Mindset

Yesterday was kind of a shit show. When I got up from my midday nap, Max told me that the leader of our Grief Group had called, wanting to know about my “mindset” about continuing with the group. I was a little baffled. There was an awkward scene at the last meeting, which was the first in-person meeting of the group we had ever been to. I’m pretty sure I wrote about it. Some other members had been small-talking about their 16 year-old daughters and how difficult they were, and it just got to me and I got upset, thinking about Sarah. Max and I ended up leaving for that evening, but it was with the blessing of the leader, and we didn’t storm out; we left at her suggestion. We said good night to people and said it wasn’t “our night” and we were getting over Covid and so forth. I haven’t thought that much about it since then, quite honestly.

We called back the Grief Group leader and she told us that since the next session of the group was coming up soon, she needed a decision from me. A decision about what? “You need to decide if this is really the group for you,” she told me. “Are you asking us to leave the group?” I inquired point-blank. “Because it sounds like you are asking me to leave the group, and I had no intention or desire to leave the group.” After some hemming and hawing, she said that most members except us had lost their children a decade or more ago and were not dealing with acute feelings of grief, and this probably wasn’t the right group for us. Wow. Okay.

So basically, we (or me because it’s my fault) got kicked out of Grief Group because we had actual strong triggering feelings of grief that we expressed. Rather than simply sharing the stories of our kids’ deaths in 2011 or 1998, and discussing our grief more intellectually. I’m exasperated and befuddled, and also embarrassed. Why do I keep getting thrown out of groups? Could it be me? I asked Max, laughing. “You have a strong resistance to accepting support, honey” he told me. Which is true.

I think I mentioned that my Dad brought a folder of papers and old letters down to give to me when he visited. There’s an old letter he wrote to me when I was applying to law schools back in the day, with his views on some of the top law schools. University of Chicago – very conservative and vested in economic theory. Dad’s not sure I would be too happy there. New York University – good public interest scholarship available that I should think about applying for. All seemed to me now to be sensible and sensitive takes on these schools. But apparently when I received the letter I did not like getting his views and I sent it back to him with a haughty dismissal.

I don’t think what the Grief Group leader did was terribly professional, but if she prefers to run a Grief Group that’s not dealing with anyone’s acute feelings of grief, I guess that’s her prerogative. My friend Susan told me a story a while ago about joining a grief group after her husband died. One night she couldn’t find a sitter for her young twins and she brought them to the group and told the leader the twins were just going to color or read quietly in the hallway outside the group. The grief group leader not only refused to let the kids stay (kids that had just lost their father) but told Susan she would call Security if they all didn’t leave immediately. Maybe people who run grief groups have a high level of burnout, hearing death stories constantly. It could be a very difficult profession.

Max’s bottom line is that we have to find another grief group to go to, or maybe even a personal grief counselor for the two of us. He thinks it’s very important. And I agree. We have to continue working our way through this. Hopefully we can find a group of upset, depressed, grouchy, peevish, support-hating introverts with dead children that we can bond with and be griefy with.