Telling Our Stories Tells Who We Are

Last week I took a January-Term intensive class, Care for the Dying and Bereaved.  It is probably the best class I’ve had as a graduate student.  As part of the work for the class, we studied as a Collaborative Groups. 

I read Chapter 6 of Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine by Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley.  (one author is a liturgist and the other a pastor).  I came to the ‘Ritual and Funeral’ collaborative group with questions about how to talk with those who are dying about what they need. 

In the larger context of their book they invite pastors to let the congregant’s life stories inform and reinterpret the pastoral care they give and the liturgies they conduct.  In the larger framework of the book Anderson and Foley talk about ‘mythic’ stories (which have a neater tied up ending happily ever after sort of feel) as opposed to the parabolic ending (which is more like a parable in its possibly jarring or unexpected elements). 

Baptism is the ritual that begins the Christian parabolic interpretation.  It initiates us into a process of dying and rising that is marked by the death of Jesus.  The end of a life and the grief that follows is parabolic.  So all of our lives are parabolic all the way, from the beginning to the end(122).  It struck me that all people going through any type of loss grieve best by telling their story also—in All our Losses, All Our Griefs the many types of losses are discussed.  So, for example a woman who is told she is not able to have children goes through a type of grief over the loss that can be processed in much the same way we tell our stories before death. 

The narrative/story form differs between the dying person and those who grieve(98).  Each person who is dying tells his/her story and this is an autobiography.  Each person has the freedom and authority (of his/her final intentional act) to tell the story.  Those who are dying need to know that it is never too late to claim authorship of their own story. (98)  After the death of a loved one, the pattern is reversed.  The person grieving creates a biography in an attempt to get inside the life of another by observation and reflection.  (100)

When death is unexpected, initial grief is intense and the work of making memory protracted.  Embracing the messiness of any person’s life is part of making peace with the journey of grief.  It also tends to be more parabolic than mythic.  The possibility of transforming painful memories into occasions for consolation is increased when they are understood in the light of Jesus’ narrative.  The embrace of death by Jesus as the completion of his life became one of the stories his disciples remembered in their grieving.(103)  Within the context of the seasons of the church year we repeat their grieving stories at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. 

Anderson and Foley also talk about the three most common fears beyond our anxiety about death:  1) Fear of Incompleteness:  if the dying person fears incompleteness, then the awareness that there may not be enough time to finish the story becomes a crisis. (matches K-Ross’s bargaining stage)  Ex:  Francisca—goes to Mexico—makes peace with her daughter…

2)Dread of Abandonment or Isolation:  No one wants to have these feelings; in fact most people struggle with them.  “Many societies take elaborate measures to ensure that no one dies alone.”  (105)  Side note: some people do want to die alone; however, this is not the same as feeling abandoned or isolated.

3)Terror of Letting Go and Losing Control (107) Dying ones recall their stories…but also show this by giving away the things they value to people they love.  **Dying is unavoidably an experience of the loss of control.

In order to counter-act this feeling of losing control, caregivers, family and friends may help the dying person rehearse his or her life so that the formulation of the story corresponds to the family’s or community’s version of the narrative but the dying one must tell the story.

An additional connection I made with this chapter:  A few years ago when someone I knew well was dying of cancer I researched Ethical Wills—Putting Your Values on Paper—It was a way of questioning that prompted thoughts in the writer about what to leave behind as a legacy of beliefs and memories.  I thought it very helpful, though it is now somewhere in our boxes of books…