Each experience in your life was absolutely necessary in order to have gotten you to the next place, and the next place, up to this very moment - Dr. Wayne Dyer
Storytelling has been the way to communicate about our heritage since the beginning of time. Stories around the fire about ancestors and mythology bearing truth is how ancient wisdom is shared and passed on. Hundreds of years of tales told about the past and sharing of what we know to be true as told by others. Ancient scriptures such as the Bible, wisdom text like the Tao de Ching, our First Nations people’s telling of the generations before colonization and our new Canadians bringing with them the stories of their own families. Each of us is making a story of our own.
This week I received a package by Canada Post and inside it was a small book of pictures. I opened it and tears stung my eyes as it was filled with pictures of last year’s Ireland trip that I took with my first cousin and my niece and her friend. The photos told the story of our trip and in my mind’s eye I could walk the journey once again having the pictures as milestones along the way. I wanted to step foot in Ireland to be able to feel the land beneath my feet. The land of my ancestors and the land of those who immigrated to Canada as new Canadians in the mid 1800’s. This trip was gateway to the past to bring to life the story of my great-great-grandfather Robert who immigrated, with anticipation of the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840’s. In that century he picked up his wife and six children and moved to what was then known as the “new world." This family of eight got on a boat and traveled to a new place looking for a new life. Robert and Eliza came between 1843 (evidence being the youngest child was born that year in Ireland) and 1851 when Robert was killed by a falling tree on the property he was clearing to homestead. There in 1851 Eliza was left with six children, alone in a new country with no family and a farm to run. What must that have felt like? The grief she endured after this tragic loss and the fear that must have gripped her very soul must have been tremendous.
Four generations and 170 years later as I look back on this story my heart breaks for what Eliza must have endured. In the work I do, not a day goes by that I do not listen to the story of someone grieving the death or loss of something in their life. Often the story is painful to tell and to voluntarily listen is painful as well. Together we sit in the pain. It is not my story, so why do I choose to listen? I have chosen this role as a pastoral listener to open space for the painful. To ask to share the pain make it more bearable for the teller and to create sacred space for the telling. I often picture the ground between us, covered delicately with a white satin cloth, candles and stones cast around with space for the telling of the story to land. A space where the pain can lay, unfettered and undisturbed while the teller is given a chance to let it go and give it over to another to share the load. A foreign land, if I may call it that, a sacred place on which the person can safely bear their soul.
During the telling healing begins. Questions then surface. Questions like, “when will I feel better?” and “What am I to do?” and sometimes, through the tears of a sudden, tragic and senseless loss, they ask “Why?” The “why” often haunts the halls of those left for years to come. The zoom room is hollow sounding and there are times when you could hear a pin drop. Two souls sharing one pain. Ironically, as I assist in clearing the landscape for a brighter view for those I work with, I am reminded that a falling tree, clearing the land was what killed my great-great-grandfather. In my soul is a desire to clear the land for the better.
In this pandemic and time of social isolation there is a huge need for pastoral listening and skills to help people cope. Suicide is up and death is happening alone. Bereaved people are left with no answers, nowhere to turn and a deep, deep sense of loneliness that profoundly settles in for the long stay. That may seem sad however it is lifegiving because in this need to connect with others and clear this deep loneliness we are invited to be in community with another and take back the art of storytelling and being together as a species. Over the past 30 years the internet has gained popularity and taken on a necessity in our lives that has isolated and given false sense of togetherness. It has, while giving tremendous gifts, taken on a life of its own as a lover and a friend. The COVID pandemic as breathed life back into what it means to truly be in relationship with friends and family. The sacredness of this experience has brought us life, in ways we had forgotten.
It is times like this we search and grieve our way into better places. As we have witnessed and lived the process of grief in the past six months we have travelled from shock, awe and fear to denial and into anger, bargaining and frustration and are now working our way into acceptance and new beginnings in a new normal, with a new way of life and a new respect for our own story. In time, this pandemic will be like the Spanish Flu in the early 1900’s; a time that will go down in history and be read about. It changed the landscape and the horizon for many. It brings us back to the basics and changes our story. The change of your story is how you perceive it. How will you tell it? How will you come out of this story? How will you live it for the good of those who will come behind you? How will your grandchildren remember this time of this pandemic and how you reacted to it and how you lived through it? What is your experience going to say about you as your story is told in generations to come?
I am sure while Eliza was struggling with what to do next in 1851 with a dead husband and six children to feed, she was not in a happy place thinking her great-great-granddaughter would be admiring her for her tenacity and grit. I am sure she did not hike up her skirt and immediately get into the fields and begin planting the crops. She likely gathered together with the community and laid out her story on the satin space opened up by her friends and neighbours. She gathered her children, donated the land for a cemetery, and buried her husband on this land laying the roots of her survival in this new world she lived in. She then put one foot in front of the other to do what she had to do. Dr. Dyer reminds us each experience in our life is absolutely necessary to bring us to where we are today. When we embrace and welcome our life’s journey with love and openness, we can live a more peaceful and contented life. When we view suffering as something to be shared with others, we build community and we grow compassionate lives together. Suffering breeds survival and builds character and when shared with others grows love deep within the soul.
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers one-on-one homecare for aging adults who choose to age in place. This care includes emotional support, physical care, mental well-being, and spiritual practices to sooth the soul. She is a volunteer at hospice, LTC chaplain and a death doula, assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness in the South Simcoe and North York region. [email protected]; breakingstibah.com