Small and Simple Stories of Support
This year Lydia would drape tiny white lights along the deck railing. And hang the three artificial wreaths with ruby red ribbons she bought at the after-Christmas sale last year on her front windows. Where did she put them? Peter had been gone nearly four years. It was time for light, relief, a welcoming of spirit.
Mary darted through the fabric room at the quilt shop with purpose gathering a vibrant stack of both vivid and muted cotton. Too many to carry, she lay her collection on the cutting table as she parsed through shelves, plucking a bolt from here and there to add to the pile until satisfied she had found precisely what she needed.
In May I planted sunflower seeds late in the growing season. They sprouted quickly. I protected my seeds from predators which seemed to help. I covered the oval plot with netting, thwarting the birds and rabbits, after pushing the tiny, black ovals into enriched topsoil laid over layers of existing Michigan clay. The seeds took root and became plantlings. I shifted the netting from the top to the perimeter because the needs of the sunflower population changed.
This is called being responsive.
A few years ago I was working a job marshaling a chorus of ringing phones in the customer service office of a busy bakery. One morning I overheard a managing partner deflect a coworker’s demand for her attention, stating the obvious,
“I am very occupied.” She returned to her elevated task without missing a beat. The interrupter walked away and, I suppose, figured out a way to solve his problem on his own.
Our shared humanity and capacity to empathize with our teachers are getting lost in the political rhetoric during this time of urgency to ‘get children back to school’. I’m feeling protective of my teaching tribe. Usually, I talk about children’s grief. Today I’m really thinking about teachers. They’re calling out for help. Don’t you hear them? Teachers are hurting and they have been since March. I want to tell you why we need to respond to their pain and how to take better care of them.
As a group, teachers are relational, interpersonal, and I know them to be deeply altruistic. The trauma prompted by the sudden quarantine last March is imprinted on their hearts. Since then, it’s been nothing short of a crisis cascade with no end in sight. Now teachers require the bandwidth to manage multiple losses, fear, and the concerns they carry for the children and young adults they care so deeply about. Many of the teaching losses are immeasurable precisely because they are intangible. The loss of goodbye, a deficit of control, and the sudden long-term extinction of their communal classroom environment, just to name a few. The scientific community tells us we will have to live alongside this vicious contagion for a long time. Teachers are in mourning, their carefully cultivated instructional settings fostering interconnectedness and community are now set aside. Enter remote learning and/or disease control strategies. Distance. We are all grieving the loss of what was and trying hard to imagine the future. In the same breath, we’re asking educators to craft a rich, safe, and functional setting with no idea what the near or distant future holds.
To position yourself as a capable grief supporter you’re going to have to undertake a little bit of self-reflection. If you are grieving the loss of what was and yet still able to lean into a deep well of relatability and empathy sans judgment, you’re ready to be a compassionate caregiver. But if your intent is to change someone’s thinking or you can’t resist imposing your own needs, opinions, and desires, then nope, you are not ready to be a good grief supporter. Step away from the person in pain. Call in a sub. Take some advice from Socrates and know thyself very well before you wade into vulnerable territory with another person. To help, you have to be completely open, unfurled, a blank page, and listen without trying to redirect the conversation in any way. It will go where it will go and your job is to tag along for the ride.
I know, you’re emotionally tapped out and this is a lot. But you still want to help. So how do you help a grieving teacher? Here are 3 very good ways.
When you actually name what is lost (instead of pretending nothing happened) you give space for people to try to process the enormity of the situation. You honor their feelings and prevent isolation. Being alone with grief is heartbreaking.
You can do this:
text or call a teacher you know and ask, “what is it like for you waiting to hear about plans for the school year to start?” If they don’t want to talk about it they will tell you. If they do, they do. Either way, the griever knows you’re a willing participant in the hard conversations and that they are on your radar. That feels good.
Send a real letter. Remember those? Write a short note or send a postcard telling a person how much you care about and value them is a tangible reminder they matter. They will put it in a place they can see it. It will be an anchor.
When you let a person know that you hear them and see the loss as clearly as they do (this can be different than agreeing) and you demonstrate a willingness to speak directly to it, you validate they have the right to feel what they feel. No explanation needed, you’re on their team, unconditionally. This act, being unconditional, is magic.
You can do this:
Recall and bring up something they may have told you earlier and ask them what it feels like to be them right now. You have just reminded the person you have been listening. Ask for an update. We know when we retell our stories we understand them better, we reach a greater level of cognition. New things will come up, more things will be remembered, there will be revelations. And if the listener can correctly reflect back what is said as part of the conversation, even better.
Listen carefully to details within their narratives and ask more about this, “I heard you say you had one day to return to school to close-up your room. What did that feel like? Were you able to get everything home?”
Giving a person the freedom to freely express what they feel is the essence of authentic grief support. Your job is to listen. And to ask, “Is there more?” No bending of wills, no cheering up, no rationalizing, no fixing, period. And leave your stuff out of it. Settle into a reflective pose and listen.
You can do this:
Invite the person to go for a walk or talk over the phone. Before you connect, practice a few phrases that will help you remember to reflectively listen like, “can you tell me more” or “ it sounds like….” or “it makes perfect sense you would feel…”
Leave your political passion and your knowledge of what ails society at home. Period. No griever needs to hear your thoughts about the left, right, or anything in-between. You are the epitome of detente. They couldn’t pry the opinions out of you.
These gestures of care when delivered with a willing heart are a start, a very good start, to helping the human beings tasked with fostering the education and well-being of our children. We need to take care of our teachers. Let’s inhabit a space of wholehearted compassion as we navigate the start of this tumultuous new school year.
Copyright (2020) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved.
