What Old and Young People Can Learn from Each Other
Grief is a disorienting experience that is often described with metaphors and images of items broken in to bits and pieces that can’t realistically be put back together. Rather than put it back together exactly as it was, the task is often transforming those pieces into something new and beautiful, allowing a person to keep the love while living in a world with out the person physically present.
In my years of grief work, I have known that young people and adults grieve differently, but it didn’t stand out until I had gotten some feedback from a young griever. It read, “More freedom, less talking.” At this particular event, we were taking a guided meditative hike in the woods. On this hike there were various places to stop and use the sense to engage with the world in a new way. After each moment of silence, we would gather to share. Though, even I could tell that the young people wanted to continue to play, to touch the creek, to run and jump. The words of this young person and these observations brought me to a very important realization about what old can learn from young.
On the hike, the point was to engage the sense as a form of learning, to help the bring map new paths alongside the grief in the hopes that Hope could be found through the trees. I even mentioned that this is how children first begin to learn and that in grief we (adults) become new earners again and in some ways need to start from the beginning. Though, I forgot about the other ways children learn – freedom, play, and “less talking.” This is what we learned and what led to a hike that left everyone feeling connected.
At the second spot along the hike, the young people couldn’t help but talk and explore. They ran and jumped and even found a group of snails. The snails became something we all gathered around and to our surprise someone else in through knew a lot about snails. We invited them to share with the group. In their sharing, we learned that snails with right-spiraled shells can only mate with other right-spiraled snails and vice versa with left-spiraled snails. This play and exploration was bringing more connection and experience to the group. As we hiked, more and more people began to talk and connect.
At our third and final stop we came across a waterfall. At this point, there was no quiet, but definitely more play, more jumping, and lots of water. Everyone at this point was speaking with one and other like they were friends. Connection thrived and something else began to emerge. In the time we gathered to speak about our experiences at the third spot one of the adults said that Joy was what they observed in the life around the waterfall. What better lessons could we learn as adults?
Adults work to instill calmness and patience to children who lack it. These self-soothing skills are greatly helpful when working through an emotionally taxing event that leads to great grief. Though, children know what it means to be alive and learn as they play. While children may benefit from self-soothing skills, I think its evident that adults could benefit from learning to be alive and play. As adults who grieve, we are learners again, starting as we did as children to navigate a new world without someone who shared so many memories with us. It leaves us as adults to take all of our experiences and truly re-imagine them into the world. Where will we learn to have imagination and to play once again? I don’t think I need to answer that at this point.
Growing together in grief as a family may mean allowing the best skills, joys, and love in each of us to thrive and deeply affect one and other.