Danny and Danielle - We Hardly Knew Yeby Russell Friedman & John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute |
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The past several days have delivered painful endings to the limbos we
have endured about two people whom most of us never knew, yet about
whom we cared very much.
Danny Pearl of The Wall Street Journal's, and little Danielle van Dam from San Diego, are gone, both murdered by distorted people, some with twisted world views, and one with a diabolical psyche that stands far outside the realm of human understanding. The sad fact is that Danny was the latest victim in a horrible 12 month period for journalists, world wide, who have fallen prey to the vicissitudes of life in war zones. At last count, at least 46 journalists met their deaths, flying too close to the flames. Even sadder, very few amongst us can name any of the other 45 journalists. Danny Pearl, his wife and family, and his extended family at the Wall Street Journal had become part of our daily lives and our hopes and prayers. But the others are anonymous to us. Several died in one fiery shoot-out on the roads in Afghanistan. Others were murdered in far-flung places around the globe. And in a ghastly parallel, young Danielle van Dam is the latest victim in an even larger litany, that of abducted and murdered children. The death toll, just here in America, averages more than 100 each year. Yet, most of us can't name another one other than Danielle. Danny and Danielle stand as symbols for us all. Symbols of love and family, and symbolic of all the other unknown and un-named victims. We can't know them all. Yet each of the others were as dear to their families and friends as the two we have been so concerned about. The past several months have been an emotionally tortuous trial-by-fire for us all. The events of September 11th. created an avalanche of emotions, which generated more energy than our fragile human containers could accommodate. As if the events of that day, and the heightened fears of further terrorist attacks were not enough to keep us all on nerve-shattering edge, the far-away war was brought home to our living rooms in graphic smart-bomb detail. Yet after being pummeled by the constant melee, with the sidebar chaos of the Palestine/Israel powder keg hovering in our peripheral vision, we were not done. There was more to be observed, stomached, and endured. The capture, ransom demands, and subsequent murder of Danny Pearl have ratcheted up our grief. And now we know that a little girl, sweetly selling Girl Scout cookies in her suburban neighborhood, has vanished from this earth. The juxtaposition of fear, anger, sadness, and confusion has over-ridden whatever meager skills we may have had to deal with the litany of unfathomable events and the hatred that spawned them. For many the inexplicable and senseless mayhem, has caused them to question their most basic religious and spiritual beliefs. Indeed, it is difficult to explain even one thing, but so many things, one after the other, is almost impossible. Sometimes it seems as if we are a collective drowning person, and each time we pop back up to the surface, another wave pushes us deep below the surface again. How much can we take? How much longer will our limited abilities carry us forward in dealing with so much death, so much fear, so much uncertainty? There is no way that we can be prepared for the death of a loved one. Whether death comes suddenly or after a long-term illness; whether our loved one died instantly without suffering, or if the end came as a relief from unbearable pain and suffering; whether the death was an act of nature or the product of war; we are all left dazed and diminished by the un-fixable ending. In the strangest of ways, it is a blessing that most of us do not have constant experience with death. And those who do, often become emotionally stunted by having to find a way to almost de-humanize themselves to the pain they perceive. On the other hand, the ongoing crises highlight the fact that we have limited understanding about dealing with loss. As a nation, indeed as a world, we do talk more openly about grief than we ever have, and that is a good thing. But the topic of recovery or completion of the pain caused by grief is still a most off-limits topic. We know because we have been in the trenches for 25 years, helping people deal with death, divorce, and other painful emotional losses. We know exactly how difficult it is to get radio, television, and the print media to talk openly about effective ways of dealing with loss. Given the absence of helpful information for dealing with loss, we are destined to use whatever ideas we can dig up from our memory banks as the default settings for dealing with grief. In a crisis, we tend to go back to our oldest beliefs and behaviors. Grief, by definition, IS a crisis. While it is hard enough to deal with those losses that are very personal to us, we cannot ignore the fact that something in our own personal human identity is crushed with the deaths of Danny and Danielle, and the others over the years whose names and likenesses have been etched into our consciousness. From JFK, to the astronauts on the Challenger space shuttle, to Jon Benet Ramsey - each of their deaths eats up a little piece of our souls. Unfortunately for most of us, our personal resources on the topic of grief and recovery are limited. We have been taught that "time heals all wounds." Yet even though we manage, within time, to adapt to a new painful reality following the death of a loved one, that accommodation is not the same as completion of the unfinished and undelivered emotional communications that exist in all relationships. Time does not complete unfinished communications anymore than time would put air back in a flat tire. We know that we would have to take action to fix the tire, yet we will let the illusion that time could fix our broken hearts dictate a woeful lack of action about our emotional condition. The myth of time healing is just one of many myths that can keep us trapped in the painful and constricting feelings caused by loss. Most of us also have been taught that we have to "be strong," or "be strong for others." We have witnessed untold numbers of parents acting "strong" in front of their children, covering up their own fears and concerns since September 11. The children get a very mixed message. Children intuitively sense that there is a disconnect between their parents' external display of no emotions, and the internal emotional truth. At the same time the parent is asking the child to tell the truth about how they feel. Imagine the confusion. It is one thing to say that the healing must begin. It is yet another to know exactly how to accomplish such a feat. And frankly, it would be next to impossible to scrawl a few bullet point phrases that would make it instantly possible to know what to do. We hope that the ideas we have highlighted here provoke you to take a closer look at the ideas you have been using to deal with your own losses, and the losses swirling around us all. We also hope that as you acquire better information about loss and recovery, that you will become more open for yourselves, your children, and others in making it safe to talk about one of the most powerful and necessary of all human emotions.
For those of you with children: We know that many children are aware
of the fate of Danielle van Dam, even as they are still coming to
grips with events of September 11. It is essential that as parents, we
provide effective emotional guidance for our children. Get a copy of When
Children Grieve. If money is an issue, go to your
library and check it out. Otherwise, you can get it on this website or
at your favorite bookstore.
On behalf of Danny, Danielle and all of those we did not know, from our hearts to yours, one heart at a time.
© 2002 Russell P. Friedman, John W. James and The Grief Recovery Institute. |