HEALING WOUNDS OF WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN — BUT COULD HAVE

The title may seem confusing and this initial explanation may or may not help.  Tragedy, loss, crisis, trauma of any kind, particularly death are wounding.  In their wake there is need for healing.  But what of tragedy or trauma that could have happened . . . but did not?  You await biopsy results with the worst medical news a possibility – imagining the possibility of a dire outcome.  Even with the relief of good news, is there emotional wounding nonetheless?  Time passes slowly anticipating news from the surgeon of the outcome of a life-threatening procedure on a family member, your mind inevitably contemplating the worst, even as you hope and pray for a successful result.  You sigh with relief with word that all went well, but is there, nevertheless, emotional wounding?  My own personal experience, which caught me by some surprise, suggests a clear yes to this question.

As a pastor and psychotherapist, I have sat on numerous occasions with anxious parishioners awaiting a phone call that could bring unwelcome, even disastrous news.  I have watched with friends the hands on the clock in a surgical waiting room move very slowly, awaiting the surgeon’s entrance with news of how it went.  I have heard sighs of relief – “your tumor is benign” . . . “everything went just beautifully.”  And groans of despair – “your wife has four to six months to live” . . . “we did everything that we could, but we could not save him.”

When the news is tragic, earth-shattering, life-changing, and clearly wounding – whether as pastor or friend – you tend to the healing work to be done.  You “weep with those who weep” . . . you “bear one another’s burden” . . . you are “there” to offer compassion, consolation, a loving touch, whatever you can to encourage and hasten that healing.  When the news is good news, you breathe your own sigh of relief, share words of thankfulness, you “rejoice with those who rejoice.”  But is there also healing work to be done?

I speak not as a pastor or friend this time – but as father to my son, father-in-law to my daughter-in-law, grandfather to my grandsons.  At supper we got a call from our son in Mexico of serious complications following his wife’s (what we thought was a routine) medical procedure of the day before, and that she being prepared for emergency surgery.  My wife and I sat in stunned silence for three hours, awaiting his call with how it went.  My imagination – understandably, inevitably – anticipated in advance the ring of the phone and the voice of our son: “everything went well and she will be fine” . . . “dad and mom, she didn’t make it.”  Even as we waited, tears welled up as our minds ricocheted across that awesome spectrum of possibilities.  The call came.  Cautious optimism.  We flew to Mexico on the earliest morning flight. There were three more major surgeries, three anxious stints in the hospital waiting room, now all three of us together.  The surgeons later reported that “we almost lost her” in one of those surgeries.  I am thankful to report that Griselda is getting stronger every day, en route to a full recovery.

During our month’s stay, living this often anguished narrative together, even as the imagined worst outcome receded, as relief and thankfulness were welcomed, some deep wounding remained – which felt for all the world like grieving.  When we began to speak out loud with each other about it, we found common ground.  Griselda had not died – but she could have?  And the “could have” had deeply impacted us, the “imagined, though never real” had wounded us.  We found ourselves needing to “grieve the loss only imagined . . . but yet very real.”

Psychologists suggest that “unfinished grieving” of tragedy, loss, trauma and death experienced is common and, while it remains unfinished, is life-limiting, life-diminishing.  Might there be similar “unfinished grieving” to tragedy, loss, trauma and death that did not happen . . . but could have?  May I invite you to give that some thought?