Cocooning

Today is Friday. It’s the first time our women’s group has gathered since Beth’s funeral. Sitting around a large conference table in the church library without our dear friend (there are only nineteen of us now), it seems we each wear our losses differently. Our meetings usually open with announcements, and then we take turns answering a given question. Sophie suggests we spend our time reflecting on Beth, and what she meant to us. The question she offers is, "How do you grieve?"

Nicole jokes, "I think it’ll be okay if we deviate from one of our usual what-color-underwear-do-you-have-on questions, don’t ya think girls?" We can always count on her for a good giggle. She is smiling so hard it looks like it hurts. And she’s just getting started.... "Or, maybe we should pair the two questions: How do you grieve, and what color underwear are you wearing?"

Everyone bursts into laughter that’s a little too loud. Are we grateful for the unexpected levity, or have we been holding our breath for days?

The first two women in the circle actually try to answer both questions, and the humor quickly spirals south (literally). When it’s Karly’s turn, however, she snaps at us with a motherly reprimand. "Enough with the underwear already! Let’s just answer the first question."

She’s a bubbly personality herself, but today she’s simmering with seriousness. "Okay, what’s the question again? How do we grieve?" She is burning a hole into the table with her stare, as nervous as a schoolgirl taking an important quiz. "Ummmm. Well, I don’t know. Do you mean where am I at with grieving Beth’s death?"

Sophie clarifies that the question is more general than that. "No, Kar, it’s just how you process grief. But you can answer however you want."

Karly’s lips are pressed tightly together. She is shifting in her seat. Crossing her arms. Uncrossing them. "I don’t think I know what to say. It’s too hard to put into words." There is a long pause before she blurts, "I guess I just talk to people."

The group breathes a collective sigh of relief, and moves the question clockwise. It seems the question’s a hard one. Several women admit to stifling tears. They say they do it because they don’t want to heap their pain onto anyone else. But I wonder if they’re only protecting themselves and inadvertently preserving the cultural taboo.

I find it interesting that six of us (almost 1/3 of the group) admit we don’t grieve "well." We’re at a loss for how to do it. We keep busy, avoid, ignore, pretend.

Whatever our learned emotional habits, depression can teach us how to quiet ourselves in the center of our pain.

The funeral for Beth was filled with beautiful liturgy and music. There’s something about relying on ceremony to help with grief that feels right and helpful: wearing mourning attire, gathering together, sharing stories, sharing a meal, throwing fistfuls of dirt onto a lowered casket, giving our friend’s body back to the earth. Sitting in the church sanctuary with hundreds of other heavy hearts, I wondered about the role ceremony could play in helping women move through depression. How can we collectively grieve our losses? Do we do it already? When? Where?

It was comforting for me to partake in a funeral with everyone who knew and loved Beth. It was a day where we shared few words, but felt a deep bond. Simply serving a meal to grieving family members, and cleaning up afterwards was healing. But in the days that followed the funeral, I was left to process my feelings alone. For some reason (perhaps it was instinct) I found new inspiration to work on my scrapbooking.

I had been making a baby book for my youngest son, Sean. He was already nine months old, and to date, I had only finished the book’s title page. My kitchen table looked like a messy collage of photo envelopes,"It’s a Boy" stickers, colored paper, funky scissors, die cuts, and other creative materials.

It took me awhile to get started, because I had a mound of memorabilia to leaf through: hospital i.d. bracelets, card after card after card of congratulation, ultra sound pictures, Sean’s footprints and birth certificate. I lingered over each item. And then gently fingered a striped pink-and-blue hat, remembering how snugly it had fit over Sean’s delicate, dark head of hair. It certainly wouldn’t fit into a scrapbook. What would I do with it? It was a precious piece of him, and I couldn’t throw it away. I set it aside, undecided.

Eventually I moved to sorting through pictures. They stirred up feelings of loss and love: I’ll never forget cradling that warm, sweet-smelling bundle in my arms. What a gift it was to feel those tiny ‘fresh-from-God’ fingers clutching my thumb. Would he ever again play with my hair like that? And the maternal look on my oldest daughter’s face when she first held her infant brother–tender, touching.

These treasured moments were lost to me forever. And yet, placing the pictures onto album pages, and knowing the value of visual storytelling was healing. It felt as if a beautiful heirloom vase had been shattered, and I was on my knees, gathering all of the precious pieces together for a new work of art–a mournful mosaic.

Allowing ourselves to feel these little griefs can help us process the "bigger" stuff. In a sort of mental, non-literal scrapbook, we can shuffle and reshuffle different memories, searching for balance, symmetry, beauty. We need to remember, reflect, and make sense of our loss. More than just thinking about it, though, it’s necessary to feel our way through the creative process. It’s spiritual metamorphosis. Our whole being can shift, respond, change.

I believe creative mourning is the call of depression. Mourning becomes creative when we allow ourselves to go to our dark places, trusting that grace will help us emerge alive, awake and new. We visit our pain, attend to it, and linger over our losses in a way that helps us heal.

Mourning can feel as strange, ugly, and mysterious as a caterpillar’s cocoon, but the process is transforming.

Many of my depressed days were spent wrapped in the blankets of my bed. I knew that I couldn’t remain swaddled in my king-size covers forever, even though some days I wanted to–desperately. Willing myself to roll out of bed felt like begging a paralytic to scale Mt. Everest. I’d lie in bed and wonder how I was going to make it through another day, when suddenly I’d hear the sound of a heavy chair being dragged across the kitchen floor, and I’d roll, because I knew within moments my daughter would be making a dangerous climb to the breakfast bowls.

Those mornings in bed–although they felt very cocoonish–weren’t my most creative moments with depression. I was hiding from my pain, resisting the day. I began moving towards a more creative form of mourning, however, when I promised to be gentle with myself, expecting less than my usual perfectionistic standards. I told myself I would move slowly (ha! as if depression truly gave me a choice in this), honor my pain, listen, learn, breathe, and retreat when I had my husband’s support with the kids.

But, it was only on the drive to my weekly therapy appointments when I seemed to follow through on this approach. Sitting in traffic, anticipating my therapist’s questions, I’d finally connect with my soul. I’d settle into some neglected part of myself, give a soul-sick sigh, and cry. As painful as it was, it felt like I’d begrudgingly returned from a long and lonely journey, and come home. Then, sadly, I’d wonder why all the other days of the week I had abandoned this blessed, Spirit-nurturing place that promised healing.

For these reasons, the 30-minute drive to therapy became almost as important as the therapy sessions themselves. My car was a cocoon of "me" time. I was no longer surviving the tasks of my day, I was attending to myself. Very few others (my husband, therapist, and one friend) were willing to listen repeatedly to the relentless wails of my heart, but I could listen. And when I did, it was healing.

I’d leaf through my thoughts, feelings and memories like they were artful photos in need of safe keeping. They would tell me stories, and I’d let my tears inform, guide, sustain and change me. They became loyal, wise, truth-telling companions that caressed my cheeks and clung to my chin.
Rarely did I wipe them away. They were a precious piece of me.

"Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Thy bottle." Psalm 56:8