Grief and EMDR

This afternoon, Anna and I sat down and began to work on a project—me.

Some years ago, 1982 to be exact, my dad was in home hospice which meant the family was doing the leg work, providing the direct care and Hospice volunteers would come in at regular intervals throughout the day to help. The early hours of the morning found us in crisis with Dad. He was choking and Mom or I could not get the obstruction dislodged. I remember the panic, and the feeling like he was going to die and it would be my fault. All these years later, I have believed that single trauma resulted in my inability to relax enough to sleep through the night. It has been a difficult journey but Anna and I decided we would tackle the issue with EMDR. Before you get all crazy, professionals practice all the time time to improve their EMDR skills, and of course the practice most often always includes a real situation, trauma, or event.

So, we decided to practice and see what we came up with. I am always surprised at how the mind works, and how it connects events together which might not appear to have anything in common. That is a part of the whole EMDR strategy. It was certainly true today for us. While we wanted to target that fateful early morning trauma, we decided to walk through the process beginning at identifying a negative cognition which seemed to fit the situation. Then we went back to the earliest memory where the feeling resonated, next the worse, and then the most recent.

It was during this exercise I became aware of a deep, deep pocket of grief gathered up from family losses and ministry losses, which had appeared to resolve over time, but did not. More about that later.

The earliest memory, was about a year and a half after Anna and I married. I slept with the phone on my side of the bed. I am not sure where I learned that but I am relatively sure it was not in seminary. My logical mind said if a call came in the middle of the night it would most likely be for the pastor—and it would not be good news. Shortly after Christmas 1976, deep into the night the phone rang and it was Anna's dad. At first his words were gibberish, but when I asked him to slow down and tell me again what he had just said, it was horrific. Anna's two brothers' bodies had been found and Curtis wanted me to bring her home. I knew little more than that. It was the beginning of a grief that overshadowed her mother and dad's life as long as they lived.

The worst—for me was that early morning when I heard my Mom screaming for me that Dad was choking and she could not get the obstruction out. I was down the hall in another bedroom, but came running and eventually, we were able to remove the obstruction.

The most recent, was a call that came to me in the middle of the night in Shamrock from a deacon to tell me that one of our youth had killed himself with a shotgun and I needed to go tell his mother and step dad the news. I was so soundly sleeping, I had the deacon call me back in 10 minutes after I had awakened and repeat the information again. This was news one does not want to mishear or misunderstand.

So, with those markers, we began to do our EMDR thing, and it was helpful. We have more to do around this issue. For most folks it takes several sessions to work through a particular negative cognition or belief.

Back to this deep, deep pocket of grief I discovered while laying the ground work for the sessions going forward. The work of the small church pastor is still deeply involved with loss, grief work, and funerals. Larger, multi-staff churches can parcel out the funerals to whom is most available. However, the pastor is always/should always lead out in comforting the grieving whether from the pulpit or person to person. Over time, though, the pastor who cares will find himself/herself with accumulating/accumulated griefs. They could even be a hidden factor in pastoral burnout. There is never enough time to work through one's grief before another grief is laid beside it. The pastor who is also burying his own family simply adds more to the mix. And the pastor who comes and stays a while is often burying friends who have grown closer over the years and in reality become more like family.

Perhaps today, the word is, pray for your pastor as he/she navigates the losses and sadnesses of the congregation, of their own family, and remember those who serve also grieve. Remember like loss, grief is a human response although as believers we can grieve with hope.

I will also say to all you who are serving churches during this season, your leadership is critical, awesome, and brings more comfort than you will ever know. You may feel like you are making it up as you go along, but that does not matter. You are out front, leading and reassuring.

Wash your hands, wear your mask for yourself and others, mind the gap, and be kind