveyed one thing greater than “my mother and father and solely sibling have died”.

I really like that she has the phrase endling. There’s a lot to say about that distinctive expertise and loss. However this isn’t an article about endlings. It is an article concerning the “one thing greater‘ this lady referenced. A one thing that goes past simply the expertise of being an endling.

In my work as a grief therapist and in our griever Hub, I’m reminded of this one thing greater usually. I consider it each time I converse with somebody who has skilled the demise of their final residing youngster, or their solely youngster. I consider it after I converse to somebody who’s a refugee or has emigrated and learns the final residing member of their household of their house nation has left or died. I considered it after I examine Bruce Springsteen’s (very griefy) album, Letters to You, written when he turned the final residing member of his authentic band. I considered it after I not too long ago talked to a childless couple who had skilled their fourth miscarriage, one which that they had determined can be their final as they have been going to cease IVF therapies.

There are some losses for which the grief is by some means larger than the sum of its components.

These losses mark not simply the lack of an individual (or folks) – one thing immense and devastating utterly by itself. Additionally they mark the top of one thing else – one thing greater.

That ‘one thing’ might be apparent and nameable – the lack of a organic household or a band. Or it may be harder to explain. A lack of somebody who represented a connection to house, a lack of parenthood, of childhood, the first-hand expertise and reminiscence of a time or place.

A demise is at all times greater than the lack of the individual. We’ve talked numerous instances concerning the secondary losses that accompany each loss. Who is aware of, perhaps these are simply deaths that carry with them extra-big secondary losses?

However I feel it’s greater than that.

I think about it a bit like a Lego package. Once you first open the package, all you see is a messy field of particular person legos. However as soon as you place all of it collectively you could have one thing else that looks like a lot extra – a farm or a dinosaur or The Millennium Falcon.

It isn’t simply the secondary losses related to that loss. It’s that the character of sure losses, together with different losses or circumstances, add as much as one thing a lot greater – one thing that different folks usually don’t absolutely see or admire. The see the messy field of legos. However you see the distinctive nature and mixture of those losses – one thing a lot larger as soon as they’re all collectively.

I want there was higher language for it, a neater method to give this grief phrases (by some means I doubt my lego analogy will do you a lot good in articulating grief larger than the sum of its components).

In need of that, I want I may let you know that this text is transitioning to useful ideas or sensible instruments.

I’m sorry – I don’t have ideas and instruments.

All that I’ve is an assurance that this distinctive facet of loss, exhausting as it’s to place into phrases, isn’t going unseen.

We see the numerous endlings on the market.

We see the numerous mother and father who not have a single residing youngster.

We see the tens of hundreds of immigrants and refugees who not have household of their homeland.  

We see the devastated and exhausted IVF {couples} who’ve simply determined they don’t have it in them to threat one other failed spherical or one other miscarriage.

We see everybody who stands alone because the residing finish of a neighborhood, a staff, a band, an period.

For no matter it is price, we see you. We perceive that your loss shouldn’t be merely the messy field of Legos – it’s also the big actuality they construct.

Skilled this grief larger than the sum of its components? Inform us about it!

We invite you to share your experiences, questions, and useful resource options with the WYG neighborhood within the dialogue part under.

December 21, 2023