Recently, I suffered a pretty devastating loss. A guy friend of mine suggested that “I get drunk and fuck” while my gal friends kept reassuring me that “it was OK to cry.” The media portrays women suffering losses as stuffing their faces with the trendy flavor of Ben and Jerry’s. As I move through this healing from this loss, I have to believe that there is something more than “fucking” or “sobbing,” something better than binge drinking or binge eating. Eating, crying, and sex are all physical ways to calm the body’s reaction to severe stress. As physical beings, it is important to remember that there is that mind-body connection. That acknowledged, are we confined by not having strong, progressive frameworks for processing loss?
I’ve had a long relationship with loss. By societal norms, my life started out with loss. My father chose not to be a part of my life, then my grandfather died when I was four. I’ll always remember my purely physical reaction to his death. I flailed my arms and legs as I pounded them on the floor and screamed at the top of my lungs. A few years later, I experienced the loss of my great-grandfather and I responded by not crying and being quiet.
The most significant loss of my childhood came at the age of 12. On a Friday evening over a Monopoly game night and pizza, my family told me that my father wanted to meet me. At that moment, everything I knew about my life, every piece of normalcy, every idea of what my life was ended. But, there was no mourning ritual for the end of what I knew as my life thus far. And, there were no manuals for what the perfect response was supposed to be for me. Over the next three and half years, he would pop in and out of my life, sometimes with grand presents, other times with much ado about nothing. Finally, at the age of 15, he exited my life for the rest of my childhood. He decided that he wouldn’t talk to me until I wrote a thank-you note for a Christmas present. Nearly three years went by until we spoke again.
I handled this loss by shutting down and never showing that I needed anyone’s help. To this day, I am still fearful to ask for help or show that I need a shoulder. After all, if a parent would walk away for not writing a thank-you note, what would someone do if I made a huge mistake? There was no liberation theory in processing the choice of a parent to make a decision to leave. There was no feminist framework.
Looking back at my most recent loss, as well as more long-term losses, I think we can borrow from the basic empowerment that is at the root of Feminism. First, we should let of go of societal demands for how both men and women are supposed to respond to loss and grief. We can remove turning to bars or ice cream. If we remove what we are “supposed to do,” we can add to the framework a system of questions to ask and build a framework for support and process tailored to the individual’s needs.
For example, you can start with acknowledging “I don’t know what to say.” By showing your own vulnerability in responding to another’s loss, you are opening space to be able to listen. You can also avoid giving suggestions for how one should respond. The more that I am told “It’s OK to cry,” the more I want to yell at someone because I feel like I am being pressured to mourn in a prescribed way.
And, you need to be flexible in responding to your offers of support. An old college friend offered to come over with a few beers. For some reason, I actually felt comfortable enough to explain that the laundry machines were broken in my apartment and all I wanted to do was laundry. After a marathon session of law school cramming, he rolled up at my apartment nearing midnight. Together, we dissolved into laughter as we watched telenovelas at the Mt. Pleasant laundry until almost 2am.
For me, in the end, feminism is about the ability to have power in my own life, and that my gender shouldn’t limit how I experience life. I should never be treated less than because I am a woman. I shouldn’t have to deal with events in a certain way because I am a woman. And, it also means that men shouldn’t have to experience life in certain ways because they are men. If we are able to liberate loss, and respond to and accept help from a place of being OK that we don’t know the perfect answers, then I think that we can all begin to heal.
Melissa Byrne likes gardening, posting too much on Facebook, and experimenting with quinoa. She has been a long-time organizer and first noticed gender discrimination as a first grader when the boys had twice as much playground area as the girls. Right now, she is working on ending the jobs crisis and loves all things about Social Security.
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