“We just wanted to do it together.” This is the healing sentence that has emerged from several of my recent constellations. These constellations did not deal with complex ancestral trauma or secrets. They dealt, in many ways, with simple, but devastating events in my clients’ families: The sudden loss of a loved one.
We live in a death-denying culture. We are profoundly impoverished in how we can deal with these incredibly difficult events, especially when the circumstances or unusual, sudden, or particularly tragic. Families that perhaps are already fragile cannot come together to do what has to be done. There for few community rituals to support families face events squarely and compassionately. We have no language for our loss, and we are afraid to say the wrong thing.
Families can end up fragmenting, and therefore enduring lingering anger, resentment, disconnection, and awkwardness. Why couldn’t we have done it differently? From people who were small children at the time, they may have the feeling — why didn’t YOU do it differently? Couldn’t you see how hard it was for me?
In these instances, there is nothing fancy to be done. We simply stand with the family to face what may have happened years or decades in the past, so they can finally face it together. Representatives stand for the family members, and if there is beneath it all a sincere movement to finally do what must be done, they gather, embrace, and weep. The client can feel their family, finally, doing the terrible thing they had to do, but together.
Do you have memories of a family that did this well? Or, a family that was unable to? And maybe, a family that after a long time, finally faced what was true — together? Share your stories on my blog.
Kia ora Leslie,
In the midst my latest substack We Need To Talk About Jamie. And Eddie, in which I mainly address belonging, is this paragraph: “Here’s an entirely benign example from my life. My wise mother made such a transformation in our family. My brother who was impossibly premature in 1945, and died at just three days old, was buried by my father, without my mother by his side. She was obliged to stay in hospital. And they were just kids themselves. For all the families who suffered the same grief, in that era, there was no recognition. In her eighties, my mother gathered everyone together to place a memorial stone on my brother Brian’s hitherto unmarked grave. This was an act of great love, made against initially angry pushback from my father. Our gathering brought more order and balance in our family. That grace healed the separate griefs of six decades, just by recognising, speaking it, and creating a simple, beautiful ritual. In reality, my mother facilitated a powerful constellation. And my father came to wish his ashes be buried with his baby son. And of course, we did that. ”
I love your work!
Nga mihi, Karen
Wow, such a good example. We need to grieve together. Thank you.