Grieving
Do Friends always practice what they preach?
I’ve stopped attending Meeting and I’m not sure I’ll return. Why? I feel abandoned and unsupported, uncared for. How come? My mother died recently, yet I’ve had no contact from my Meeting to express sympathy or even ask how I am – except for a kind and caring email from one very busy and dear friend. I can count on only one hand the number of cards and email messages I have received from other Friends from outside my local Meeting.
Since my return from the memorial, in my mother’s home country, no one from my Local Meeting has contacted me to express sympathy, enquire how I am or ask what support they might offer me or my children: no card, no email, no phone call, no visit – no nothing.
I’m not sure what’s more painful now: knowing my mum is only scattered ashes and her life but a memory, or feeling so terribly isolated and abandoned by Friends who I thought were friends.
I am in deep shock and feeling so very alone. My husband is feeling overwhelmed, I think. He is having to do more at home and with the children because I am so miserable. I am finding it terribly difficult to think clearly, to properly care for my children (cook, clean, wash clothes) and be effective at work. How much more support I’d feel if I had a sideboard covered with cards and kind messages (and maybe a bouquet or two of flowers?). Then, when I was in a dark moment, I could pick up a card, read it and know I was held in the light. Even a few-lines in an email from Friends would be more uplifting than this silence.
No offer of support has been given. No one has suggested having the kids for a Saturday. No casserole (with paper plates) has been given so I could have a night off from cooking and washing up. No one has invited me out for a cup of tea, or movie, or trip to the park. No one from my Meeting has suggested they could pick me and the kids up to take us to Meeting and lunch after (and saying they’ll come thirty minutes early to help to get the kids ready).
I would even welcome an offer to polish all the shoes so that there was just one less little job for which I had to stretch my limited energy.
The death of a parent – or anyone significant in our lives – is a challenging, devastating and exhausting experience. To receive no expression of sympathy from my own Local Meeting and from only a very few Friends is shatteringly painful. I did receive a card from a Meeting I used to attend and emails from Friends with whom I’ve served on BYM committees, but my own Local Meeting and many individual Friends who I thought were friends couldn’t be bothered.
Mine is just one experience. I wonder how many other Friends/attenders have been treated so dismally. I may or not be the Friend in your Meeting who is grieving but if my writing sparks a sending of cards to anyone grieving within the Society, then it has been worthwhile writing this.
Comments
We recently visited the Walker Gallery in Liverpool where Poussin’s picture, ‘Extreme Unction’, is on display. We were moved to see the whole family and close friends present at the death of one who clearly had not reached old age. The artist seemed to have framed the body with the bodies of close ones so that it reminded me of cupped hands holding the dying one in love.
Many of my relatives have passed on but I regret that have never been present to ease them into their journey. Even if I had been, I’m not sure I would know what to do. Maybe we need to recover something of what our ancestors, who were confronted by death more regularly perhaps than we, knew and understood, how to mingle our grief with loving comfort for the dying.
By BrianH on 6th June 2015 - 17:53
Thank you for your article. You might like to look at the website of a friend of mine in America, who is working to help people better understand the process of dying so that they can be present with it. The website is http://www.sacredcareproject.org. As you have suggested, and as Brian has suggested, we know so little about this and should know more. A better understanding of dying helps us in the grieving.
By Scribe on 17th September 2015 - 8:56
Social Work; the profession for bereavement . Loss of family& friends/capacity/support/body/integrity/lives etc. indeed any loss
By petesquire on 31st December 2015 - 10:04
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