Grief Reads: It doesn't need to be big to count
Week Eight Notes/Reflection on Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief by Joanne Cacciatore, PhD
This is Week Eight of the Summer Grief Reads series (you can find links to past weeks and more details—including registration for the virtual book chat—at the end of this reflection). Ahead of my notes/reflections, I’d like to start with some important grief truths:
Whatever grief you are experiencing is the worst grief because it is yours. Outside of this, there is no hierarchy in grief.
Self-compassion is the only way forward in grief; be gentle with whatever is coming up while you read.
There is is no “right way” to grieve and there is no timeline to grief.
What’s Staying With Me Today:
In this week’s reading we’re introduced to one of Dr. Cacciatore’s offerings to this grieving world: The Kindness Project. Every single chapter brought tears to eyes this week and every time I think of this project, I can feel them brimming again. These are anonymous acts of kindness done in the memory of a loved one who has died. It’s now a global initiative with over 2 million cards used around the world as an offering of love and remembrance.
In chapter 42 she recounts how this project was born. Not in a board room, not with a strategic plan, not with market research, not with a massive social media campaign. It was born from a broken heart. Dr. Cacciatore was mourning a Christmas without her daughter who had died five month earlier and so she bought toys, cried, and dropped them off at a child care center. She writes, “This was the birth of the Kindness Project.”
I am a personal and political grief tender. What this means is that I care about my broken heart, yours, and the ways that our systems and institutions bring death and suffering—create more broken hearts—to profit al handful of powerful people. My grief opened me up to the griefs of the world and I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the complications of this type of grief tending, though, is how I can get out of right relationship with grief. I have just my two hands here in Iowa. My actions ripple, yes. But there is still much I simply cannot do. Actually, there’s most. Most of the needs of the world I cannot meet, will never have the chance to have any impact on. The grief of this fact is so unbearable, I find myself too often frozen by it.
A weird parallel to our Age of Indifference is also our Age of Grandiosity. It must be big to count. You need thousands of followers to matter. Your project needs to have an immediate impact to be worth it. What’s insidious about this point of view is that if nothing besides actions with the biggest impact matter, then no small acts matter and we might as well not try. Grandiosity breads Indifference and on and on as the snake eats it’s tail.
But before 2 million cards were attached to anonymous actions of care, there was one shopping bag of gifts a grieving mother couldn’t give her dead child so she passed it on to other children. If you are a griever looking for somewhere for your love to go, I can think of few more worthy and embodied ways to express that love than The Kindness Project. And if you, like me, are bearing the unbearable weight of the griefs of this hurting world, may you find reassurance in the work you can do with your own two hands in the place you find yourself on this day on this good Earth.
As the 18th century Hasidic Rabbi Reb Zusya remarked: “In the coming world they will not ask me – ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me – ‘Why were you not Zusya?'”
Reflection: Please Share Yours!
I’d love to hear how the reading went for you. Please feel free to share in the comments.
What quotes did you love?
What sections or stories stood out to you?
What questions came up as you read?
Grief Reads: Summer Schedule & Description
In winter, we did a communal Grief Reads of Francis Weller’s book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. For summer, our Grief Reads is Bearing the Unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore, PhD. I love that this book is divided into eloquent, bite-sized chapters; it has felt like a very doable daily read. Here’s the gentle structure and intent:
A weekly reading schedule and reflection will be sent out each weekend
You’re invited to comment on these reflections with your insights as well as respond to others. I will be responding regularly to any comments <3
Near the Autumnal Equinox on Sunday 9/21, I’ll host a virtual book chat with time for guided reflection/grief writing practice. Register here.
Weekly Reading Schedule:
Week One (7/14-7/20): Prologue-Chapter 5
Week Two (7/21-7/27): Chapters 6-11
Week Three (7/28-8/3): Chapters 12-17
Week Four (8/4-8/10): Chapters 18-23
Week Five (8/11-8/17): Chapters 24-29
Week Six (8/18-8/24): Chapters 30-35
Week Seven (8/25-8/31): Chapters 36-41 (a little late…)
Week Eight (9/1-9/7): Chapters 42-46 (late…again)
Week Nine (9/8-9/14): Chapter 47-Epilogue
Until next week.
In grief & delight,
Claire