I have just completed my grief educator course with David Kessler. It was his first ever training, and taken on the heels of acquiring my Certified Grief Coach credential. I am working with clients 1:1 and in circle and strive for my toolkit to be packed with good learnings. I had been so impressed at how David showed up for those who were experiencing loss during the pandemic. Each day a new guest and conversation around grief on his Facebook page.
There were so very many who showed up to take his course. (Surprisingly hundreds!) Many so fresh in their own grief, it hurt my heart. this reminded me, that sometimes grief has no place to go. we wish we had a place to lay it down. lay it bare. and yet, we don’t wish to burden friends who may have long been by our side through our sadness and stories. perhaps family members who have experienced the same loss and are processing differently are not the ideal audience. the course was made up of folks who wished to be educators, therapists who wanted to add a grief speciality and work over state lines and current limitations and grievers who wished to educate themselves. I also guess, to be in a community of like-minded individuals.
the course was filled with well conceived and prepared information, vast resources and highlighted the amazing work Kessler has done with the Kubler Ross foundation. Elizabeth Kubler Ross is famous for concieving the stages of grief for the terminally ill, which have long been adopted and adapted to the grieving. With their permission, he added a stage to grief— making meaning. I am certain this is how many found their way to the educator course too. grief is like that in its pay-it-forward realness. I would consider myself a magnet for stories and a professional listener—long before gaining any credentials.
without the science behind my intention, I have always felt that I needed to make meaning of my mother’s death. I tried for so very many years for this loss not to define me. but as a friend so aptly graced me with permission to step in with both feet and admit that it indeed has and will. “of course it does”, he said. and while I believed my mother would have been disappointed had I been “the sad girl in the room”, she would marvel at what meaning has been made for me of this great loss, and now others.
I created the memory circle to make that place to bring it. to put it. to rest it. to tell it like it is. to sit shoulder to shoulder with those who grieve. lay bare our truth of loss and how we are living with it. one of the “rules” of TMC, is to share the name of your loved one. speak it into the circle. I used to say, I lost my mother in 1993. I would quickly blurt it out, so as not to call attention or sadness or that cocked head that so often follows such a proclaimation. now I say, my mother’s name is Ellen, she died in 1993 at 50. quite suddenly. This honors her memory. Makes her a person who lives on in my life and memory.
today I invite you to say their name. share their story. make meaning and memories. reframe days on the calendar that feel hard or heavy. be with grief. not the grief that takes us down and out. the one that companions us forward. I wish this for you.
