On Mourning the American Way

As the seventeenth observance (not an anniversary) of the September 11th attacks ends, I have a bit of confession about a previous opinion I had.

If you follow me on social media, during other tragedies in the US, I have made the statement that my fellow Americans don't know how to mourn. Going back to my experience of mourning people in my life that have departed using my Jamaican cultural norms, I noted the stark differences. So dramatic that I didn't recall a standard unique American protocol on how to mourn. We don't have a word for remembering with longing like the Brazilians do. We don't call for periods of mourning (what would we do? Work, right?) So I concluded that there's no consistent ways for Americans to mourn.

Then we lost two important people in America. Both the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, and war hero and political legend Senator John McCain ended their battles with cancer within days of each other. Both of these legendary figures had public celebrations of life on the same weekend.

I saw the majority of both services on a rainy Labor Day weekend. During the broadcasts, I changed my conclusion:

Americans do know how to mourn. We mourn in community, but not as a nation.

Note how different the media coverage, the social media buzz, and the water cooler conversation around differed when these celebrities died. There was no cohesion. We couldn't even agree on the nice things to say about the dearly departed. However, the African-American community showed up and did their best to honor Aretha Franklin the day before the US political and military fraternities gave honor to the late Senator. We didn't participate the same in either. Surely it's because we vary in how we approach death in general. But both services showed the cultural differences in what honor and respect is due to the dead.

Both valid ways. Both with things in common.

Yet it felt like only those truly invested with either person was plugged in. We don't know how to mourn together.

If we were to do the same thing, we'd have to explore how we mourn those we lose personally. And by the way, grief doesn't just involve someone dying. I can attest to times experiencing the grief cycle as Kubler-Ross describes it when losing a relationship with a living person. I can also affirm that this process is not easy and can progress in painful stages like a stalling car. Yet it's necessary. I'm not a counselor, but if we were to do mourning together there's a few notes I have that I think could help us all do better:

1. We need to get out of the denial of mourning. I see this around me after mass shootings and other terrors in our country. I remember a piece of advice from my friend Evan in college that may explain why we dodge most of these collective moments of grief. After the ex-girlfriend of one of my best friends took her own life, I expressed some grief to him. I was never close to her, but could I have been there for her? What was I supposed to feel? Evan listened with care, then said I had a right to my feelings but I shouldn't borrow someone else's tragedy. He was right: my friend needed my ear and my attention way more that I did. Since then, though, when grief was in my periphery I detached. It wasn't about me or mine directly, so I didn't need to shed tears. I was silent and supportive through other's grief. Between deaths in my church community in Orlando and the Trayvon Martin shooting, I came back to a crossroads. I met the parents who passed so I couldn't help but feel loss when my church friends buried their loved ones. As for Trayvon's demise, I remember the exact time I heard about the shooting - on the local news about three days after, before the world knew about it. I shared the same conclusion with President Obama: that could have been me. Breaking the denial that these deaths affected me allowed me to process the other parts - the anger, the sadness, the confusion on what to do about it, and the resolution. Unfortunately, situations like Trayvon keep happening so I get too much practice on this cycle. I have to learn again not to make it my tragedy but mourn just the same.

2. Getting stuck in anger is deadly. I remember also where I was when I realized on September 11, 2001 our safety as a nation was violated. Salley Hall, Florida State University, getting ready for class. As the day wore on and pain and confusion yielded to the clarity of who did this to us, I got angry. Terrorists have no right to shed blood just to make their point. At first, I felt the connection to most people around me who agreed that Al-Qaeda did this to us and needed to be stopped. Yet I saw the anger morph and move away from a small cadre of murderers to whole ethnic groups and faith traditions. If I put my Iyanla hat on, it's not just ignorance that causes that change: getting stuck in anger does. Worse, the solution is not to just "get over it." I would never look a 9/11 widow or a Gold Star family or a parent of a mass shooting victim and tell them just to move on. The only way I've made progress in my personal moments of grief is to feel them, use the rational part of my mind to focus those feelings where they belong, surrender the rage to God in prayer, and wait for the opportunity to turn into positive action. I'm still stuck on some parts of this too. Knowing that gives me grace enough to not act irrationally.

3. Depression is a thing and can kill too. The third stage is not brief sadness. Kubler-Ross calls it depression. That's bigger than a couple bad days or some tough times. This is a valley of emotion that doesn't end easily. Every time a member of my family left this world to their eternal reward, I have experienced seasons of depression. Even when you smile again or make a joke or make a big accomplishment after the funeral, it's still there. Heck, it might not have started. Americans need to get into their head that the mourning events we do participate in - wakes, viewings, services, burials, and division of assets - are a mini-cycle that is part of a much larger season of grief. I've seen many people float through that whole cycle rooted in denial. Ask Florida Evans. For those people, the depression section hits hard. It occurs to me that we are in an epidemic of suicide. Even Jamaica, a place that I thought didn't do suicide, is seeing an increase in suicide. Are people unable to keep going because we are stuck in grief? I can't answer that question but I can be sensitive to those around me dealing with loss after caskets close and wills are read.

4. Y'all need to stop telling people to get over it. Let's agree to meet at the mercy seat with people who are stuck in mourning and realize that mental health is important. Also, just being happy or cheery isn't going to cut it sometimes. For some people in some situations they are settling in for mourning a loved one for the rest of their lives. They have no intention to wrestle with God for their healing. Acceptance is not on their menu. To love them where they are is to hasten them into healing. Listen more than talk. If you have a spiritual practice, participate with them rather than pray for them from afar. Even atheists appreciate prayer in times of need. It means you care. One thing I say more than "I'll pray for you" is "how can I help?" Thoughts and prayers must spur us faithful folk into action. Otherwise we miss the duty call from the Most High to be a blessing to others.

5. Mourning events and rituals mean something. I hate funerals. Even when we call them homegoings or celebrations of life, they activate the trauma of saying goodbye to my loved ones. I make the same statement every time I fly back to Jamaica for berevement: going to a sunny island paradise in the depths of grief is torture. Still, I go. It hastens the emotions to get through grief. It also defines the grieving community and gives them time and space. The dead don't need these moments; we do. Americans I feel do the bare minimum, but our communities have pieces that we can consider. The Jewish are known to sit shiva after a death. In the South, people cover their mirrors and wear black. New Orleans strikes up the band in the form of the second line for burial. Is that where modern Jamaica got the idea? We stopped doing the quiet nine night tradition and have made the dead yard a loud, brolic event. My Vietnamese friends introduced me to a tradition that I think we should all borrow: pinning a piece of the departed's clothing to yours for one year. All these moments and actions join people together not just to say goodbye. It gives recognition that grief is a long haul, requiring loving people and time.

Most of all, I would like to see the American nation learn how to mourn collectively to give each other hope. We've gotten so utilitarian with how we recognize death that we don't give anyone grace - living or dead. We have to recognize that breath means hope. To keep going through grief into healing honors the dead and has a glorious goal: closure. Whether we get there or not, we reduce our chances trying to process the end of one or scores of people alone. America will continue to endure united in rejecting darkness and building hope piece by piece. I wish we would never have another moment to grieve together, but we know death is a part of life. I pray we learn how to do it the right way.