We all lose things along the way in our journey of life…family,
friends, possessions, pets, etc. – all tangible things we can see and
touch. Other things that bring about
changes in defining who we are as a person either in our own mind or in the
mind of others creates a loss of identity and forces us to reinvent ourselves. The
latter is often intangible; hard to pin down and most often not as immediate as
the former.
There is a traditional model we have used in healthcare for
many years that helped people understand loss and grief. This model was introduced in 1969 by
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book titled On
Death and Dying, who based it on her work with terminally ill patients. This
model has 5 stages: denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, and acceptance. It is
supposed that each person experiencing death or loss moves through each stage at
their individual pace. This theory and
model is now being challenged and a new approach is now being used by many in
the pastoral care community in healthcare.
This new model focuses on a narrative of one’s life – one’s
life story. Every story is unique. There is a plot that explains what has
happened. There is a theme that helps
tie meaning to what they live for. There
are characters, some major and some minor, who all have their own stories. There is a time period from birth to present
and there is continuity in the story because time is sequential.
Sometimes when there is a loss, the story does not make
sense. It’s like someone ripped the
pages or a chapter out of the book…”I don’t know how to go forward.” Yet, somehow most of us manage to move past
that loss. Those missing pages can never
be replaced, but the story continues after the loss and the book has more
chapters to add.
Narrative and stories are connected to meaning. A disruption in the story because of a loss
may alter the meaning. For example, if a
person loses their spouse, they have a new identity (widow or widower) and with
the loss of identity as a spouse there is an alteration of his/her meaning of
life, i.e., purpose for existence. It is
the meaning of life in our life that truly drives us forward. It is also one of the largest items we struggle
with in loss – “What does this mean?” “I
don’t know how to make sense of it all” “I
don’t get this.” “Why me?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “I guess the
doctors have given up on me” “Why did God allow this to happen?”
Dealing with loss is never easy. It is most helpful when there are others to
support and help the person with the loss think about their life in new
ways. The worst case scenario after a
loss is arriving at a place where despair and meaningfulness dominate a person’s
being. The good news is that meanings
can be reconstructed and people can have multiple meanings. Remaking meaning
does not require a person to come to closure over their loss. That chapter or
those chapters that have been written will remain as long as the book adds
pages. The story is not over for as long
as we live.
Nearly every weekend I spend a couple of hours logging about 5
miles on my pedometer on the soccer pitch.
Last weekend, I was walking, running and shooting on an empty field when
a young boy asked if he could kick the ball at the same goal I was kicking
at. His brother was playing in a soccer
match at an adjacent field. I started
talking to him and noticed he had an accent.
I asked him questions that gave me information about who he was – Thomas
was 12 years old who was recently adopted and was originally from Latvia. He told me he had not played soccer for a
couple of years. He proceeded to pull
down his sock and pull off his shin guard to show me the bump from a fracture
he received on his leg when he played in his native country. He went on to tell me his family recently went
to the Bahamas for spring break and found it to be hot there. I didn’t want to tell him about the heat that
was forthcoming this summer...I doubt if it ever gets over 90 degrees in Latvia.
Thomas pushed me to clock 8+ miles on my pedometer that
day. As we
parted, I thought about his story, his losses and his new beginnings that bring
forth new meanings. For him, a new
chapter has begun and for each of us we found common meaning on a page in our individual
and collective story – football.
