Gritted teeth

I had a tooth out this week. It’s the 3^rd tooth that has broken since my husband died and, says the dentist, I grind my teeth at night. This I know to be true. Since the extraction, I am waking at 2.30 every morning in horrendous pain, my jaw stiff and the wound aching. The grinding/tooth breaking is a grief thing.

Our poor bodies – what they hold for us. When I worked as a homoeopath with bereaved people, I noticed over and over the incidence of chest infections – lungs being the place, according to Chinese medicine, where grief is held. I would also see a worsening of chronic disease, especially auto immune disease where the body is fighting itself. Of course it is. This doesn’t help:

You’re in bits: “They wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

You’re reaching out to them, desperately asking where they are: “You mustn’t cling to them, it holds them back.”

You can’t cry: “You must cry.” You cry lots: “You’ll make yourself ill”.

On and on whatever you do, some well meaning person will tell you you’re doing it wrong, a voice which hooks into your own self doubt and before you know it you’re fighting with yourself, lost and confused.

Well worn path

In the wake of loss I realise I have unwittingly followed the well worn path of my bereaved grandmother – gritted my teeth and borne it. What wouldn’t I have given to have collapsed into someone’s arms – the someone who was gone. By the time I knew that’s what I needed, it felt too late, too much to ask and anyway, I couldn’t flick a collapse switch.

Now, my grandmother had good reason to grit her teeth. She was 30 when her husband died in 1933, leaving her with 5 and 3 year old little girls. Her in-laws blamed her for their son’s death (he had a stomach ulcer, which I think perforated).

“His mother passed me in the butcher’s queue and ignored me” - they ignored her and their granddaughters for the rest of their lives. Her father died a few weeks after her husband from pneumonia and her mother, herself never recovered from the death of a child years earlier, died of a heart attack. Grit her teeth my grandmother did, went out cleaning, took in laundry, scrubbed and scrimped and kept her family together. Sometimes there weren’t enough pennies in her purse to buy one and two halves on the bus to see her cousin and be given afternoon tea.

I have been aware of my 5 year old mother since she died 6 weeks after I began working in this field 26 years ago. Perhaps, as a homoeopath, when my heart and hand reached out to a bereaved child, I reached out to her. When I included children in a funeral, was I offering her a way to say goodbye to her daddy? I’m remembering three little children whose parent was an ambulance driver and how, despite the hundreds of people and the guard of honour, I knew the service needed to be focused on the children and their mother.

Bitten back

So my mother yes, but my grandmother.... She was a busy little person, a bit of a gossip, funny, a practical joker; but also there was a brittle quality to her cheerfulness. I loved her. We all loved her but I can’t remember hugs or sitting on her lap. (I do remember my son as a little one clambering up there. He was the most affectionate little sweetheart – I hope he healed something in her.) And I also remember her black moods of self pity and resentment, her hard done by attitude. When it happened my mother would try to be nice or try to convince her otherwise, my aunt would tell her off. But what if this was actually the grief, bitten back 40 years previously? What if what she really needed was someone to witness her devastation, sit alongside her and agree: yes, it wasn’t fair; hold her while she wept or shouted out the messy, furious injustice of it. I feel hard done by that my husband and I had only 7 years together in our 50s. She had only 7 years with my grandfather and no-one else, ever, from the age of 30 until her death aged 93.

When my aunt was dying she asked me to hold her funeral. 12 years ago, I consciously lay down the sadness of my family. “May all sorrow rest now into peace.” It wasn’t enough. I can’t tell you how many times I have minded that it wasn’t enough. But so it is. It is one thing to mentally understand something of your ancestors’ struggles, to have compassion and admire their courage; but what I have come to realise is, that whenever strong emotions – shame, grief, guilt, rage for example – have had no outlet, no witness and no completion of expression, they remain, energetically speaking, trapped in the family system*. Somewhere along the line, even generations later, someone will have to pick it up. That person doesn’t necessarily have to act it out but, it seems to me, they do have to feel it and express it, hopefully safely, and release that family from what has been trapped.

In my family it has fallen to me to feel, to grieve, to be messy, to express. While I’m doing it, I’m also trying to articulate it. Because I know my family’s story is not unique. In this county over the last 100 or so years, we have had two world wars with unimaginable trauma and loss, let alone whatever poverty and tragedy has otherwise befallen us. By feeling and articulating, I hope I am giving permission and courage to others to do so. Grief can be done consciously, full in the face. It doesn’t have to be hidden away in case other people are embarrassed by it – their time to grieve will come too one day and and then perhaps they will be grateful to have seen: it hurts, we are in this together, we can make it through.

With my love

Nickie

PS Please do write to me with your stories, questions and comments. It brings me such a warm feeling when you do. You can reply to this email or contact me here.

[*If you are interested in finding out more on this theory and practice, I suggest you look at Bert Hellinger’s family constellation work, “Bonds of Love”.]

---

You are also welcome to subscribe if you haven’t already.

---

Buy me a coffee

I have been writing this blog for over 3 years now and for the last couple of years many of you have gifted me through Buy Me a Coffee. I felt shy to ask you initially, but I cannot tell you how much it warms my heart to have £5 drop in here and another £5 or £10 there. You don’t pay me for my writing, you gift me for what I offer and to me it feels as if our shared currency is love. Thank you so much. I am open to receive your love any time you feel like sharing it! www.buymeacoffee.com/nickieaven

---