God, an ant, and my daughter's death

There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz. And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. 

-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

God, an ant, and my daughter's death 15 years later...

What an odd title: What does God have to do with an ant have to do with Chey's death?

Let me explain...this weekend I found a little ant in my sink.

I don't know how the lone soldier got there, but he painstakingly- and without any success- kept trying to climb out of the sink only to slip to the bottom and have to start all over again. Exhausted, he continued to fight against his certain fate.  In an effort to help him without getting bitten, I put a small piece of tissue in the sink thinking he'd gratefully latch on and I could whisk him off to be reunited with his little ant friends in the yard.  

He wanted nothing to do with my help. I would put the tissue down and he'd move the other direction. I did not relent. Neither did he. In an attempt to escape, he even crawled down the dark, dank drain momentarily hoping I'd disappear by the time he returned.

Again, I tried to rescue him. 

Again, he avoided me.

So I tried to reason with him.

I said with consternation, "Now listen little ant," and continued in a frustrated tone, "I'm trying to save you here. Can I get some cooperation?"

Then I thought of what that must be like for an ant. To be stuck in an unfamiliar place, fighting to get out, fearful and confused.  And along comes a frighteningly incomprehensible (for an ant) giant who is causing even more psychic and physical pain. Despite my good intentions, for the ant it surely mustn't have felt like help at the time. 

I recently read the book Blue Like Jazz and Miller made a profound point that reverberated through my mind at that very moment.  He asserted that a human cannot really understand God (particularly during the midst of a tragedy) any more than an ant can understand a human.

Hmph. A moment of contextual perspicuity. 

That ant in my story could no more see the bigger picture of his own saving - despite my good intentions - than we, as humans can understand why there is so much pain in ours and others' lives. And in failing to trust, the ant was doomed.  He would never escape his present circumstances without trusting.  

Fifteen years ago today, Cheyenne Cacciatore died suddenly in what would be the most painful and epiphanic event of my life. It took me many years to understand that in losing her, I found me. The trauma of her death saved me in many ways. Yet, in the painful chaos of the first years after her death, I fought against the reality of grief.  I, like the ant, could not trust. So I climbed up and fell, over and over, down the porcelain walls of loss. No where easy to go but into the drain of the abyss.  

I could not see the entire picture or the potential outcomes. I could not begin to contemplate the fact that even amidst the suffering and terror, I was in the process of being saved.  

I miss you Chey. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, I MISS you.  I don't understand the bigger picture of my own saving now, but one day I will. Maybe God will pick me up gently with his tissue and set me outside, in the yard, where I can find you again and you can tell me all about the saving of your momma. 

I love you. Happy 15th Birthday.

Human Touch

i know that touching was and still is and always will be the true revolution.

nikki giovanni

The largest organ in our body is skin. A piece of skin roughly the size of a half dollar contains greater than 5 million cells and sixty nerve endings, and it serves many functions from  sensory reception of heat and cold to protection from toxicity in the environment to thermo-regulating to  lubrication.  Touch is the most important, crucial of all human sensory experiences in both human and animal models.

Yet, I think touching has been largely demonized in the relationship between therapist and patient. During my own training, well-intending instructors cautioned about the use (misuse) of touch in therapy, emphasizing the need for professionalism through haptical boundaries.

The dangerous effects of touch deprival in society are clearly documented, from infant marasmus (refusal of a baby to eat leading to malnourishment believed to be caused from diminished skin-to-skin contact) to the severe consequences of tactile depravation in orphanages, leading even to death in the absence of any organic illness in children.

The human being requires minimal touch to survive, maximum touch to thrive. This applies for not only psychosocial (and spiritual) growth and development from the newborn phase throughout the lifespan; but also for a person's physiological well-being.  Touch deprivation can not only inhibit infant growth and bone development but it can even incite decreases in immune, digestive, respiratory, and cardiovascular functioning. Indigenous wisdom (Inuit use the parka, Native Americans use packs) has facilitated this practice for centuries through what has come to be known in the West as "wearing babies."

Still, in our world, there are warnings about the dangers of touching and being touched to the degree that we've interrupted our natural proclivities for touch and substituted rational, proximal distancing. This is especially problematic with young children, wherein the benefits of touching are profoundly beneficial, protective, and life-lasting; conversely, the effects of untouching are profoundly negative, damaging, and life-lasting.

I'm of the opinion that human touch can, not only grow, but also, heal the heart. Used with prudence and sincerity, I have seen touch connect strangers during crises. At times when words fail to express the depth of loss - where there are no words in any language that will comfort - touch, often, is enough to convey compassion and caring.  

The enfolding of one into another; the upholding of one by another...these revolutionary acts of love, simply, cannot be supplanted by any other means than human touch. 

The Path to Deliverance or Destruction

Transcendence is the only alternative to extinction. 

Vaclav Havel, July 4, 1994

During the course of a personal tragedy- one that is immeasurably traumatic, such as the death of a child- individuals have several choices, according to iconic thinkers such as Viktor Frankl and Sogyal Rinpoche. We can - when we are ready - search for and make meaning in our losses. And, as human beings having a human experience, there will be many, many losses. 

This sense of purposefulness is often aided through service to others.  Throughout history, many holy books, including the Bible, speak of serving others as a way toward union with the Creator. Many cultures embrace service as the cornerstone of a peaceful society. Spiritual and social leaders throughout time have recognized service as a fundamental pillar in reaching others (consider the most well-known "servers of people", Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa). The need to restructure our selves is necessary at the micro level; and there is also, particularly now given the sociopolitical, global climate, a call toward service to others at the macro level (through ideas such as altruistic economics).

The alternate response is - well - to neither search for nor to find meaning. I see this in some bereaved individuals who, even years after their traumatic loss, meet a newly bereaved person and still feel the compulsion toward narcissism. They are unable to focus on the other rather than themselves. In other words, they are unable to transcend their own loss so it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for them to sit quietly and truly hear another's story of loss without imposing their own pain.  The entire process of grief becomes protracted and self-indulgent, and neither truth nor meaning nor growth nor purposefulness are easily discovered under these circumstances. 

Frankl asserts personal responsibility as a requisite to meaning, making each of us ultimately culpable for the psychological, emotional, and social outcomes following traumatic loss.  We have a choice. Our choices allow us to transcend. 

Or not.  

If we choose not, then we surely, in more ways than the apparent, face extinction.

Spotless Minds

Clementine: Joely? What if you stay this time? 

Joel: I walked out the door. There's no memory left. 

Clementine: Come back and make up a goodbye at least, 

let's pretend we had one... Goodbye, Joel. 

Joel: ...I love you... 

Clementine: ...Meet me in Montauk... 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released in 2004, and I knew immediately I had to see this movie, if not because of the idiosyncratic storyline, then for the one-and-only quirky Carrey's performance.  I've never been much of a futurism genre connoisseur, but I loved this thought-experiment-of-a-movie. It was unlike any other I'd seen; an unusual type of humanistic sci-fi that provoked existential questions about love and loss, joy and suffering, life and death.  Yet, as neuroengineers and researchers uncover more about the mysteries of the brain, and more specifically memory storage, retrieval, and functioning, the possibility of selective erasure becomes more than some far-fetched fantasy. In fact, it may be that this option will become one of the great ethical concerns of 21st Century modern medicine. Some scientists certainly believe so.

Naturally, as I pondered those possibilities, I had to ask myself:  Would I erase the memory of my beloved child if it meant I would not have to feel the pain of losing her? (I hear an ol' Garth Brooks song lurking around the corner...).  It only took me seconds, perhaps nano, to emphatically answer no. I would not.  Even amidst the pain and angst and despair, the gifts of her presence in my life- the love- make it all worthwhile.  

But what about qualitatively (subjectively) less painful experiences, such as relationship losses? Would I erase those memories if I could?  What lessons would be lessened?  What experiences would I have missed due to fear of and anxiety over my own emotions?  Certainly, during acute moments of sadness or grief, I may have wished for the path of ease - a short cut, circumvention around the pain - if the option had arisen. Or would I, given what I know now- and understand- about the importance of suffering as a means to wisdom and fulfillment and meaning? And had I not known the pain, what would have become of the compassion and empathy for others which I have developed through my own suffering? 

Elie Wiesel said that 'whosoever survives the test, whatever it may be, must tell his story....that is his duty.'  Within that duty, implicitly, is the necessity to help others who also fall into the darkness of the human experience.  If no memory remained of our sufferings, how would we tell our story? Would our story really be our story at all?

What would you do? If you could engage in selective erasure, would you?

 

A Pill or a Person...?

These days we are faced with many social problems, even those with ethical implications.  One such issue relates to potential collusion between authoritative entities and those who may benefit from the wielding of their power. Such examples include the below video demonstrating breach of trust in government officials or legislation such as eminent domain laws. These questionable and collusive relationships seem fraught with incontrovertible evidence of corruption.  Even seemingly good work by researchers positing important findings that will purportedly aid the depressed such as this study can be tainted with question. 

Wait. Pause. Look a little deeper. One my my friends and colleagues, Jeffrey Lacasse, published a letter in JAMA offering some dialectical discussion on this as well as another letter in BMJ after they'd discovered that the researcher failed to disclose funding provided by the maker of the drug. One consumer advocate writes in detail about the draconian sequel that ensued, directed toward Leo and Lacasse.

Ah, the quandary. I will resist the urge to amass evidence, often under-reported, regarding duplicitous relationships and the ethical implications of such travesties.  

Instead, I offer my thoughts on our proclivities toward the short-cut to healing.  In sum, there is no way to bypass suffering as a part of the human condition. Clinical depression that is endogenous is vastly different from that which rises from the exogenous, a particularly traumatic event or circumstance.  Yet, some fail to recognize this, and in so doing, they marginalize some of the most important healing potentialities of the human condition: people.   Whether it be in the psychotherapeutic relationship or generalized social support vis-a-vis friends and neighbors, you simply cannot compare the benefits of positive human relationships with psychopharmaceuticals.  Trying to do so, I would posit, is not only inherently dangerous to the individual who is depressed, but it also abdicates the responsibility that we all have to care for one another and to take the time to really be with each other through the ebb and flow of life.

There simply is no pill that can act as a proxy. There is no pharmacy that can fill the visceral need for compassionate interactions with other humans. There is no panacean riposte. Instead, the answer to human suffering is both within us and between us. 

Warning: Not bereavement related but certainly traumatic

My allotted annual political rant...there is, indeed, a crisis in leviathan

Transcending our place in the world

What the sea loses

Always turns up again;

It's only a question of shores.

Erica Jong

I'm reading Erica Jong's How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and came to the coveted grocery list of existential freedom, the zeitgeist of her character Isadora Wing.  So how does someone save his or her own life? 

Renounce useless guilt and shame. Much easier said than done for those who had both served at the dinner table between the green beans and mashed potatoes. Yet, it's such an important part task in becoming. This dangerous dyad can be functional at times throughout our lives; yet, far too often we hold onto guilt and shame long past their functional phase, and they become our constituents. Active disavowal may help many shed these negative emotions, but I'm inclined toward facing them and challenging their right to move into my own heart. So, I write many eviction notices. 

Don't make a cult of suffering.  I write a great deal in my blog about how suffering is necessary for transcendence. And it is.  Yet, cults leave no room for discussion or debate or dissent. No other privileges, no critical thinking, no alternative views to the current state of being or belief. To transcend loss, a person must challenge, at some point, their view of the world, their view of their emotional state, their sense of self, and sometimes, their methods of coping with the human experience. It's not suffering that is the problem... it's the cult.

Live in the now, or at least the soon. This moment in time- this very second in which your eyes gaze upon this screen- is forever lost, irretrievable. Don't waste it either looking too far forward into the future or in the gazing past for too long. There are, indeed, things to await in the future, and things to reflect on from the past, and we can learn and grow from both. But our most important moment is the gift of the now. Don't allow the shadows of the past eclipse your present.

Always do that which you most fear.  Courage is an attribute that is developed painfully over time; it's professor? Disappointment and pain and practice.  With traumatic bereavement, facing the grief is the greatest of all acts of courage. Take it in small doses if you must. One day, you will be strong enough to carry its weight, and others can help.

Trust all joy.  The most beautiful thing about my own grief has been the abundant and unbridled joy I have discovered for the most simple things in life, the things that truly matter. Seek, find, and trust joy in your life. Grief does not require eternal, unmitigated suffering as an outpouring of devotion. Grief makes room for joy. In fact, it commands it in order to truly heal in such a way that grief becomes a welcomed friend.

Prepare to be 87 years old. Need I say more? What will you say about your life at 87? What regrets will you harbor? Who do you want by your side as you take your final breath? If you could describe your ideal life - the life you choose to live, even amidst the suffering - does your current life meet that description? What have you done with your 87 years, and how have you left your imprint on the world?  So much is answered in the exploring of these questions. Don't wait to answer them. Contemplate them now. It will be a painful contemplation, but it will help you to grow and live with such passion and fury that not a single moment in time will be missed.

And I'm really hoping that when I'm 87 or so, my time on earth completed, the sea will bring me to all that I've lost on a distant shore. Then, the saving of my life will have been worth the long and curious journey.

Death Education Comes to Arizona State University! Finally!

After three long years of work and effort, the graduate program for the Certificate in Trauma and Bereavement is ready to accept its first cohort.

Why is this important? Because traumatic loss and grief can have devastating effects on both the individual and the community – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. From a strictly economic standpoint, the price tag for unresolved grief amounts to billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, lower job performance, and destructive coping (Ayers, et al., 2004), and the "hidden annual cost of grief in the workplace" related to grief after a loved one's death is estimated at $37.4 billion. In the case of premature or sudden and traumatic death, grief-stricken families are often overwhelmed by the enormity of the death of a loved one, and with little or no support from those around them all too easily may fall into a downward spiral of destructive coping behaviors (Kissane, 2000). 

In sum, we hope to help educate our community to improve standards of care to the bereaved, increase understanding and support to the bereaved, and provide hope for the future.

If you know someone who may be interested, please pass along this link:

http://ssw.asu.edu/portal/academic/certificates/trauma-and-bereavement

Newsweek issue: A Vast and Sudden Sadness

The Clark family

Photo by Miyo Strong

Today, Newsweek magazine featured the MISS Foundation in an article about memento mori photographing with the group Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  They interviewed me about my work with traumatic child death as well as one of my research studies on perinatal ritualization. It's a beautifully powerful and sensitive piece. It is the February 9, 2009 issue in case you'd like to pick up a copy.

In addition to the article citing my research, I was able to appear on the syndicated Newsweek radio show with reporter Claudia Kalb on February 1, 2009 (toward the end of the show). While much work remains, we've come a very long was from our distant and evasive past.

I'd personally like to thank Newsweek reporter, Claudia Kalb, for her interest in this important story and the apparent compassion and dignity she offered the families, and the magazine itself for this often-overlooked human interest story.

Monsters Inc.

I can remember being a young girl fraught with anxiety over monsters that lurked in my closet. Once the lights went out, my wildly vivid imagination transformed plaid dresses into horrid gremlins with gnashing teeth, and shadows incarnated on the walls as the room closed in around me.

All I needed to do in order to escape the wraith assailants was to close my eyes. But I could not. I felt compelled to look into the darkness as I awaited my dreaded fate.  Would the monster devour me, limb by limb? Would he carry me off to the netherworld?  What would become of me? 

The staring into the darkness did not end in childhood. Rather, this tendency has persisted throughout my life.  But with age, mostly, comes wisdom. I have mostly learned to face my Monsters; to confront those places that scare me. Mostly.  I still stare into the darkness, sometimes paralyzed with fear and anxiety.  

But I've learned that by confronting the Monster-of-the-Month, he's not so scary after all. In fact, when I turn on the light and invite him to sit on my bed and have a chat, he looks and feels very different than he did in the dark. He's softer, gentler, and he doesn't devour me. In fact, sometimes, he teaches me. Oh, it might be a painful process: turning on the light- taking those intrepid steps toward the switch- may be, at times, terrifying.  It seems, though, better in the end to become familiar with him rather than to remain unenlightened.  

The places that scare me the most are also the places of often unexplored territory, unmet potential.  I try to remember that a Warrior opens herself (or himself) to experiences of the unfamiliar. A true Warrior is willing to take the risks necessary to grow. It is in those places, where the Monsters have taken residence, where we can ultimately discover unbreakable truths. Sister Teresa of Avila calls these the "treasures that lie within". 

So, in the end, the Monsters that the Warriors befriend may hold the key to our contentment. How's that for antic (Pixar) irony?

Just....Peace

My youngest, Joshua, hiking Tonto National Forest with me in September, 2008

Peace is not something you can force on anything or anyone... much less upon one's own mind. It is like trying to quiet the ocean by pressing upon the waves. Sanity lies in somehow opening to the chaos, allowing anxiety, moving deeply into the tumult, diving into the waves, where underneath, within, peace simply is.

— Gerald May

I'm reading May's book "Wisdom of the Wilderness" (after already reading his version of Dark Night of the Soul, an iteration of St. John of the Cross), and I'm loving this book.  

I sought after the wilderness, Mother Nature, after Chey's death. I yearned to be close to the earth. I went on long hikes in the red rocks of Sedona; I walked along Christopher Creek in Payson; I sat atop big rocks, where many feet caressed the ground in search of truth and contemplation. Even to this day, a deep sense of spirituality calls to me from the wild, and I often find respite there.  I remember studying the Bible as a child and reading about how Jesus frequently retreated solitarily into the wilderness.  I understood why he did so. I have always felt closer to God- to the Universe- to Creation- to all that is and all that ever was when I was in communion with Mother Nature. May's writing feels much like Edward Abbey or Wendell Berry, two of my favorites.

But May does something special with nature: May uses the wilderness as a means to understand our inner selves as well. He says that the inner wilderness "is the untamed truth of who you really are."

Beautiful. Profound.  He talks about using the wilderness as a catalyst, both the literal and the mythical, to confront fears; an exhortation toward growth. He reminds us to stay awake and present in each moment, even through the suffering that life brings.  

Ultimately, he says, time within the wilderness brings us to a place within ourselves of gratitude and more importantly a place of peace. 

May died of terminal cancer in 2005, after completing this beautiful book.

 

Metamorphosis

Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.

—Faulkner, The Wild Palms

I remember in profoundly painful detail the reactions of others during the few months after Chey's death.

.............

"Are you still feeling so sad?"

"Why don't you try having another baby?"

"You need to trust in God's will."

"She wouldn't want you to be so sad."

"All things happen for a reason."

"At least it wasn't one of your older children."

"You should be over it by now."

..............

"Oh, really?" I thought to myself with outraged skepticism. "How could I possibly be over it? Over what precisely? The death of a child? And who set the time limits on my grief? And who says what losses are harder than others? In what book does it outline the commensurate nature of grief's reactions? And, oh, have you spoken to God lately about His will? How can I ever be over it?"

Those words, as if spoken into a deep, dark cave, reverberated through my mind, filling me with self-doubt, despair, and questioning.  Then, I had an epiphanic moment, and I wrote these words in my journal:

"Sometimes just being is the only way that I can be at all."

Sometimes, in other words, being in grief or being in despair, or being sad, or being desperate, or being encased in a womb of pain was the only way I could continue to exist. If that moment of being were somehow removed or rejected or repressed or relinquished, then I would most certainly have ceased to exist. 

I would have become my own emptiness. Nothing. Utter nothingness.

This prospect was the only thing more frightening to me than my grief.

So, instead, just being became my savior.  And now, almost 15 years later, I'm just becoming.

Weeping for Victoria

I manage about 200 to 250 emails a day, many of which are from grieving families around the world. The resonance of their stories coalesces during many times of my life, their valencies a buoy during my own times of existential crisis. 

So I weep. I weep often doing the work that I do. This morning was no exception:

Dear Dr. Cacciatore,

My name is Natalie Anderson. I am writing to express my deepest gratitude for the work that you do on behalf of stillborn children, and their families. In 1996, my first child was stillborn. My life was forever changed.

Yesterday, I wrote about and linked to your foundation on my blog. I had many people commenting that I should pass along, to you, what I wrote. I have pasted it below. I am certain my writing is not politically correct enough for many people. I wish I could apologize, but really I am not sorry for the things I wrote.

Thank you again most sincerely for your tireless efforts... You(r work has) touched more lives than you can imagine.

Respectfully,
Natalie Anderson
Ellicott City, Maryland

Victoria is her daughter, her handsake; and she is Victoria's mother. No political agenda, no imposed labels, no assumptions, and no force on earth- not even Death- can change that.

Thank you, Natalie, for sharing Victoria's precious hands with us all.  

And this morning, I wept for Victoria.

Altering Fate

I often think that we are like the carp swimming 

contentedly in that pond. 

We live out our lives in our own pond, confident that our 

Universe consists of only the familiar and the visible. 

We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions 

can exist next to ours, 

just beyond our grasp. 

If our scientists invent concepts like forces, 

it is only because they cannot visualize 

the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. 

Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions 

because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory.

- Michio Kaku

Newton's idea of temporal absolutism, and our limited perceptual capacity, commit human beings to the notion of both unidirectional time and its strict linearity. Yet, quantum mechanics reveals a much more complex and relativistic view of time and space.  Klaus Riegel's work emphasizes the concept of time as dialectical, interrelated and says that events in our lives:

...lead to the formation of conflicts and resolutions... 

temporal markings, produced by the synchronization 

of these sequences and represent transitions in the 

sequences of qualitative changes...

thus, elucidating the relative nature of the events, the sequential measure used, and meaning and awareness within a person's sense of time and space. In other words, our development into full human beings is not necessarily measured or appraisable vis-à-vis the traditional ordinal or interval temporal increments.

Quantum physics, and more specifically string theory, are gradually refining and delineating our understanding of time continuity and discontinuity. And these new understandings, being explored by brilliant, iconoclastic quantum physicists like Michio Kaku, give rise to so many potentials beyond our current comprehension; including a restructuring of  our place in the Universe, time and events in which we play a role, and even the outer edges of transcendental possibilities such as time travel, parallel universes, and multiple dimensions.  

The most phenomenally mysterious, consequential forces in our Universe, I believe, are precisely those that cannot be measured within a flask or under a microscope or with a psychometric tool. There is simply no way to measure time, space, fractal dimensions and meaning, or even love within the four walls of science.

The Architecture of Hope

I believe in rain, in odd miracles, 

and in the intelligence that allows terns and swallows 

to find their way across the earth.

-Paul Hawken

The essence of hope is something to which I've held for most of life. Hopefulness, as an emotional state of being and as a paradigm through which I view the world, is one of my core values. I hope, I believe, and I have faith most times, even when the forces of doubt and despair feel Herculean. At least, I try to hope- and for good cause.

There are empirical data mounting that explore hope as a core personality trait; as one of the most significant foundational underpinnings upon which a person's character is built. Peterson et al (2008) found that individuals who scored high on a tool measuring core hopefulness were more resilient. Resiliency is a pivotal attribute in helping humans to endure suffering.  That is, hope and resiliency interact; the effects of this interaction are profoundly important to psychological endurance and tolerance.

These are potently essential psychological resources to possess.

Hopefulness may be a more visceral character trait. And while it may bolster resiliency, I suspect, and some research supports this suspicion, that resiliency truly burgeons from endogenous and exogenous factors. In other words, the family system, the community, and the larger sociopolitical environment in which a person exists in the world can foster and facilitate or quash and extirpate resiliency.

Interestingly, research in animals (rats specifically) suggests that those faced with traumatic experiences, under the right circumstances, are more resilient- as a biological function- than those not exposed to such stimuli.  In comparing three groups, including a control, the group of rats exposed to trauma fared better than those not exposed to trauma. They were more hardy, and had a higher level of resiliency and functioning. The caveat: Those rats repeatedly exposed to the traumatic stimulus did not fare better. Seemingly the chronically unresolved rats- those who were "hopeless" for any relief- suffered the most out of all the groups.

I know rats are not humans, and there are significant ethical and comparability issues in such research. But even anecdotally, there appears to be strong support for the hypothesis that exposure to adversity- under the right circumstances- can help foster resiliency in such a way that we, as humans, can transcend; it's an opporunity to become believers in the rain; and in odd miracles; and in the notion that all things find their way home, to the heart.

From the Stocking to Yann

From the stockings in Arizona....

To Yann in Cambodia 

Our family engages in many altruistic traditions throughout the year, including during the holidays.  We always buy a gift for a girl who is the same age as Chey should be that particular year. We volunteer and serve food to the hungry. My favorite, mostly because of the assigned anonymity, is the Kindness Project (tm), where I will often feel the most gratitude for having known my daughter in my own quiet way.

I began thinking about the holiday tradition of stockings. My children made their own stockings back in 1996, shortly after Joshua's birth. It was a special year for our family as we made room for our new baby.  

So I decided that this year I wanted to do something meaningful with our stockings. After all, a person could spend $50 or more on gadgets and gizmos that wander into the netherworld of lost children's toys  within moments after their emergence. I thought: Why not do something in my children's names that would be an enduring gift for someone else.

Enter Kiva.  Kiva is a fantastic organization of mostly volunteers who provide micro-loans to small business owners in many poverty-stricken nations.  It is a paradigm based on empowerment and enrichment not disempowerment and enslavement. 

So with my children's stocking fund, we were able to help Yann Voeun, 22, a young mother in Cambodia with two children to purchase cows for their breeding business; and Romel Paulo, a father of three, in the Phillipines who needed $325.00 so he could plant his next crop of rice and corn; and Edith Agho, mother of five, who requested a loan of $1200.00 to help her start her second-hand clothing business in Africa.

The children's "stockings" helped eight people they will never meet or know achieve their dreams and become more independent and self-reliant.

So, this holiday when they reach into their stockings, they won't find chocolate covered gold coins, or wind up toy cars, or dice games. Not even coal.  This year, they'll open an envelope and meet someone whose lives they were able to touch across the oceans, beyond language, and traversing culture. I think it may well be the best gift of all this year, and a new tradition I hope they will continue with their own children.

The Extinction of Tolerance

If you see a spark, you will find it in the ashes.

-Elie Wiesel

A friend of mine called me today to ask my advice. She's enduring the ending of a long relationship, feeling destitute, lonely, and broken.  She asked, "Should I go on some meds to make me feel better?"

"Feel better?" I said. "Why should you feel better? Something really important is happening here in your life. It's a major change and what you're likely to feel is grief."

She blurted, "I don't want to feel grief. I don't want to be sad!"

Well, of course we don't want to feel sad. But...really...isn't there an appropriate time for sadness?  Have we, as a culture- as a people, lost our tolerance for feeling? Is there some cosmic treaty guaranteeing that neither you nor I nor our neighbor nor best friend will get through life absent suffering? 

Still, so many people seem to want a drive-thru cure, 30-second gorilla glue, for a broken heart- for normal feelings like sadness or grief or despair.  Many have not had much practice in sorrow, loss, hunger, desire, or want. Affluence attenuates tolerance. Low emotional tolerance increases the risk of depression and other negative psychological outcomes.

And, what do we miss by our evasions, as Jaspers asks? What happens when we obviate emotional risk?  There is a sublime, and I would argue necessary, beauty and aptitude waiting to be discovered in the dark emotions.  Suffering offers opportunities for change, transformation, and transcendence. 

Is it painful? Of course. But since there is no way to eradicate all suffering from the world, perhaps, the most genuinely humane thing we can do for ourselves and for each other is to feel our suffering and that of others. And in so doing, search for the spark, the light, within the ashes.

It just might be the spark that saves another.  

In the end, the best I can offer my friend is to feel with her- to confront the suffering by her side, and to fearlessly accompany her on her journey into the dark emotions.  In the words of de Montaigne, "the man who fears suffering is already suffering what he fears."

Tis the Satirical Season?

My 12- year- old launched a full-blown-food-protest this morning (after too long between grocery trips), threatening a revolt if we ate veggie burgers one more night. So I got into my baby blue Prius and drove to the grocery store, hurried and harried to return back to a final draft of a paper on deadline.

As I walked toward the entrance of Safeway, I passed a woman standing at her car with her hand on the hood. She was leaning over as if she was in pain. I glanced at first, and continued past her, taking a minute for circumspect to strike me. Then the pause. 

I turned around and thoughfully approached her. "Are you okay?" I asked? She replied, "I'm just having one of those days. I can't seem to get to my truck."  She was parked in the disabled spot.  

"May I help you?" I asked.  "Sure," she said smiling at me with apparent gratitude, and maybe some surprise.

She moved with painful deliberation as I gently took her arm and helped her into the truck.  A few seconds later, a young employee of Safeway approached to see if he could help.  He put her groceries into the back of the truck as I continued to help her into the vehicle.

She drove away grateful for the assistance.

I headed back toward the door of Safeway, about 40 feet from where this woman was struggling and walked past the holiday season staple: Salvation Army bell ringers. There were four of them posted at this single spot, one furiously text messaging, another talking on her cell phone; about five others posted another 20 feet away. 

Again I hurriedly walked past them, and then I suddenly stopped. I walked back outside and looked at them. They were watching the woman as she drove away. They had seen her struggle to get to her vehicle as she had to walk past them to get to her truck. And I was both stunned and entertained at the irony: They were there collecting money so that they could help others in need.  

Yet, right there, within their very view, was a person in need, someone they could have helped in this moment- not in some intangible way, but in a very authentic-in-the-moment-way. I felt like I was in a bad piece of satire: Saturday Night Live's caustic condemnation of human behavior comes to small town Arizona. 

Where have we gone wrong that we don't pay attention to one another any longer?  Why do some humans ignore their moral duty to help?  What compels some to take the initiative to help even while others do not, or even while others will inflict direct harm? *(Milgram's experiments, while unethical, taught us a great deal about human behavior and helping/harming...)

It's easy to drop a dollar in the hungry metal bucket. It's easy to send a check in the mail to some obscure group that helps people who you will never know or meet or see. And they are, indeed, worthy and necessary causes to which others should give. But, there are so many more important things than fiscal responsibility to one another. There is a responsibility of compassion; kindness; mindfulness of suffering; advocacy for social justice; and our pause in recognition for their worthiness of our time. Those are the things that money cannot buy. Those are the things you will not find in any red bucket.  And apparently, those are the things that are the most difficult to offer to another, if for no other reason than we mindlessly are unable to see the need as it arises. Those are also the most imposing tests of our own humanity.

The Four Quartets: An excerpt

I said to my soul

Be still

And wait without hope

For it would be hope for the wrong thing;

Wait without love

For it would be love of the wrong thing;

There is yet faith,

but the faith

and love

and hope

are all in waiting

Thus, wait without thought

For you are not ready for thought

And in the darkness there shall be light,

And in the stillness, dancing…

Pointing to the agony of birth and death.

T.S. Eliot

Death Education on the Horizon

One of my former interns and death studies students, Krista

I've been teaching a class on traumatic death and loss at Arizona State University for several years. When I first proposed the new course, the only death-related course on campus was one that had a gerontological focus. I actually took that course to experience it. The deaths of children weren't discussed. Even in a death course, this epidemiological microcosm remained the last taboo.

There were concerns that my course would not be well attended; that it would repel rather than attract students.  Yet, during the first offering of this class, we met and exceeded the cap of 30 students. Then, another ten enrolled. The first course of its kind would bring 47 students to the new death studies course.

Years later and registration remains the same. This Spring, I will meet between 45-50 students wanting - yearning - to learn.  We could have easily enrolled 60 or more students based on the demand, but the classroom will not accommodate that number.  In fact, I have a waiting list in my office now.

I have never experienced such enthusiasm for a topic as I  have for this course.  It's an academic course, indeed. We explore Worden and Rando and Kastenbaum and Kubler-Ross. We discuss evidence based practice relative to psychosocial care.  The course includes cultural competency, ritualization in the historical context, and both epidemiological trends and etiology.  Yet, the most meaningful part of the course includes some self-awareness exercises.  Very few students come to this course without having experience some profound loss. They come to share, to discover, to confront, and to heal. They often develop an increased understanding of their own experiences of loss that leads them to something profound. And these profundities invariably help these students become better counselors, social workers, nurses, doctors, or just human beings.  Death studies is more than a course about death. It's a course about life.

And many express to me, at the end of the semester, their gratitude, noting that the simple act of confronting death has, indeed, helped them to really live again.

And so it is. And so it is.

Peace and Forgiveness

Forgiveness is one of the most important first steps
to ending conflicts

within ourselves,

and within in our families,

and within our communities,

and between nations.

-- Robert Alan

1994 was a bad year around the world. While I was suffocating with my own grief following Chey's death in July of that year, unspeakable atrocities erupted in Rwanda, where the Tutsis were being butchered en masse by the Hutus.

Dread and despair amassed in a small African country where genocidal unrest would leave nearly one million Tutsis dead. Amongst those dead included all five children of a remarkable woman of Tutsi descent named Iphegenia Mukantabana.

During the uprising, a Hutu militia that included Mukantabana's neighbor, John Bizimana, armed themselves with clubs, hoes, and machetes and murdered all five of her children, her husband, and many others in her village. It was an inconceivably violent slaughter that would last for 100 days at the behest of the Rwandan government.

Years later, Mukantabana took a remarkable step toward forgiveness for her neighbor, Bizimana, the man who took the life of her entire family. And, after serving only seven years in jail for the murders, Bizimana went before the city council and asked Mukantabana for her forgiveness. She granted that forgiveness. And she transcended it.

In an effort to promote peace, Mukantabana, a master basket weaver, agreed to participate in Path to Peace, a cooperative effort that joins Hutus and Tutsis together to benefit Rwandan children and families. Mukantabana now weaves baskets in her village with Bizimana's wife. Together, they have helped to employ more than 2500 weavers, raising much-needed money and support for education, HIV/AIDS, and for healthcare. More than that, they have created a milieu in which reconciliation and forgiveness can flourish.

I am startled by human endowment. It feels nearly supernatural to me, this forgiveness for such a heinous crime against her family. I do not honestly know if I would have this within me. Mukantabana credits her faith; And while I do not understand, I dare not question. Rather, I only stand in awe.

And I am reminded that peace- true peace- will only be possible within and between people. Peace will not come from institutions. It would be an grave and improvident error to anthropomorphize: Governments do not have the capacity for compassion, or kindness, or love. Governments cannot offer peace, nor harmony, nor tolerance. Nor forgiveness. In fact, a brief review of history will demonstrate that governments have most often brought systemic angst and despair to its people through manipulation and coercion. Divisiveness. Slaughter. Impoverishment. Exploitation. Oppression. Fear. It is not this machine that will change the world. The machine cannot feel. Rather, it will be conscious, courageous, and intentional human beings who change this world in which we live for the better.

Only people - with the possibility for those insuperably human traits of compassion, kindness, and love- can create peace, and harmony, and tolerance. These are the consummate qualities of humanity, what it really means to be a person.

Only people can forgive.

Neolithic Love and Death

An artist's rendering of the likely burial position 4,600 years ago

Come out of the circle of time

And into the circle of love.

Rumi

Scientists have discovered a burial site in Germany that tenderly held the remains of a Neolithic family who died, apparently together, in a brutal attack about 4,600 years ago. DNA evidence gathered at the site suggests that the four were related: mother, father, and two children. They were carefully buried facing one another. " "Their unity in death suggests unity in life," the researchers asserted.

While the idea of core nuclear families during this period of human history may seem an unusual archeological discovery, family scientists, myself included, are not at all surprised by this finding. There is something timeless and pure about a parent's love for his or her offspring. Something that is able to withstand any force that rises up against it- even, or perhaps especially, Death.  

Juxtaposing Joy with Thoughts of War (*Warning*)

Bella detesta matribus
Wars, the horror of mothers 

Horace

There is no government so worthy

as your son who fishes with you

in silence beside the forest pool.

There is no national glory so comely

as your daughter whose hands have learned a music

and go their own way

on the keys.

There is no national glory so comely

as my daughter who dances and sings

and is the brightness of my house.

There is no government so worthy

as my son who laughs,

as he comes up the river path in the evening,

for joy.

-Wendell Berry

I took my son to the fall carnival in Anthem, Arizona, a magical event to celebrate the transition to cooler weather from the long and relentless desert heat. I let Josh and his friends run and play in the park as I sat under a tree reading a book about Freud and Jung. Children to my left were standing in line for hair-raising rides decorated with flashing lights and wild music. Masked children to my right were dancing to the Monster Mash as proud parents watched and grand parents gloated. Sticky-faced children ate their pink cotton candy and red-patent apples. It was a smorgasbord of panoramic festivities. Laughter filled the air and shadows leapt on concrete. Several fighter jets from a nearby military facility graced guests with a gratuitous fly-over.

"How bizarrely ironic," I thought to myself. Military jets flying above the heads of hundreds of people, families, here in Arizona. There was no fear, no terror, no bloodshed or bombs dropping from the sky. No. Not here. But in Iraq (or Afghanistan or any other country plagued by war), nearly 8000 miles away, there are no family festivals, no enchanting rides, and no tooting community park choo-choos with giggling children on board, led by a strange bearded Santa-type iconoclast.

My son approached me, drenched from water toy combat with other boys at the playground. And I realized that somewhere in Iraq an 11-year-old boy, just like my own, was also drenched. Drenched in his own blood. A wound that is not pretend, that will not heal, and that will cost his family the ultimate price. I looked around and really saw... our children were playing. Our children were eating. Our children were joyful, laughing, unscathed, and fully-limbed. Our children were privileged with abundance.

And as our children enjoyed their comfortably cool fall day, somewhere in Iraq children, countless numbers of them, were dying. Starvation. Bombs. Disease. Lack of clean drinking water or electricity. Scarcity. Luxuries of our lifestyle are the antithesis of the suffering, terror, and death in battle spaces of America's choosing such as Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

War is ugly. We know this. But how many are willing to truly contemplate the cost? Truly? Wendell Berry, in The Failure of War asks:

"How many deaths of other people's children by bombing or starvation are we willing to accept in order that we may be free, affluent, and (supposedly) at peace? To that question, I answer pretty quickly: none. And I know that I am not the only one who would give that answer: please, no children. Don't kill any children for my benefit."

"We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages, confining them to concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations."

Berry goes on to answer his own question: Is there any reason for which he could surrender his own child's life to war. "No," is his clear response.

I cannot imagine a more necessary time in history for a radical change. It begs the question in my own heart: Is the life of an Iraqi child any less worthy than the life of my own?

I must also answer a resounding no.

And I packed for home, placed Sigmund and Carl in my bag, and walked to the car, past children doing the Monster Mash, juxtaposing joy with thoughts of war.