Carrying Grief, Carrying One Another
by Cara Kennedy
I studied grief as part of my doctoral work in clinical psychology. Theories of grief, models of grief, measures of grief. I hungered for a deeper understanding of how diverse peoples around the world stitch their lives together after being torn by great loss and tragedy.
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Cara Kennedy with people in her community of Dal
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I thought about Haiti, where early and unnecessary death is all too common. I wondered, albeit not very scientifically, whether handling grief somehow got easier in places like these. Do people get used to it? Is it possible to “get used to” death? Because the inequities seem so clear and unfair, I wanted to believe that, somehow, the suffering came to hurt less in these situations.
While living in Haiti this past year, I’ve seen people telling jokes to gaye lespri (disperse the bad spirits) in the face of sadness, hardship, and worry. I’ve heard people get rebuked for acting too pensive. I’ve watched people race to change the subject at the first sign of tears. And I’ve become convinced that suffering doesn’t get any easier just because there’s a lot of it.
When I think about the unfathomable amount of hardship and death that has marked life in Haiti from the time of slavery through the present conditions of poverty, hunger, and exploitation, I can imagine how people might feel there is little space to dwell on what hurts. It’s as though each person’s strength is needed just to hold up tenuous survival; if one were to fall, then all would come crashing down. It would be too much to carry.
This month, on my first day back in Port-au-Prince after a long visit to the U.S., I received a call from Beatrice. I’d lived with Beatrice and her family for a year as part of the Apprenticeship in Shared Living program. I was delighted to see her name pop up on my phone and that she’d remembered the day I would return. I had missed her and everyone else I love here. But after she let me squeal with excitement at reconnecting, she told me that Junior, her 17-year-old cousin, had died suddenly “from a fever” just two days earlier. I had no words. She told me the sorrow had left his grandmother unable to stand up and that Junior’s aunts and uncles seemed paralyzed too.
By the time I could get to their community, it had been a week since Junior’s death. Friends and relatives were rotating in and out of the yard to visit his grandfather and grandmother, who had raised him since he was a baby.
I spent that night in the community, simply being present to the family and friends who were mourning Junior. Most of them had no desire to talk about him. Before I went into the house to sleep, I passed by Uncle Oman, who lad long been suffering from a cancerous tumor in his throat. He was writhing in unbearable pain. Although the grief of Junior’s death was so palpable, I found myself praying that Oman would find peace and relief in death.
| "As I saw and heard Junior's grandmother, grief became for me one of the highest expressions of God’s Spirit." |
In the early morning hours, we learned Oman had died. In his case, many said, “God has delivered him.” For more than a month he’d had to make great efforts to even swallow pureed food, and he’d been reduced to skin and bones.
The next day was Oman’s funeral. The sadness was so heavy. The church layperson who led the funeral service referred to Junior and how the family and community had suffered.
I watched tears flow. I held as sacred the many hurts expressed in those tears. When the last words of the service were spoken, a loud wail began that seemed it would never end. As we walked to the tomb to bury Oman, it was impossible not to notice the still fresh cement where Junior had been laid. And it was impossible not to be gripped by the sight of Junior’s grandmother, the source of that mournful wail, in the arms of her neighbors.
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| Cara (left) and her host sister and daughter, Margalie and Tasha Lafortune
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As I saw and heard Junior's grandmother, grief became for me one of the highest expressions of God’s Spirit. I felt overwhelmed by the fragility and the strength of the human spirit. In that moment was God… the elusive element, the mystery, and the grace that expanded her heart was wide enough to contain her unfathomable pain. And the strength of her neighbors who, for this moment, could carry her.
This grace, this expression of God, was something I never could have understood through any academic study of grief. But I’ve experienced it through my brothers and sisters who have allowed me to walk with them in the beauty and tragedy of their lives. And as my teachers nurture and shape me, I feel called to enter more deeply into our work here, striving to help create more hope and decrease the unbearable grief.
I feel blessed to have this opportunity to share in these efforts with my colleagues and the members of the communities in which we work. May we learn to hold one another in the most difficult times, carrying on because we see that together we are strengthened.
Cara Kennedy is on Beyond Borders staff in Haiti. She has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Arizona State University.