Miami University

MIAMI UNIVERSITY

The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

Gillian M. Finocan

Candidate for the Degree:

Doctor of Philosophy

______Director Roger M. Knudson, Ph.D.

______Reader Larry M. Leitner, Ph.D.

______Reader William B. Stiles, Ph.D.

______Reader Ann Fuehrer, Ph.D.

______Graduate Student Representative Laura Mandell, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

GRIEVING THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE: A PERFORMATIVE WRITING APPROACH FOR UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF DREAMS

by Gillian M. Finocan

Following the death of a loved one, survivors seek meaning through mourning and struggle to construct a new reality in which their view of themselves is forever changed. According to the model of meaning reconstruction, the death of a loved one calls on survivors to reconstruct meaning in response to loss via: meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change. Continuing a bond with deceased loved ones can be a healthy part of the survivor’s ongoing life. Continuing bond theory places value on the relationship, with the focus on holding the relationship from a new perspective rather than severing the connection with the deceased loved one. Using a Dionysian logic for understanding dreams, the goal of the present qualitative study was to provide an enriched understanding of how the imaginal space of dreams plays a role in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement and how dreams serve a role in the development of continuing bonds with the deceased. Five participants were interviewed and performative writing texts were co-constructed based on conversations had with participants about their grieving processes. Reflexive analyses and the researcher’s story are presented. This collection of stories suggests that cognitive processing of grief only takes individuals so far in their grieving processes. Embodied knowing, which can be enhanced through various dream experiences, is crucial for moving an individual’s grieving process forward. For these participants, the imaginal space of dreams seemed to be functioning in at least one of four ways: Serving a catalytic function, bringing about dramatic change for the survivor; mitigating against denial and numbness, keeping the grieving process alive; providing nostalgic seasoning to the survivor’s grieving experience; and/or nurturing continuing bonds with deceased loved ones. From the perspective of a Dionysian logic for understanding dreams, a discussion is provided on: the role of dreams in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement and in the development of a continuing bond with the deceased; the unique ability of performative writing to compellingly present the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement; and the implications of attending or not attending to our dreams following the death of a loved one.

GRIEVING THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE: A PERFORMATIVE WRITING APPROACH FOR UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF DREAMS

A Dissertation

Submitted to the faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Psychology

Gillian M. Finocan

Miami University

Oxford, Ohio

2009

Dissertation Director: Roger M. Knudson, Ph.D.

Gillian M. Finocan

2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 1 A Model of Meaning Reconstruction for Bereavement…………………...... 2 Continuing Bonds in Adaptation to Bereavement………………………….. 3 A Dionysian Logic for Dreams……………………………………………... 6 Review of Dream Literature………………………………………………... 8 The Present Study…………………………………………………………... 10 Performative Writing for Understanding Bereavement and Dreams……….. 11 Method……………………………………………………………………………… 14 Recruitment of Participants…………………………………………………. 14 Researcher Stance…………………………………………………………... 15 Interviews…………………………………………………………………… 16 Performative Writing Texts: Construction, Interpretation, and Analysis…... 19 Results………………………………………………………………………………. 21 You Die a Thousand Deaths Before You Have To Do It…………………... 21 Reflexive Analysis for: You Die a Thousand Deaths Before You Have To Do It………………………………………………………………………… 40 You Can’t Control Things…………………………………………………... 44 Reflexive Analysis for: You Can’t Control Things………………………... 57 Waiting for the Next Blow………………………………………………….. 59 Reflexive Analysis for: Waiting for the Next Blow………………………... 74 All I Ever Hope to Be, I Hope to Be My Mother…………………………… 76 Reflexive Analysis for: All I Ever Hope to Be, I Hope to Be My Mother…. 87 The Big Trip………………………………………………………………… 90 Reflexive Analysis for: The Big Trip………………………………………. 97 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………... 99 Bringing the “body” into the model of meaning reconstruction……………. 100 A Dionysian logic for understanding bereavement dreams as catalytic……. 101 A Dionysian logic for understanding how dreams keep the grieving process alive…………………………………………………………………………. 103 A Dionysian logic for understanding dreams as seasoning for life………… 104 Continuing bond theory and dreams………………………………………... 104 The role of dreams in a “Get over it and get on with your life” world……... 108 Performative writing and bereavement dream research…………………….. 109 References…………………………………………………………………………... 114 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………. 121 Appendix B…………………………………………………………………………. 122 Appendix C…………………………………………………………………………. 123

iii.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude first to my participants for your interest and participation in my project. This project would not have been possible without your commitment to the project and your willingness to reflect on and share intimate stories about your grieving experiences with me. I was deeply touched by the stories you shared, and have learned from each one of you. My hope is that you will find my project honors the memory of your loved ones. I am especially grateful to my advisor and mentor, Roger Knudson, for his encouragement and support throughout the dissertation process, and throughout my time in graduate school. I have truly appreciated your responsiveness, thoughtful and very timely feedback, and your investment in doing whatever you could to help me throughout the dissertation process. Many thanks to my committee members: Larry Leitner, Bill Stiles, Ann Fuerher, and Laura Mandell for your involvement in, support of, and sincere interest in my project. I would also like to give a special thank you to my dear friend, Siri Hoogen, not only for your constant support, but also for your careful and thoughtful editing of the performative writing pieces. Thank you also to my “BB,” Kathryn Gaffey, you have been my grad school partner throughout the past six years and have helped me both personally and professionally every step of the way. I am forever grateful to my family for their enduring love and support throughout this project. Thank you to my mom, Elle, for always believing in me and my professional endeavors. I also truly appreciate the love and friendship of my sister, Caitlyn. Being able to turn to you for personal support throughout the dissertation process has been invaluable. Thank you to my new family, Terri, Jim, and Brendan, you have been there for me whenever I have needed you, especially over the past few years, and I am so appreciative of your encouragement and genuine interest in me and my professional work. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my loving husband, Michael Kaag, for your faith in me, your enduring love and support, and, at times, much needed humor. You have helped to foster my confidence, allay my anxieties, and keep me determined to get through the project and my program. And, my acknowledgements would not be complete without thanking my faithful pup, Reilly, who has cuddled on my lap for every page I typed for this dissertation project.

iv.

Grieving the death of a loved one: A performative writing approach for understanding the power of dreams

In her earthly form of flesh and bone and blood, in her presence as a smile and a word spoken in love, she is gone, forever. That cold, hard fact is the bitterness of grief, which always remains. But there are those moments, especially under the stars, when the day is surrendering into night, that she glides through my heart again. These moments are the other, sweeter taste of grief. And, again, although I am not the author of these moments, I can at least prepare the occasion and make myself ready for them when, and if, they come (Romanyshyn, 1999, p. 157) The death of a loved one has been described as an assault on an individual’s meaning system, which calls for active attempts to make sense of the loss, find some benefit in the experience, and reorganize one’s identity as a survivor (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). Historically, in a grief model laid out by Freud, individuals were encouraged to “let go” of the deceased loved one through a process of “decathexis.” In recent years, however, contemporary theorists have embraced an alternative view of grieving where continuing bonds with the deceased have been viewed as a healthy part of the survivor’s ongoing life (Silverman & Klass, 1996). Death ends the life of the loved one, but the relationship does not have to disappear. Attachments with absent loved ones require individuals to rely on dreams, memories, conversations about the deceased, and cherished objects that remind them of the deceased in order to remain connected (Silverman & Nickman, 1996). The location of the deceased, perceived continued contact, living legacies, and rituals also can facilitate continuing bonds with the deceased (Shuchter & Zisook, 1988). In order to understand the continuing bonds that individuals develop with their deceased loved ones, researchers must understand how individuals are able to bring order, that is, reorganize their experience following the death of their loved one (Gilbert, 2002). As Gilbert (2002) writes, “We live in stories, not statistics” and stories help us to understand disjointed and difficult experiences (p. 223). Studying the way people make meaning out of their experiences allows us to understand the complexity of the relationship and the way in which people remain connected to each other in life and in death (Silverman & Klass, 1996). While dreams are identified as one way in which individuals can maintain a continuing bond with their deceased

loved one, we do not have a clear understanding as to how dreams play a role in the adaptation to bereavement. The present study focused on understanding how the imaginal space of dreams plays a role in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement and how dreams serve a role in the development of a continuing bond with the deceased. A Model of Meaning Reconstruction for Bereavement In order to understand the role dreams can have in the grieving process, we must first understand the process of meaning reconstruction that happens following the death of a loved one. Bereavement is a state or condition caused by loss through death (Attig, 1996). During bereavement, we are deprived of our loved one’s companionship and the flow of our life stories is disrupted (Attig, 1996). Feelings of distress such as sadness, loneliness, anguish, disbelief, hopelessness, helplessness, guilt, anxiety, fear, and anger are common for at least several months after a loved one’s death (Dutton & Zisook, 2005). Mourning describes what we do within ourselves to transform our relationship with our deceased loved one (Attig, 1996). The terms grieving and mourning can be used to refer to the processes of accommodating to loss; however, mourning is specific to death and grieving is a coping response to any significant loss experience, including death (Attig, 1996). With regard to grief and mourning, Romanyshyn (1999) has noted that “grief is more sudden like a thunderbolt, mourning seems more like a long, hard rain” (p. 59). In the wake of a loss, survivors seek meaning through mourning and struggle to construct a new reality in which their reality and view of themselves is forever changed (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006; Neimeyer, Prigerson, & Davies, 2002). Within their new reality, individuals struggle to preserve a sense of who they were while at the same time integrating their understanding of who they must now be (Neimeyer et al., 2002). The death of a loved one prompts us to “relearn the self” and “relearn the world” (Attig, 1996). Distress is not a symptom to be alleviated but instead an experience to be faced openly and honestly (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). According to the model of meaning reconstruction, the death of a loved one calls on survivors to reconstruct meaning in response to loss by way of: meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change (Davis & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001; Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006; Neimeyer, Baldwin, & Gillies, 2006). Neimeyer (2001) suggests that meaning reconstruction, in response to a loss, is the central process of grieving. Individuals have a powerful need for finding meaning and assume that events in their lives should have meaning (Davis & Hoeksema, 2001). The degree to which the death of a loved

one makes sense to the survivor can affect the survivor’s ability to restore order, security, and predictability in the world in the aftermath of a loved one’s death (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). The model of reconstruction suggests that this process of questioning, finding, and making sense of the death of a loved one is central to the experience of grief (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). The relationship between sense-making and distress is reciprocal, and there is not a temporal sequence to the process (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). Feelings of distress become more episodic with time, often reoccurring on anniversaries, special events, or when encountering poignant reminders of the deceased (Dutton & Zisook, 2005). While the death is permanent, the process by which the individual makes sense of the death is not; and the meaning of the loss must be renegotiated over time (Silverman & Klass, 1996). In addition, finding benefits from the experience of losing a loved one plays a significant role in the survivor’s ability to adapt to the loss (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006; Neimeyer, Baldwin, & Gillies, 2006). Although the benefits from experiencing the loss may not be seen until months or years after the death, those who are able to find “life lessons” and the “silver lining” from their experience are better able to adapt to the death of a loved one (Neimeyer et al., 2006). The ability to find not only positive, but any meaning in the death of a loved one can be adaptive where any answer to the question, “Why?” appears to be better than no answer (Dutton & Zisook, 2005). Finally, survivors may experience “posttraumatic growth” as a result of their struggle with the consequences of the loss (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2001). Through posttraumatic growth, survivors experience a changed sense of self, changed relationships, and a changed philosophy of life (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2001; Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). Survivors who experience such growth report becoming more resilient, independent, and confident (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). They also report taking on new roles, developing a greater awareness of life’s fragility, becoming more vulnerable to subsequent losses, and having an increased capacity for empathy (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). Posttraumatic growth does not necessarily mean a reduction in distress. Instead, those who suffer through grief grow in character and learn how to carry the weight of their distress (Gillies & Neimeyer, 2006). Continuing Bonds in Adaptation to Bereavement From a continuing bonds theory perspective, bereavement is not something that ends and from which one recovers; instead, individuals must relearn the world in a way that helps them

accommodate and live with the loss (Attig, 2001). Historically, individuals were encouraged to relinquish bonds after the death of a loved one. Grief work emphasized the emotional neutralizing of the loved object by helping individuals to sever the connection with their deceased loved ones. This decathexis was seen as an emotional neutralizing so that the survivor could come to realize that an irrevocable separation had taken place and the deceased loved one could not be brought back. Failure to break the bonds with deceased loved ones was seen as putting the survivor at risk for complicated forms of grief (Stroebe & Schut, 2005). Continuing bond theory suggests, however, that survivors learn to recognize how bonds formed in the past can be used to inform their present and their future (Silverman & Klass, 1996; Silverman & Nickman, 1996). Continuing bond theory places value on the relationship, and the focus is on holding the relationship from a new perspective rather than severing the connection with the deceased loved one (Silverman & Klass, 1996). A continuing bond is adaptive when a survivor is able to make sense of the loss in personal, practical, existential, or spiritual terms, to find benefits from the loss, and to experience a progressive rather than regressive transformation in one’s identity following the loss (Neimeyer et al., 2006). Moreover, as the individual becomes more future-oriented, the intensity of the grief feelings may lessen (Silverman & Klass, 1996). Continuing a bond with a deceased loved one can be a healthy part of the survivor’s ongoing life (Silverman & Klass, 1996; Stroebe & Schut, 2005). Following the death of a loved one, the survivor will try to reestablish physical proximity to the deceased loved one (e.g., misperceiving others as the loved one, mistaking sounds for the deceased’s voice or footsteps) (Field, Gao, & Paderna, 2005). As attempts to gain physical proximity are repeatedly frustrated, the survivor comes to realize the permanence of the loss (Field et al., 2005). Survivors must change their relationship with the deceased by constructing a sense of the deceased and developing an inner representation of that person (Silverman & Klass, 1996). Felt security in the relationship is obtained by way of psychological proximity, as opposed to physical proximity; and the survivor will feel psychologically “held” by the deceased (Field et al., 2005). The living and breathing relationship is lost; but a symbolic, internalized, imaginal relationship may continue and develop in more elaborative forms (Stroebe & Schut, 2005). These internal representations can provide emotionally sustaining functions (Field, 2006). For example, when in a stressful situation, the survivor can evoke the internal representation of

the deceased in order to feel comforted (Field, 2006). In addition, an internal representation of how the deceased would respond in a particular situation can be used as a basis when making decisions (Field, 2006; Hedtke & Winslade, 2004). Marwit and Klass (2006) found that the existence of active inner representational figures can function as role models and provide situation specific guidance, value clarification, and remembrance formation. Thus, a continuing bond can serve as an “autonomy promoting inner resource” for the survivor (Field, 2006). While a continuing bond can be a healthy response to mourning, there are circumstances where continuing bonds may hinder survivors more than help them, or where survivors simply lack the ability to form continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones. If the individual’s relationship with the loved one was very conflictual or antagonistic when the loved one was alive, then a continued bond may remain conflictual after the loved one dies (Vickio, 1999). Additionally, a survivor’s attachment security will influence his or her ability to cope with the death of a loved one (Field et al., 2005). Those with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style tend to be uncertain regarding the availability and responsiveness of their attachment figures and will engage in compensatory behaviors with the attachment figures in order to confirm a sense of security (Field et al., 2005). Survivors with this attachment style are less likely to emotionally accept the reality of the loss and will make excess use of continuing bond expressions by continuing to seek physical proximity to the deceased at the expense of taking active steps toward constructing a new life for themselves (Field et al., 2005). Individuals with an avoidant- dismissive attachment style have an attachment history where the caregiver was consistently unresponsive to their needs, and these individuals tend to use strategies to deactivate their attachment system. Survivors with this attachment style are limited in their ability to use continuing bond expressions as a secure base when making sense of their new reality (Field et al., 2005). For those survivors who continue bonds with their deceased loved ones, the connection can be maintained in a number of ways. For example, the believed location of the deceased (e.g., heaven) and spiritual experiences can help the survivor feel comforted knowing their loved one is at peace (Dutton & Zisook, 2005; Schuchter & Zisook, 1988). In addition, a perception of the deceased’s continued presence can help the survivor feel protected and loved (Schuchter & Zisook, 1988). Cherished objects or symbols of the deceased (e.g., wedding ring) help the survivor feel that the relationship is still alive (Dutton & Zisook, 2005; Silverman & Nickman,

1996; Schuchter & Zisook, 1988). The deceased can live on in their family members by way of personality, mannerisms, appearance, and abilities attributed to genetics (Dutton & Zisook, 2005; Schuchter & Zisook, 1988). Rituals and ceremonies as well as where the remains of the deceased are given permanent residence also influence the sense of continued connection to the deceased (Dutton & Zisook, 2005; Klass, 2006; Schucter & Zisook, 1988). Memories, too, serve the important function of connecting the survivor with the deceased (Schucter & Zisook, 1988). A living legacy is another form of maintaining a connection to the deceased by carrying out the deceased loved one’s wishes (Dutton & Zisook, 2005). Finally, dreams in which the deceased is alive can have a profound impact on the survivor (Schucter & Zisook, 1988). A Dionysian Logic for Dreams Although individuals may develop continuing bonds with their loved ones in a number of ways, the focus of this study was on elaborating how dreams, in particular, play a role in survivors’ adaptation to bereavement and how dreams provide a space for developing continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones. Dreams allow us to “express the turbulent emotions, work through the confusion, heal the psychic wounds, and creatively envision new possibilities for meaning and order in the world” (Bulkeley, 2003, p. x). Dreams have been understood allegorically, as was the case with Freud, where the symbols of dreams were translated from the manifest into latent content (Hillman, 1983). Jung understood dreams metaphorically and although a metaphorical method allows us to “hear the dream as it tells itself,” a metaphor cannot be translated without breaking up the “peculiar unity” that exists in a metaphor between the “ambiguously evocative” and “concretely precise” (Hillman, 1983, p. 35). A Dionysian logic, however, offers a method of understanding dreams in which “masks, disguises, and doubleness inherently belong” and where dreams are understood metaphorically, dramatically, and theatrically (Hillman, 1983, p. 35). While there are multiple ways to understand dreams, a Dionysian logic for dreams fits best with continuing bond theory and with the model of meaning reconstruction for understanding the processes of adapting to bereavement. Based on a Dionysian logic, myths are understood to live in our symptoms and in our dreams (Hillman, 1975). Our lives, from Hillman’s (1989) perspective, “are the enactment of our dreams; our case histories are from the very beginning, archetypally, dramas” (p. 82). Myths offer a multiplicity of meanings and give us the “invisible background” to help us start to imagine, to question, and to go deeper in our understanding of ourselves and others (Hillman,

1975). Myths provide a landscape that exists “always just beyond our rational, self-contained subjectivity” (Becker & Knudson, 2003, p. 713). Myths set the scene of the dream and open dreamers up to the possibility of understanding their experience from a new perspective. As Hillman (1975) suggests, “Mythical metaphors are not etiologies, causal explanations, or name tags. They are perspectives toward events which shift the experience of events” (p.101). Myths invite dreamers to take in the scene of the dream as a whole—not identifying with only one character in the scene but paying attention to what each character is there to teach us. As Hillman (1975) writes: We fall into an identity with one of the figures in the tale: I become Zeus deceiving my wife, or Saturn devouring my children, or Hermes thieving from my brother. But this neglects that the whole myth is pertinent and all its mythical figures relevant: by deceiving I am also being deceived, and being devoured, and stolen from, as well as all the other complications in each of these tales (p.103). Thus, by attending to the whole of the scene in a dream, we can observe how each character has something unique and powerful to share with us. Dreams offer us windows into the imaginal and opportunities for the witnessing, experiencing, and learning from enactments in our imaginal fictions. No longer is the dream something to be interpreted, a prophesy, or a message; from a Dionysian consciousness, it is a display of masks (Hillman, 1983). The masks are not literal roles or literal destinies, but opportunities to find freedom to play—“playing parts, partial, dismembered, Dionysian, never being whole but participating in the whole that is a play, remembered by it as actor of it” (Hillman, 1983, p.38). From a Dionysian consciousness, dreams allow for a constant metamorphosis of identity, with no fixed identification with any one role (Paris, 2003). In dreams, the ego “is only one figure among many psychic persons” (Hillman, 1975, p. 175). The dream’s drama is a “critique of the ego-complex from the view points of the other members in the troupe” (Hillman, 1975, p. 32). Dreams allow other psychic persons to be present in the dream scene and for these members to show the ego its limitations (Hillman, 1975). Exposure to and interaction with these psychic persons offers the dreamer opportunities to learn things about himself or herself in relation to all of these psychic persons. These personalities of the night—especially those fantasy figures who reappear on several occasions—affect a person’s consciousness as would any waking life companion

(Hillman, 1975). It is as though the activity of these figures has an anticipatory character where they engage or enact in a way that the dreamer may later enact himself or herself (Hillman, 1975). In the dreamer’s enactment, he or she can play with the issues that are associated with a particular role—not in an effort to become a fixed role—but to enact the roles that reflect the issues and struggles that are most salient at the particular time of the dream. So, for example, in the enactment of a policeman in one’s dream, “one is not a policeman for the mere practice function of exploring ‘policeman’ as a role, but because issues of power, protection, and vulnerability are afoot” (Watkins, 2000, p. 67). Thus, based on a Dionysian logic of dreams, dreams open us up to our struggles and show us where we are through drama; they do not give us messages for where we are going or who we will become. In this opening that dreams provide, dreams show us the issues that are circulating for us and provide us with opportunities for play and for the enactment of different roles. Through play and enactment of different roles, dreamers can work through their current struggles and difficulties and perhaps gain new perspective on their life situations. The imaginal world also offers a unique space for our deceased loved ones and for the living to “cohabit the world-soul as images” (Becker & Knudson, 2000, p. 126). For Becker & Knudson (2003), in imagination, “the line between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘dead’ is deliteralized” (p. 711). The imaginal world offers us a space where the living and the dead can metaphorically meet and our deceased loved ones can be re-membered in a manner that allows them to have a continual presence in our lives. Becker and Knudson (2000) suggest, “mourning is not characterized by an emotional ‘decathexis’ but by an imaginal ‘re-cathexis,’ a remembering of the dead” (p.127). Mourning is then the “imaginal process wherein the dead are recognized as active participants in the life of their families, their communities, and of the world- soul” (Becker & Knudson, 2000, p. 127). Re-membering the dead cannot be achieved from the rational, ego perspective; instead, consciousness must shift toward the reflective, receptive, mode of reverie and dream (Becker & Knudson, 2000, p. 128). When we are able to “dwell in this realm,” our world is “ensouled, darker and more somber than before, and in many ways more painful, but deeper and richer” (Becker & Knudson, 2003, p. 714). Review of Dream Literature Dreams have served a healing function for cancer patients, for individuals recovering from addictions or addictive behavior, and for survivors of individual or collective traumas. For

cancer patients, dreams have been shown to enliven the senses and feelings in the body, to offer individuals experiences in which the dreamer is opened to unvoiced feelings (Boersma & Houghton, 1990; Goelitz, 2001), and to provide dreamers a healing presence and/or images of reassurance (Goelitz, 2001). Additionally, dreams have been shown to help prepare a person suffering from a terminal illness for death (Bosnak, 1989; Muff, 1996; Welman, Mark, & Faber, 1992). For individuals recovering from addictions or addictive behavior, dreams have been shown to evoke intense bodily sensations both in the service of showing dreamers they are still capable of feeling (Knudson, 2006) and in preventing dreamers from relapsing on their sobriety from addictive substances (Colace, 2000; Denzin, 1988). Specific to individual and collective trauma, dreams have been shown to have a transformative power with the images of dreams changing as the individual changes (Bulkeley, 2003; Henriques, 2004; Reis & Snow, 2000). Dreams also have helped to manage affects and conflicts associated with traumas and to revive issues from the past that need to be acknowledged and worked through (Brunkow, 1996; Bulkeley, 2003; Cuddy & Belicki, 1996; Haenel, 2001; Henriques, 2004; Layard, 2002; Lifton, 1996; Muller, 1996; Reis & Snow, 2000). While dreams generally show us where we are emotionally and help us work through our conflicts, post-traumatic nightmares are a different phenomenon (Hartman, 1996). Hartman (1996) has described post-traumatic nightmares as a kind of “memory intrusion” differing from normal nightmares in their content, repetitiveness, biology, and function (p.113). Post-traumatic nightmares may occur after a severe trauma and often occur when the individual has tried to “wall off” or “encapsulate” his or her traumatic memories (Hartman, 1996, p. 113). Lavie and Kaminer (1996) go so far as to suggest that dream repression plays a significant role in trauma survivors’ adjustment based on their finding that Holocaust survivors who recovered best were those who hardly remembered their dreams at all. With the exception of post-traumatic re-enactment dreams, most bereavement dreams assist the dreamer in maintaining a relationship with their deceased loved one (Becker & Knudson, 2003; Belicki, Gulko, Ruzycki, Aristotle, 2003; Ullman, 2001). For Ullman (2001), his dreams of his deceased wife helped him to “reorder” his life, kept alive his feeling of enduring love, and left him feeling less alone (p.132). Becker & Knudson (2003) showed how dreams were a central aspect of mourning for a woman and her ongoing relationship with her deceased twin sister. For this woman, dreams allowed for the deceased twin sister to be

“distinctly and autonomously present in the dream world” (Becker & Knudson, 2003, p. 706). Bereavement dreams also may help desensitize survivors to the death of their loved ones by replaying the death until eventually the survivor is able to bear the unbearable (Garfield, 1996). The Present Study Bereavement prompts us to relearn ourselves and the world so that we may reorganize the “daily plot” of our lives. Neimeyer (2001) suggests that meaning reconstruction, in response to a loss, is the central process of grieving. According to the model of meaning reconstruction, the death of a loved one calls on survivors to reconstruct meaning in response to loss by way of: meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change. Continuing bond theory places value on the relationship with the deceased loved one, and the focus is on holding the relationship from a new perspective rather than severing the connection. Dreams provide an opening into the imaginal, showing us the issues that are afoot for us and providing us with opportunities for play and the enactment of different roles. Through play and enactment of different roles, dreamers can work through their current struggles and difficulties and perhaps gain new perspectives on their life situations. The imaginal world also offers a unique space for our deceased loved ones and the living to share a dream space. Exposure to and interaction with the psychic persons in our dreams offer survivors the opportunity to connect with these psychic persons and to learn things about themselves in relation to the psychic persons. The focus of the present study was on understanding how the imaginal space of dreams plays a role in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement and how dreams serve a role in the development of a continuing bond with the deceased. While a few studies have shown that dreams help survivors stay connected with their deceased loved ones (Becker & Knudson, 2003; Belicki, Gulko, Ruzycki, Aristotle, 2003; Ullman, 2001), no studies have explored dreams and bereavement using the perspective of the model of reconstruction and continuing bond theory and no studies have used a Dionysian logic for understanding bereavement dreams. In order to understand the idiosyncratic experiences of bereavement and the role of dreams in the processes of adapting to bereavement, a research method was needed that would honor the complexity of the experiences and that would tap into the emotional as well as the cognitive experience of the participants (Gilbert, 2002).

Performative Writing for Understanding Bereavement and Dreams Narrative research methods provide a basis to seek local, embodied, and fluid truths. The challenge for narrative researchers is to find a language that moves beyond “highly schematized, conventionalized, even clichéd portraits” and to use writing that “uses form in a way that truly serves the content and the people , in question” (Freeman, 2007, p.141-142). Performative writing provides such a poetic form because it strives to be evocative, sensual, empathic, embodied, reflexive, and multivocal (Mattingly, 2000; Pelias, 2004). Specific to works of performative writing, Pelias (1999) writes: They are fictions that never assert the truth but strive for the truthful. They are plays that have no final curtain. They seek the ambiguous realities that constitute our performative lives, ambiguities that are often rendered too easily in the more traditional essay. They strive toward the literary with the recognition that the literary is too slippery to define. They are imaginative constructions whose truth lies not in their facticity but in their evocative potentiality (p. xiv). Performative writing has the unique potential to compellingly present the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement and has the ability to reflect participants’ unique and subjective experiences. Performative writing is exceptionally appropriate for presenting the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement. Grief and mourning are ambiguous, unique, idiosyncratic experiences that require a form, such as the postmodern performative writing form, to preserve the ambiguity, fluidity, in motion, evolving processes. Performative writing, like mourning, is never stamped with an ending, but instead is filled with mysteriousness, possibility, and puzzlement. A poetic stance, in general, “always starts with the truth of raw experience, with life as lived and seen from the inside, from the role of the participant” (Brady, 2005, p. 1003). Pelias (2005) suggests, “Performative writing attempts to keep the complexities of human experience intact, to place the ache back in scholar’s abstractions” and features lived experience (p.418). Moreover, Pelias (2005) asserts that: …performative writing offers both an evocation of human experience and an enabling fiction. Its power is in its ability to tell the story of human experience, a story that can be trusted and a story that can be used. It opens the doors to a place where the raw and the

genuine find their articulation through form, through poetic expression, through art (p. 418). This evocation of experience rests on the figurative, creative, imaginative form of the text and on its aesthetic presentation (Pelias, 2004). Performative writing aims to invite the reader into the text rather than to lecture at the reader from a distance, disrupting “the politics of traditional research relationships, traditional forms of representation, and traditional social science orientations to audiences” (Chase, 2005, p. 95). Performative writing is not a style of writing that follows a linear or causal logic, nor does it aim to discover truths (Pelias, 2005). Instead, performative writing is a process that searches for human experience in the data, and through that analytic process, has the potential to find more in the data than traditional forms of scientific inquiry. Performative writing also welcomes understandings of experience that can be felt in the reader’s body (Pelias, 2005). Performative writing privileges the multifaceted and rests on the belief that the world is composed of multiple realities (Pelias, 2004; 2005). Unlike traditional scholars who may “attempt to prove all other explanations inadequate or suspect,” the underlying assumption for performative writers is that the world is not only one particular way (Pelias, 2005, p. 418). In the case of performative writing, disparate voices, multiple perspectives and multiple realities are valued. Performative writing aims to honor multiple perspectives in conversation, and displays any tension, conflict, or struggle that may be present (Pelias, 2005). Moreover, performative writing, as with narrative inquiry in general, highlights the uniqueness and complexity of each human by listening to “the voices within each narrative” rather than “locating distinct themes across interviews” (Chase, 2005, p. 663). Attending to the voices within a narrative, allows for the various subject positions a person takes up, the complexities, and the ambiguities in a person’s story to be shown (Chase, 2005). In addition, performative writing is relational and does not serve the burden of advancing current knowledge—it serves the scholarly community by way of connecting people (Pelias, 2005). Consistent with the feminist mantra, “the personal is political,” performative writing assumes that “individual bodies provide a potent database for understanding the political and hegemonic systems that write on individual bodies” (Pelias, 2005, p. 420). Moreover, the question becomes not how does this piece of work provide answers towards some final scholarly

explanation, but instead, how does this piece of work matter to the concerns of the scholarly community (Pelias, 2005). Specific to dreams and performative writing, both are enactments of events that evoke emotional experiences and provide dreamers and/or readers with displays of scenes. Dreams present us with displays of scenes and/or events for us to witness, to enact, and to learn from. Similarly, performative writing, itself, is an enactment (Denzin, 2003) and “evokes worlds that are other-wise intangible, unlocatable: worlds of memory, pleasure, sensation, imagination, affect, and in-sight” (Pollack, 1998, p. 80). Like dreams, performative writing “shows rather than tells” (Denzin, 2003, p. 93). Moreover, performative writing “is writing that speaks performatively, enacting what it describes,” and “does what it says it is doing by doing it” (Denzin, 2003, p. 93-94). In a dream’s presentation of scenes, it speaks to us using poetic, imagistic, metaphorical language—a language performative writing speaks as well. Performative writing also “transforms literal (and transcribed) speech into speech that is first person, active, in motion, processual” (Denzin, 2003, p. 95). Just as a dream provides a scene for an individual to enter as audience member and as actor of, performative writing “creates a space that the audience enters” (Denzin, 2003, p. 95). Performative writing also “evokes identification and empathic responses” (Pelias, 2005, p. 419). Whether we consider scenes from our dreams or performative writing pieces, the dreamer or reader can empathically relate to characters in the story (Clarke, Febbraro, Hatzipantelis, and Nelson, 2005). As Pelias (2004) describes, Empathic scholarship connects person to person in the belief in a shared and complex world. While it recognizes that no two lives are identical, it celebrates when one says to another, “Me too.” It welcomes identification, the witnessing of commonality, as well as separation, the claim of difference. Both require taking in, a knowing and a feeling” (p. 12). Readers of empathic scholarship have the privilege of experiencing and learning from the performative writing text in much the same way that individuals may be affected by their dreams in the processes of adapting to bereavement. Recognizing what the body feels and senses during and/or following a performative writing or dream experience, allows us to have a better sense of what matters (Pelias, 2005). Moreover, performative writing not only connects the reader with the participant, but some research questions invite readers to connect with a scholar who puts

himself or herself at personal risk with the confession, exposure, and witnessing that comes from pursuing such scholarly interests (Pelias, 2005). Thus, performative writing is exceptionally appropriate for presenting the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement. Both dreams and performative writing pieces speak the language of metaphor, image, and poetics—and through this shared language communicate experience evocatively. Moreover, performative writing honors the complexity of experience and allows for the presentation of the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement to be truthful in a local, situational, and contextual way. Method The goal of the present study was to provide an enriched understanding of how the imaginal space of dreams plays a role in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement, and how dreams serve a role in the development of a continuing bond with the deceased. In order to develop this enriched understanding, I was interested in deeply exploring the experience of bereavement and aimed to provide a research space that would allow for multiple truths and rich description of the phenomenon to emerge. My research goals dictated the questions I asked during the interviews, the researcher stance taken during the interviews, the role participants had in co-creating the performative writing texts, and the soliciting of participants’ feedback on the performative writing texts (Denzin, 2003). Recruitment of Participants Participants were invited to participate in the study via flyers (see Appendix A) and/or word-of-mouth. Flyers were posted in local stores, coffee shops, grocery stores, and restaurants. I also visited local senior citizen homes, providing flyers as well as attending their community meetings in order to introduce myself and provide them with information about the study. I was interested in working with articulate, imaginative, story-telling individuals. Individuals who had experienced the death of a loved one and who could remember dreams in the context of their bereavement were invited to participate. I interviewed a total of seven participants and was able to include five of the seven in my project. One man was excluded when he admitted half way through his first interview that his wife had not actually died, but that he was divorced. I also excluded a woman who could not remember specific dreams following the death of her mother and who only had significant dreams of her mother when her mother was still alive. Each of the five participants who were

included in the project demonstrated a sincere interest in participating, a willingness to talk openly about their experiences adapting to bereavement, and a comfort in talking about their dreams as they related to their bereavement experiences. Consistent with the purpose of this project, details of personal context were included within the performative writing texts, rather than in the form of demographic statistics. These five accounts of adaptation to bereavement do not offer “representative sampling” nor do they represent the normal/typical process. Consistent with narrative inquiry, each of these five accounts “highlights the uniqueness of each human action and event” (Chase, 2005, p. 657). Moreover, these accounts do not exhaust the range of possibilities for adaptation to bereavement and do not provide a comparison of themes across stories. Rather, each of these accounts stands as an expression of possibility, with an emphasis on dreams as a potential resource. These accounts also provide the opportunity for readers to be moved to understand their situation in a new way or to be moved toward empathic listening, leading them to think and act in ways that benefit the narrator and what he or she advocates for (Chase, 2005, p. 668-669). Specific to the interviews for this study, all participation was strictly voluntary. Prior to the interviews, informed consent (see Appendix B) was reviewed and I discussed with them how I would be using the stories they shared with me (Ellis, Bochner, Denzin, Lincoln, Morse, Pelias, & Richardson, 2008). Issues of presentation, confidentiality, and authorship were also discussed (Ellis, et al., 2008). Researcher Stance Although my understanding of bereavement and the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement has evolved since I started this study, at the time of the interviews, I was coming from a particular stance. More specifically, I value dreams and expected dreams to have played an important role in my participants’ adaptation to bereavement. In addition, I was open to understanding the different ways dreams might play a role in the adaptation to bereavement; but I expected that dreams would serve a healing function. Consistent with the model of meaning reconstruction, I also expected themes of meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change to be present in my participants’ stories depending on where they were in the context of their adaptation to bereavement. Specific to dreams, I expected that dreams would provide a forum for maintaining continuing bonds with deceased loved ones and approached the conversations I had with participants about their dreams from the framework of a Dionysian logic for dreams.

With the recent death of my father, I viewed the interviews as an opportunity to learn about bereavement and dreams from individuals who might be further along in their grieving process than me. While my own feelings of bereavement were present during my interviews with participants, I believed having gone through an experience similar to my participants allowed me to understand on a deeper level what they were going through and had gone through. Vickers (2002) has argued that “insider research” allows for “insights in to the processes, phenomena, and individual, cultural, or group dynamics that others cannot witness” (p. 619). Moreover, because “insider researchers” are able to empathize, “read between the lines” and “establish trust with participants,” inside researchers are in a better position to expose more emotionally rich stories (Vickers, 2002, p, 619). Thus, I viewed my stance as an “insider researcher” as an asset for inviting the stories I was interested in gathering about the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement. Interviews Establishing a personal connection with participants was of primary importance to me because I wanted to create a space where they would feel comfortable sharing painful, memorable, personal, and revealing details about their lives. Inherent in a researcher/participant relationship are differences in power. With awareness of this fact, I aimed to communicate respect and to minimize status differences by showing a human side, answering questions asked of me by participants, and expressing feelings (Fontana & Frey, 2005). I also aimed to be “empathic, nonjudgmental, concerned, tolerant, and emotionally responsive” (Josselson, 2007, p. 539). I viewed my participants as narrators of their stories, welcoming the stories that happened to come in response to my questions as well as inviting stories that the participants felt were important to share (Chase, 2005). I was interested in having participants speak in specifics rather than talk about their experiences using generalities (Chase, 2005). As my participants narrated their stories, I worked to maintain an empathic distance so that I could engage with them, but not become so involved in their stories that I lost my ability to facilitate the narration (Valentine, 2007). During the interviews, I collected background information about my participants’ lives and worked to understand the relationship my participants had with their deceased loved ones when they were still alive. I also had them describe their adaptation to bereavement and tried to understand how their deceased loved one now had a place in their lives. I aimed to develop

interview questions that would allow the participants to narrate their experiences in a manner that moved beyond a “press release” response (Wiersma, 1988), and instead encouraged them to talk about the particulars of their experience. I assumed I would meet with participants two to three times for an hour to two hours each time but was flexible with how the meetings transpired so that the length of each interview, and the number of times I met with participants depended on what the participants’ schedules would allow. All in-person interviews were audiotaped, with the participants’ understanding that the audiotaped interviews would later be transcribed. For each participant, I was guided by a list of questions, but depending on the stories participants’ shared, would ask more or fewer clarifying questions in order to deeply explore the stories participants shared with me. I conducted the interviews loosely guided by the following questions: 1. Tell me about your loved one—what was your relationship like with him or her before he or she died? 2. What are some of your favorite memories of your loved one? 3. Describe the last time you were with your loved one before he or she died. What do you remember? 4. What happened to your loved one? How did he or she die? 5. How have you dealt with the death? 6. Do you have an explanation for why and/or how your loved one died as he or she did? If so, how do you make sense of the reason your loved one died? 7. How have you made sense of the death and fit the loss into the context of your life? 8. What mourning rituals, if any, have you engaged in? 9. How have you honored, if at all, your loved one’s death? 10. What did you do with your loved one’s belongings? Did you save anything? What did you save and why? 11. Where was your loved one given permanent residence (i.e., in a cemetery plot, ashes disseminated, etc.)? What place does the permanent residence have in your life now? 12. Where do you think your loved one is now? 13. Did you or have you ever felt the presence of your deceased loved one? What was/were those experience(s) like for you?

14. Were there dreams that came during your grieving process? If so, when did they come and how did and do you make sense of them? 15. What, if any, dreams have you had where you knew the dream was speaking to your experience of loss? 16. What, if any, dreams have you had where the image of your loved one returned and how do you make sense of these dreams? 17. What, if any, dreams have you felt the presence of your loved one in and how do you make sense of these dreams? 18. What does your deceased loved one want from and/or for you now, if anything? How do you know? 19. How did your plan for the future change with the death of your loved one? 20. What, if anything, have you learned from the experience of losing your loved one? How did you learn this? 21. What did the death of your loved one mean to you? 22. What, if any, moments have you experienced that you know have influenced the way you make sense of your loss? 23. Do you have any regrets or guilt regarding how you were in relation with your loved one when they were still alive? What is it about the relationship that makes you feel regret or guilt? How have feelings of regret and/or guilt transformed, if at all, during your grieving of the loss and how do you know they have transformed? During the interviews, I would follow the participant’s lead, asking the questions that made sense as the participant was narrating his or her stories. Following each interview, I reviewed the tape prior to my next meeting with the participant, identifying points that I needed further clarification on and questions that still needed to be asked in order to better understand the participants’ experiences. The formal in-person interviews ended when I felt I had a deep enough understanding of my participants’ bereavement experiences to begin putting together a performative writing piece. The debriefing form was provided at this time (see Appendix C). Though the formal interviews ended, I remained in contact with participants in order to obtain their feedback on the performative writing texts. Performative Writing Texts: Construction, Interpretation, and Analysis

Constructing the performative writing texts involved a collection, interpretation, and presentation of the interview data. First, I personally transcribed each audiotaped interview into a typed text so that I could become immersed in the interview experiences and become more intimately familiar with how the conversations unfolded. These typed texts were verbatim from the interviews, with no editing other than the removal of identifying information. I attempted to transcribe the raw material so that it would capture the cadence, rhythm, and use of non-words in the participants’ and my speech. For example, pauses were noted, broken phrases, long pronunciation of words, and non-word utterances. Additionally, I noted the emotional tone of the conversation throughout the transcript, attending to times when there were tears, laughter, or other expressions of emotion. With the interviews converted to transcribed texts, I read and re-read the texts in order to reflect on the interviews and to get a sense of a timeline for the participants’ experiences. As I read the texts, I paid attention to the stories that most compellingly provided information about the participant’s relationship with his or her loved one before and after the death, the participant’s adaptation to bereavement, and the role dreams played in the process. I also paid attention to the feelings evoked in me by the participants’ stories, and I made decisions about what to include based on the stories that felt the most striking to me (Parry, 2004). Performative writing texts were then created, using the participants’ words whenever possible, to construct accounts that I felt would best evoke in the reader deeply felt emotional resonances with the bereavement experiences of my participants. In all of the performative writing texts, the stories are based on details shared with me by the participants, and any invented details were added for the purpose of highlighting the emotional resonances with the bereavement experiences. Fictionalized elements were used in order to present the full range of meaning in human experience, as a way of “pointing to as yet unrealized possibilities within that experience,” and as “a means of producing the conditions that make certain meanings possible” (Sconiers & Rosiek, 2000, p.399 - 400). Experimental writing can serve as an analytic process to find out more in the data than would be seen via other more traditional forms. These texts reflect the meaning I made out of the stories participants shared with me, and I take full responsibility for the interpretations I have made of their experiences. There might be other stories that could be imagined, but these texts are what emerged from the specific dialogues I had with participants.

In the service of maintaining relationships with my participants that were respectful and dialogical, I presented participants with the performative writing texts I had created, based on the conversations I had with them, and asked them to respond/react to the texts (Denzin, 2003; Ellis, et al., 2008; Gilbert, 2002). The purpose of bringing the pieces back to the participants was to provide an opportunity for further reflection and for a deepening of both the participants’ and my own understanding of their adaptation to bereavement. Participants were also invited to comment on the degree to which the text tapped into and resonated with the participants’ emotional experiences. Finally, I addressed any misspellings or mistakes I had made regarding “facts” of the participants’ experiences. For example, a participant noticed I had used an incorrect medical term to describe her deceased loved one’s condition. It felt vitally important for both of us that the text be corrected in order to protect the integrity of her story. My goal was to create performative writing texts that would allow for a vicarious immersion in the experience of my participants so that the reader would have an “empathetic entry into the lived experience” of my participants (Clarke, Febbraro, Hatzipantelis, & Nelson, 2005). I aimed to create texts that would excite the readers’ senses so that they would have an embodied and emotional understanding of the role of dream in the adaptation to bereavement (Alexander, 2005; Clarke et al., 2005). As Smith and Sparkes (2006) write: …the goal and responsibility is to evoke and bear witness to a situation the researcher has been in or studied, inviting the reader into a relationship, enticing people to think and feel with the story being told as opposed to thinking about it. (p. 185). My hope for the reader of these texts is that the texts would allow for multiple feelings, senses, and responses to the text to emerge. Moreover, these texts are meant to give color, shape, texture, and feeling to the readers’ understanding of dreams and the adaptation to bereavement. In addition to each performative writing piece, I have included a reflexive analysis. In these reflexive analyses, I offer my analysis of the role of dreams in the participants’ adaptation to bereavement. I also present my analysis of their adaptation to bereavement from the perspective of continuing bonds theory and the model of meaning reconstruction. For each participant, I share my reflections on the process of carrying out the research, my reactions, and my understanding of how my biases changed as I gained a deeper understanding of the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement (Alexander, 2005; Parker, 2004; Richardson, 2000a; 2000b).

You Die a Thousand Deaths Before You Have To Do It.

I met Ben in 1968—no not 1968, 1969. I was just out of graduate school and had gotten my first job as a psychologist working in a community mental health center. The center had a lot of federal money and I was hired in under a federal grant—a Hospital Improvement Program grant—and Ben was a consulting psychiatrist. Well, it turned out that Ben was the consultant on my team comprised of a nurse, a psychologist, a couple social workers, a psych resident, and some psychiatrists from the community. Ben also did a lot of the in-service training, and I was in his group.

I was thinking about this love at first sight question. I can’t say that it was love at first sight, but it was absolutely an attraction and a connection that grew over time. I think because he was twenty years older than I was, I was very hesitant to get involved with someone that much older than myself. But, Ben had a kind of vitality and an energy that was always young. Even when he was his sickest, there was something in him that was always forward thinking, looking to the future, interested.

Eventually, my heart ruled over my head. My heart went, “I really love this guy” and my head was going “He’s twenty years older than I am!” Even if he lives his natural life span, which he did, I’m going to be alone in my senior years. And it took me a lot of processing and soul searching and seeking advice from people I trust and respect. I decided that whatever good years I had with him, would be good. As it turned out, I had thirty-three good years. It was absolutely the right decision. We were personally and professionally linked. We were soul mates, and I always felt loved and cherished and respected. I was twenty-seven when we got married, he was forty-seven. He was eighty when he died. I was two months shy of sixty. So, there is a wholeness to our life together, but in 1988 my death watch started. The thing I had always dreaded happened.

Five o’clock—time for me to greet my long-term client in the waiting room and for Ben to head home so one of us can be with our son. As I say hello to my client, Ben walks through the waiting room casually saying, “You know, I still have that heartburn that I had this morning, I’m going to run by the emergency room on my way home,” and out he walks before I can register what he has said to me. In shock, I lead my client to my office, trying to make sense of what has just happened. My client, a nurse, looks at me and says, “Laura, you need to go to the hospital!” My initial shock begins to wear off and I say, “You’re right. I’m sorry, but you’re right. I’ve got to go to the hospital.” I race to the emergency room, at this point already ten minutes behind him. Terrified, I rush through the automatic doors immediately spotting Ben with an IV in, and oxygen hooked up to him. I make eye contact with the ER doctor as he walks towards me. “Laura” he says, “We’ve done an EKG. I’m admitting him to ICU. He’s had a heart attack.”

It was a horrible moment. I had to leave him before they admitted him to ICU I had to get home for my child

I hadn’t cooked I didn’t get home until I don’t know what time I went home To my child And I had to tell him. It was just three days before the end of sixth grade We went up town to Burger King I couldn’t swallow He was eating He says to me, “Eat Mom.” he says, “Food is comforting.”

One of the most important things I learned in 1988 is that if you cannot eat anything else, you can always swallow a banana.

I called my mother She came over the next day so I could go be with Ben who was in the ICU In those days, it took 24 hours for a cardiac enzyme test to come back—to find out if you really did have A heart attack They did the angiogram and he had to have Bypass surgery I didn’t know anything about that They did what I needed They gave me information They gave me films to watch This is how I cope.

I want them to do this now, I don’t want them to send him home I’m scared What are they going to do? They can’t get him on the surgery schedule They’re going to send him home for the weekend OH MY GOD I’m scared to death What am I supposed to do? Stay awake all night with a mirror under his nose to make sure he’s breathing? They sent him home for the weekend. We survived it. He went back. He was terrified.

I got up in bed with him and laid with him and held him This is when the shift in our relationship began It’s an incredible loss of your sense of power and personal integrity when you’re that incapacitated. I am in bed with him

In this hospital Looking out at the world, I’m holding him and I can leave, and he can’t.

He had bypass surgery the next day, It was long. My brother, I am very very close to one of my brothers. He got married not long before Ben had a heart attack and they were on their way to their honeymoon—Hong Kong We talked the night before Ben’s bypass surgery and he said to me If Ben dies tomorrow, I’m not coming until I get back, and I said, I will need you over the long haul. The truth is, he’s been here for me over the long haul

The surgery was pretty dicey He was in ICU much longer than he should have been and, He was very very slow to wake up He was very unresponsive—but when I would go in to the ICU, he would respond to me He was extremely agitated at times Trying to pull out his tubes. I always wanted to know what medicine they were giving him I’m his protector. He’s older, but I’m his protector. I’m one of those people who needs to know everything, so you will tell me. What are you doing and why are you doing it? What are you going to do for him?

He survived the bypass surgery and then We had a great ten years, But you’ve lost your innocence You’re never innocent again I always had that other ear out waiting for the other shoe to drop Waiting for the next emergency

We both loved to travel We both loved nature and to do things in nature But I think our everyday life together was rich We had musical evenings—he would choose all the music one evening and then We’d have an evening where I would choose We were good at parallel play We loved to be together, but we didn’t have to be joined at the hip

Ben was so level, you couldn’t get a rise out of him I was the much more firey temperament I’m ying to his yang He had tremendous humor. He was very very funny. He was kind of, in his heart, a bad boy and I loved that about him. I think I tend to be a little more conforming and I loved his lack of conformity We were wonderful, wonderful friends

We were very focused on parenting Neither of us were interested in sports or gave a damn about ice hockey But we loved our son, Every weekend, every weekend, every weekend We loved him so much, we just did it We were a family A blended family Having fun together I was a first time parent And Ben was a third time parent

We had our issues, like everyone has their issues. Nothing went unreflected or undiscussed We were good at playing the rules of fair fighting. We never said devastating things to each other, We talked things out, There just wasn’t ever this sense of coldness or sense of things being unresolved. We never stopped speaking to each other.

Ten o’clock on a Sunday night and we are lying in bed. Holding my book against my chest, I look over and Ben is sleeping, the sheets slowly moving up and down as he quietly breathes. I am aware that he has not been feeling well, but he appears peaceful as he sleeps. As I turn back to my book to continue reading, Ben wakes up and says, “I’m having that weird feeling again” “What feeling honey?” Suddenly his body violently convulses and it looks to me like he is having a grand mal seizure. I bolt out of bed and race over to his side of the bed where the phone is. He has stopped breathing. I hurriedly call 911 and I exclaim into the phone, “I think my husband is having a heart attack.” Consciously, I think he is having a grand mal seizure, but I find myself uttering heart attack into the phone. The man on the line asks, “Do you know how to do CPR?” “Well I had a course twenty years ago, but I don’t remember anything and—” The man interrupts me, “Try to get him on the floor.” I look at the height of our antique bed and tell him, “I can’t get him on the floor! I’d break every bone in his body.”

He begins to direct me by saying, “Well blo—” and I blurt out, “Wait! I remember, I’m going to do it.” I begin CPR—one and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen— “Nothing’s happening!” I continue the CPR. I hear a little gurgle. “Well look for a pulse,” the man on the phone instructs. I feel his arm, searching for a pulse. “No! No!” I tell him, “I’m feeling his arm. I don’t feel anything!” I continue desperately to feel for some kind of beat—some sign of life. The man instructs, “Now feel for his jugular” “Oh, oh!… I’m feeling his jugular and I don’t feel anything!... I’m going to try to do it again.” One and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight—I can hear the gurgling getting louder. Without thinking, I flip him on his side and as I do this, he vomits. He can breathe! My body is shaking. “He’s breathin—he just threw up, he’s breathing!” “OK, the squad is on its way.” Anxious for them to be there, I respond, “OK, but they’re taking a long time to get here!” He tries to reassure me saying, “They’re coming. Stay on the phone with me.” “Ok, I will, I will.” “I know you’re scared, but you’re doing fine.” Confused, Ben looks at me and asks, “I threw up?! What happened!?” “Well, honey, you had a little episode.” I’m thinking, OK, he’s talking so he can’t be brain dead. I realize the door is locked and that the life squad will not be able to get into our home. I say, “I’m going to have to unlock the door— hang on!” I shove Ben into the middle of the bed, “Stay! Don’t move!” He looks at me and says, “OK, but I don’t know what happe—” I hurry downstairs and unlock the door, grabbing the cordless phone as I sprint back upstairs. I yell into the phone, “Where are they?!” I can feel my body trembling but I am focused. Ben is lying on his side and staring at me. “Don’t move! Don’t move!” “Whatever you do, don’t move!” I order. I stay on the phone and explain to the man how to come into our house and how to find us upstairs. Soon the life squad floods into the bedroom. Ben is lying on his side, and only able to see legs. “Who’s here?” he asks. “Uh, just the life squad,” I respond innocently. We race to the emergency room and I call my son. He arrives soon after. I recite the story over and over and over again with the hospital staff because nothing is happening to him now that he is in the hospital. The cardiac enzyme shows that he has not had a heart attack, and they continue to ask me questions, trying to figure out what happened. They consider airlifting him, but the weather is too foggy, so we wait in the emergency room. At two o’clock in the morning, the mobile crisis unit arrives from Christ Hospital. I describe again what happened. They load Ben into the ambulance and I say to my son, “OK, I’m going to drive” “Are you crazy, Mom? I’m going to drive!”

My son and I drive to the hospital, he is holding my hand and we are talking. I say to him, “If dad doesn’t make it, my job is going to be to help you finish growing,” “If dad doesn’t make it, my job will be to help you keep going,” he responds. We arrive at the hospital and, again, I have to tell my story to the nurse and the resident on duty. We never sleep that night. The next morning, the cardiologist who had previously recommended to Ben that he have an angiogram completed, but to whom Ben had refused, walks in and says teasingly, “Well Ben, you ready to have that angiogram now?” “OK,” Ben replies, “I’m ready to do whatever you want to do.” I listen as the cardiologist, a friend and colleague of Ben’s, explains to him that they have his ventricular arrhythmia on film and that an angiogram is necessary. Following the procedure, Ben and I meet with an electrophysiologist. I can’t help but think he looks like he is only fifteen years old—a puppy compared to the other doctors—and he is spouting out information about the possibility of using an experimental device for Ben’s two different kinds of arrhythmia. He explains how this experimental device with electrodes and a defibrillator will be implanted into Ben’s chest. The hour and a half procedure turns into a six hour procedure, but they finally get it in, and they finally get it right. They tell me if the device goes off, Ben will feel like he has been kicked in the chest by a mule. It is 1998. We come home. I am now triple terrified and we must live with the fear that the device could go off.

Now I know what PTSD is, I don’t sleep at night. At ten o’clock at night I have an anxiety attack. He cannot go to sleep until 10:10. Because I would have this absolute freak-out at ten o’clock at night, like that was relevant, but it seemed relevant, He would stay awake so we could be together during that time I was afraid for him to go to sleep at that time. I would wake up in the middle of the night with that fight or flight state of mind where I have to do something, I wake up and have a huge adrenaline rush, my heart beating, and I still, after all these years, have that feeling sometimes.

I asked the cardiologist to refer us to a kidney specialist who he thought was good and that would work well with me One of the things I learned is you need to understand, there are too many people, too many specialists doing too many different things when a person has a complicated medical history. So he referred us to a nephrologist, the kidney specialist

he became our kind of super doc, when we saw him he said, “OK,” he said, “Ben, you’re about a year away from dialysis” We had to really process and talk about things and grieve together and cry

I learned not to live every day afraid because I did not want to lose that day with him.

We went to Great Britain! because we knew we were running out of time that’s also when we went to NY to the Metropolitan Opera March of 2000, he started on peritoneal dialysis. a month after he started on this We went to Las Vegas because the kids wanted to I didn’t have a good time at all—I mean I was too scared. I didn’t have this yet, I didn’t have this down yet. Then we went to the Canadian Rockies in July we took this train trip We really really worked hard at living anyway, at doing— we were constantly establishing a new normal and figuring out how to integrate this stuff into out lives.

There was an intensification of our life together

Even when things weren’t bad, I sometimes had sorrow in the moment knowing that this wonderful time was not always going to be there, and he wasn’t always going to be there, and what was going to happen when the hard things of life came and he wasn’t there?

He had dialysis, He dialyzed at home, He had a catheter in his abdomen, We had boxes and boxes of solution that they would deliver anywhere in the world. We carried his dialysis machine with us when we traveled.

He took all of this with real grace Determined to live. Not just to be alive, I mean to live. And that’s why we did all of this stuff, even on dialysis.

We went to a friend’s wedding in the Sonoma Valley in September 2001. And he had a crisis We wound up in the emergency room and his catheter had migrated. So we rushed back to Cincinnati for the surgery to fix it

It seemed that every summer he had some kind of crisis

He retired from practice in May of 2003 June of 2003, he had a cataract surgery and was blind in that eye the next day He had a macular degeneration bleed So many things, so many losses for him. The dialysis wasn’t working as well, he was more and more tired. A person who has kidney failures is very fatigued, very fatigued. Congestive heart failure and kidney failure. He had so many health crises I can’t even tell you what they were now anymore Summer of 2004, He started falling. He developed vertigo He fell and hit the back of his head really hard. He had another fall. This time he laid on the front porch for three hours. Finally he called our son for help. It was a downhill slide.

The kids got engaged while Ben was in the hospital in August of 2003. They came to the hospital to tell him. They got married in May of 2005. I’m trying to deal with making plans for the wedding for our son and my husband is dying. It was a really ambivalent time of joy and sorrow.

He kept falling and falling In the fall of 2004, we had an appointment with this nephrologist he fell again that day, I’m crying, Ben is sitting there looking terrible, and me crying. The nephrologist goes, “Ben, I’ve got to admit you into the hospital”

This was terrible, this was terrible. He was going to have to be in a walker. He was at terrible risk of falling with the vertigo They recommended that we put him in a nursing home I just said, “No” “More suggestions.”

“No.” We thought he was going to get better, that was telling us, he’s not going to get better.

He’s there, Ben is absolutely with it, he was totally with it. Until the last thing he said to me before he died, He was always with it, I never had to make any decisions that he wasn’t a part of. I started trying to put together home-care plans. I took time off from work, Started interviewing people to provide the homecare, We organized this thing, Watched these people Trained them on how to do his dialysis How he had to have the gait belt.

If he was up, you had to be there. That was what the last year was. We were hardly ever alone in our house after that When I was home, we didn’t have caregivers. We just wanted some time and space He watched the history channel, Watched great courses on history, opera, and physics He had to have mind candy. He was a thinker and a reader.

During that year we had wonderful conversations, lots of holding each other, and planning for our son’s wedding. He wanted so much to walk down the aisle on his own Ben didn’t make it to anything, but by God, he made it to that wedding, in a wheel chair with the caregiver. March of that year, our family doctor started coming every Sunday I couldn’t tell how filled up with fluid he was and Our family doctor could listen to his lungs and help

While I was working, I always had that other ear out Waiting for the other shoe to drop, Waiting for the next emergency, Waiting for medical providers to call me. We were always tweaking his dialysis, we were always having trouble with that. We called the dialysis nurses everyday to tweak his dialysis. It was complicated.

I didn’t want to give him up, I just didn’t want to lose him. It was a very sweet summer Every night I would get home from work and we would watch Law and Order together. We were Law and Order junkies. I did a lot of lying in bed and holding him He could no longer stand on his own. He had a period of delirium around the wedding from the medication he was taking. He would be laying in bed and think that he was all alone All he could think about was “How am I going to take care of the dog.” Our dog, he was like the nurse, He was the fur nurse. He was with Ben all the time, always on his lap

We did a lot of talking about his dying He didn’t want to struggle to breathe, I was terrified. I had never seen a dead body I was terrified of that Some how I thought I would be afraid of the dying process and Afraid of him after he died, As always, he walked me through it. He was a physician, He told me everything that was going to happen and how it was going to happen. He said, you won’t be afraid.

There were so many crises, We walked up to that door so many times, You start to get this feeling that, you just have these crises, but he comes back. When it really happened, I was in shock.

It has been an hour and the liquid morphine isn’t working! Ben is very alert, but extremely agitated. I call our family doctor—our family friend—again to update him. He tells me he’s coming over. When he arrives he goes in to talk with Ben. I wait silently in the kitchen, giving them privacy. I watch as they talk and he holds Ben’s hand. When Tom comes out to meet with me, I ask him the question I have asked him countless times whenever I am worried about Ben. “Tom, do I need to cancel my clients for tomorrow? Do I need to cancel my clients.” I look at him, hoping he is going to respond as he always has, respond by telling me, “No, it will be OK, go to work, Ben will be fine.” I wait for his response. He looks at me with tenderness and care, “Laura,” he says, “Yes, you need to cancel your day tomorrow.” He has never said that to me before. I am in shock. He continues, “He’s not going to make it through the night. You need

to make him comfortable. You need to give him higher doses of morphine. Are you going to do what you promised him you’d do? Will you administer the morphine?” Tears well up in my eyes, my heart pounds. “Of course I’m going to do it. I’m not going to let my husband suffer” “Because he’s so agitated, I want him to have Clorazipan,” he tells me. “Will you give him the first dose? I want to get myself together before I go back in there.” He agrees, giving Ben his first dose while I try to compose myself. Before he leaves, he says, “Call me.” I go in to Ben’s room. It’s nine o’clock. I tell him what the plan is. “Ben, is this what you want to do even though it may hasten your death?” “Yes, I can’t go on like this.” “OK,” I reply. I can hear Hurricane Katrina being broadcasted on the news. I say, “This Hurricane Katrina is so depressing, let’s watch a game show.” Wheel of Fortune is on. I watch with Ben and the caregiver. Ben immediately solves the puzzle. I can’t help but smile. Here is Ben, a man who is dying, and he is completely lucid. Ten o’clock. I give him another dose and lay with him. Eleven o’clock, I give him another dose. I notice he is getting calmer, still awake, still very lucid, but calmer. The death rattle of his breathing breaks my heart. Twelve o’clock, “OK honey, it’s time for another dose,” I say. “No, I don’t need it, I’m fine.” His breathing continues to rattle. He tells me, “No, I’m OK now” “OK.” I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. I kiss him and whisper, “Do you know how much I love you?” “Yes I do.” I cry. He puts his arms around me and he says, “Don’t worry honey, this isn’t it.” I believe him. I want to believe him. No one is here, for whatever reason, I don’t want anyone here with us. The phone rings. My mother. I answer. I tell her what is happening. She is upset. My best friend calls. “I’m coming over,” she says. “No, don’t come over.” I agree to let her call another close friend, someone who is a medical ethicist, to come over. I know he will be helpful. He arrives. He says goodbye to Ben. I lay in Ben’s arms and I fall asleep. The caregiver stays up all night, continuing to check on things. My friend, too, continues to check on us throughout the night. Five o’clock. Ben appears to be fine to my friend and he leaves for a consultation in Cincinnati that morning. A quarter to six, the caregiver checks on Ben, he still seems to be fine. I lay in his arms asleep. The caregiver goes to bed. Six o’clock. I wake up feeling as if a lightning bolt has ripped through me—a feeling of shock in my entire body. Scared, I look at Ben, I wait. He is still elevated in bed in the position that made it easiest to breathe. I study Ben’s face: his jaw has dropped and his eyes are half- open. I feel his face. It’s warm. I don’t want to disturb him. I don’t want to wake him up. I feel

for a pulse. Feel. Feel. Feel. I can’t find it. I can’t get it. I lift his arm. It just drops. He is gone. I know he is gone.

He was gone. It feels like, I don’t know if I can even express to you what this feels like, it was just devastating. All those crises, all those close-calls, all those almost deaths. Lulled me into the feeling that you can keep them alive forever. I think my mom said to me, “Well honey, did you think you could keep him alive forever?” I did, I did think I could keep him alive forever. But, you see, I couldn’t.

I got the caregiver “I think he’s gone.” And she said, “No, no, I was just in there, 15 minutes ago, he can’t be gone” “Well I’m pretty sure he’s gone,” She came and she looked at me and said, “Yes, he’s gone.” I called the doctor, He came over We were just lying in bed holding him She’s lying in bed with me. The doctor walked in took one look at him “Yeah, he’s gone Laura” I called the kids. I called the kids. That was terrible I had to tell them their dad was gone. I felt so sorry for my step-children Their mother died a year before their dad— a year and a month before their dad. I called my best friend, she was at the gym, got her husband. The next thing I know, there were my friends They were all around the bed I felt like they were holding us up, They were there and they too were crying

We let the dog come in to see him.

The dog ran up to his body and smelled him and smelled him, then he went and sat and lied down in Ben’s chair. It was the saddest thing, it was so sad. Ben no longer had any smell. I couldn’t smell him anymore. It was so awful, he was so dead.

I was having a very hard time letting go of his body, I knew I would never see him again, I knew he was going to be cremated, I just had things to say to him. Finally, finally my son came in “Mom, we need, we need to call and let them come and get dad now.” “No, no I’m not ready.” My friend comes in and sits on the bed with me Now I’ve got to go over his death again. He convinced me that I needed to let him go. I don’t know how long I would have gone on like this, I honestly don’t. I just didn’t want to let him go. They came to get him “Why don’t you go outside while we take him” I’m standing there, I just was puzzled I had this very puzzled feeling. Why, why would I do that? Is that what people do in these situations? My girlfriend was like come on, come on, let’s go outside. I’m planted. “No, uh-uh, I’m not going outside, I am seeing this through until the end.” I didn’t look when they put him on the gurney, I couldn’t They brought him, they did not cover his face. Thank god, that would have driven me crazy. They brought him into the kitchen and I kissed him goodbye one last time, then I said to my son, “Come on, let’s walk dad out.” And we did. He put his arm around me and we walked him out they put him in the back and drove him away. And that’s the last time I ever saw him.

They brought his ashes back to me on Saturday. I was so relieved to have them. It felt so, It felt like he was back at home where he was supposed to be I put them in a pillowcase and held them for days. It was the last I could hold him, I wasn’t through holding him at that point

So many different people spent the night with me every night for the first two weeks. I have a close girlfriend, I have several close girlfriends, But I have a close girlfriend here and We have had breakfast together every Saturday morning for twenty-five years. We’re in a very committed relationship. And every Saturday morning after he died, I cried, And she cried too. We just cried a lot.

About three weeks later, we had a memorial service for him It was really wonderful We had people just speak about him and his life It was great It was all very personal and people laughed and laughed They all told funny things about Ben, It was all very funny. People would talk about Ben as the psychiatrist, the friend, the father, the husband and all the different things that he meant in life. It was very helpful. It was very helpful for me.

One of the first things I did was read Joan Didion’s book, “The Year of Magical Thinking.” I cried a lot, it really spoke to me. I still have his shoes, I can’t get rid of his shoes. I can’t do anything about his clothes, they’re still in the closet. I have a hard time even going in his closet. So, I’ve decided, it doesn’t matter.

When I’m ready, I’m ready, And every time I go in there, I go, “No, I’m not ready” and I leave.

I have a sense that, just like when they were going to take him out and I didn’t listen to them, I listened to myself, that it was the best thing I could have done. I’m listening to myself about this. Nobody can tell you what you need when you need it.

And work was absolutely sustaining. I can lose myself in work—I can focus on work. I think you get up, you put your clothes on, you breathe in and out, you go to work, and you come home. The routines of life. You just learn the routines of life and, after a while, it actually begins to feel natural.

A few months after Ben died, I went to this great workshop in Cincinnati on grief. I didn’t ask any of my therapist friends to go with me, I know they would have been there in a heartbeat. I’m driving down there by myself and I’m thinking to myself, “Are you crazy?” “What are you doing?” “This is a little fresh!” I get in this workshop and all these therapists, and all these people from different social service agencies are there. We just go around about why we had chosen this workshop and, if you were just there for the CEUs, that was fine. Oh my God! Almost everyone in the room had a grief story. This was a room of grievers! This was about thirty to forty grievers. It was incredible. It gave me a chill. And we were all sharing and talking. The name of it was, “How to Grieve in a Get Over It and a Get on With It World.” Isn’t that a great title? Do you see why I had to go to it? I had to go, HAD to go! Here I am, everybody is going on with their life and I’m like, “Don’t you understand the world stopped?” It was a fascinating experience and, so, I realize now that I went by myself because this is a very individual experience, grief is.

Because nothing feels quite real and because everybody else is living their life as it was before Ben died except my world is totally different.

I have felt for a long time—it will be two years in September—like a married woman with a dead husband. I am gradually beginning to feel like a widow, but I didn’t feel like a widow for a long time. And I cannot tell you that I don’t feel married. I still feel kind of married.

I didn’t dream about him for a long time. But, I felt he was with me. I thought he was in the house, he was there. Sometimes I had the feeling so strongly that he was standing behind me and he would come around me and put his arms around me. I felt he was in the house. I talked to him all the time.

He is not there anymore, he is not in the house anymore. Because at Christmas, I went to California, I went to see my siblings, and when I came home, I felt that he wasn’t there anymore. It was such an emptiness and a loss. It was a terrible feeling.

Going away and coming home is hard. The coming back home is very hard—the re-entry is still very hard. Because it still feels like he should be there. It’s getting better.

My first dreams were just dreams of doing normal stuff, having a conversation, nothing… … no strong affect, totally neutral. Just business as usual kinds of dreams about Ben. I can’t give you the content because that goes away. What I remember is how it feels—it feels like we were just having a conversation and thinking about something together and talking about it. When I wake up, I don’t feel badly, I’m not upset. It’s been a good, positive, warm—like a connection experience.

The kids and I, on his first birthday after he died, took some ashes, and planted a tree for him. I’m nurturing that tree now as if he were here. But it helps me.

I kind of have trouble even remembering the first year. I can do it, but it’s like a blur. Because nothing feels quite real and everybody else is living their life as it was before Ben died, except my world is totally different. I had been really sad. And, somehow, I got through the first and the second Christmases without him, but, they were awful. I came home at the end of January, and I fell and broke my leg. I think this was a reckoning period because for the first time I was at a dead stop. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t really do much of anything. People came to help. It was very loving, but I was at a dead stop. I think I rested for the first time in years. I have had my third ear open for so many years and I rested because I couldn’t do anything. I rested, I read, I reflected. It was a very healing period because I needed to stop. I needed this stop for reflection and it began to become clear that I wasn’t on duty anymore. That I didn’t know how to not be on duty, I’d been on duty for so long. And I began to appreciate not being on duty. Not the not having Ben, but the not being on duty, not always waiting for the next crisis. Not waiting for the next shoe to drop. And this began to have a healing effect on me. That there actually was something that could be good for me at not having that role. I began to embrace that.

In March, I went away for five days with a few of my colleagues. We went to this wonderful networker conference. The Networker Psychotherapy conference that they have in DC in March every year and I’ve always wanted to go to it. Six weeks after I broke my leg. My orthopedist said, “I don’t know about this” and I go, “Fix me up, I’m going.” We went and we had a great time.

What’s important is that I came back from this trip in March, I walked in the door and I have a big picture of him, of course, in my bedroom, and I walked in, and I looked at him. I was happy, I had a great time, and I said, “Oh Ben, you know, I missed you!” I was just talking out loud. I wasn’t with anyone, the dog doesn’t care, and I felt this so strongly, and I said, “I missed you while I was gone”—like I had left him home and I was coming home to tell him about this great professional experience I’ve had. Because being a mental health professional, it was a great thing about being married to each other—the things we could talk about. And, I just, somehow, the coming home, the re-entry didn’t seem as hard when I came in and I said, “I missed you. Thanks for holding down the fort while I was gone.”

That night, I had this dream:

The room was like it was before he died—oh I redid our bedroom after he died—and it’s dark…ish in the room. I mean it’s dark. It feels dark outside and the moon wasn’t dark. The moon is light now, it was kind of darkish then, and he’s in the bed, and there’s the dialysis machine and he won’t speak to me. He’s angry with me and he will not speak to me. (That’s why my telling you that we always spoke was so important). He wouldn’t speak to me. And I went, “What have I done? Why are you mad at me? Are you mad because I went away? I was at this conference. Why won’t you talk to me?” The distress of this was enormous. It was so bad, I woke myself up in the dream and I said to myself, “He’s not mad at you, he’s dead!”

I felt the power of this dream and I was heavy for days and days and days. I was heartsick for days after this dream. I thought a lot about what this dream meant to me, and how it was so pivotal. I began to live for me instead of him. I had lived for him for years. My first thought always was, what did he need? How were we going to manage this? How were we going to manage that? I had been talking to him for months but he wasn’t talking to me. I don’t hear his voice. He’s not talking back, so I am talking to dead air. He isn’t not speaking to me because he doesn’t love me, or because he’s mad; he’s not speaking to me because he’s dead.

So this dream was so pivotal that I had to wake myself up. And tell myself that the relationship is not the same because he really is dead. And I think that’s when I actually began to accept that he’s dead. And that I can’t live for him anymore. I have to live for me.

Somehow, this dream is pivotal for me in my healing process. There was a task, a meaning, or a reorganization that wasn’t happening prior to this dream. I was just going on with my daily business. And somehow I forced myself to realize that he was really dead. I think when we realize they’re dead and they’re not coming back, that’s another time of intense grieving. I hit that first anniversary and I went into a tailspin because your first year you just keep—trying to make it through everything you have to get through. Whatever you’re doing, it’s a first, and you’re just concentrating on getting through it. And just getting through the year and then the second year comes and then you start to have the dawning realization that this is forever, FOR- EVER. Forever is a huge concept. And, I’m beginning, I think, to get that. Because I’m beginning to think about my life and plan my life for me, and it has been really hard for me to do that. Really hard. Because I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to do this.

That part of my life as a caregiver—as a wife caregiver and a mother caregiver—is kind of gone, and so now I have to fill it and so now that’s my process. My process now is about filling it and integrating him and making meaning in a different way and I’m working on that. I’m working to try to figure out what it means to be a widow, and to get it. I have to get it—I have to get that I actually am single, which I can hardly even say the word that I’m single. It just feels like this strange thing and I have no clue what to do with it. I am single? What does that mean? I think I’m married to him and I’m single. He’s alive and I’m widowed.

He is alive in me in a way that is hard to describe to people. He is always with me. I feel him in my heart. I see him now smiling. I see him standing on his own. I can imagine walking up to him and he can actually put his arms around me and hug me back.

I saw a picture right after he had died of us together standing with his arms around me and I couldn’t stop looking at it. Because I had forgotten that he could stand up. It was completely weird. I am reclaiming him as a well person. Although, I don’t want to disavow the unwell person because he was there as an unwell person too.

I think I’m a pretty strong person, actually. We were really, really deeply joined. I have not dated since Ben died. People ask me that periodically. It’s just… my heart isn’t there. And I don’t think I need that to have a happy life. And I don’t know if there will ever be anyone else for me. And I don’t know if I want that. I’m beginning to appreciate that my life is fairly uncomplicated and to enjoy that. That I don’t have to accommodate much to anybody. It’s a new thing, I’m just now figuring that out—that I get to think about myself first, this is like the totally weirdest thing—to do that. It’s just totally untypical to what my life has been to this point. So this is a really neat thing. I think I want to know about this and explore this. I have several trips planned. I like to travel. I’m 61, I’m going on 62. I’m going about the business of living, and Ben would have wanted me to.

Whenever things happen, when I need his counsel, I can call him up. I can call him up in an instant. I have inside of me this sense that he gave me of being important and worthwhile and that’s what he left me with—he left me a sense of being really loved. I’ll always love him, I’ll always cherish him, and I’ll always love him.

Because even my mother’s friends say, “You should marry again.” And, I’m thinking, “I don’t think you get this.” My mother is listening to them do this and she’s a very wise woman. She said, “You know what, if you ever have another companion,” so she’s smart, she left the operative word, “marry,” out, she said, “It will be serendipitous” and that felt right to me. Like if some serendipity happens in my life, OK, but I can be fine if it doesn’t. And that’s the thing that I’ve realized. I had something very special and I have to make something else very special and it has to be around something. I have my work, which is good, I have good friends, I can travel, and I have my kids. I don’t know what else I might want to do, but right now, that’s really fine.

So, I feel really that this dream helped me to make this shift in my adaptation. And I can’t even tell you why, I just know that it was really powerful for me. Something I might not quite know. On the surface, it looks like one thing, but it’s something else.

The connection that I have to him is a love bond. It’s a very, very deep forever kind of love bond. And I knew him like no one else knew him and he knew me like no one else knows me. One of the hard things when you’re that close is that although I think I’m pretty knowable, no one has ever known, nor will they ever know me, like Ben knew me.

I had been trying since March not to talk to him. I think it makes me sadder because he doesn’t talk back. Now, when I talk to him, I will say things like, “You would really enjoy this,” and I’ll say things like, “You know Ben, I really love our house—our home, I’m going to stay in it for a while.” I’m kind of telling him what I’m thinking as I go along because we always did. If I had any new insights I would share it with him. So, I’m still kind of sharing my new insights with him. But, here’s the ambivalence of my thinking. Why am I doing that? Do I actually think

he hears me? And on the other side, maybe he does? You can’t know this. Lately I’ve been trying to think more about him being dead and what does that mean. Is there life after death? Is he hanging around or is he getting a reward? Or, is the love we have for each other that we both believed in, forever? I don’t have my wedding ring on today, but in our rings, it says forever. Can a love that is that strong be forever? I think there’s an energy in it. So, I am living with the ambiguity of not knowing. I wish it were true that he’s hanging around. Some days I think maybe that’s true, and other days I think, this is ridiculous, he is dead, D-E-A-D, dead and I have to live—whatever that means.

The other day when I was doing my morning walk and I was talking to him and I kind of thought that either way, it’s OK. If he’s waiting around, that would be incredibly wonderful but if he’s not, and he’s really dead, I have to do the same thing. Whether he’s there or he’s not there, I still have to do the same thing. So that was my resolution, then. I still have to live and decide how I’m going to live and, I can’t live like I did, I have to live differently.

My therapist friends in this community have been incredibly supportive. I could always talk about it, or not. They give me the space. I have a sense that my friends think I’m ok now, but if I gave the signal now, they’d hover if I needed them to hover. I do not feel unsupported. I feel very very supported just like Ben said I would. But, I will tell you the truth, there’s another truth in that. When a crisis goes from red to yellow, of course, people go back to their normal lives and they don’t call as much. And, having worked with a lot of widows over the years, and knowing quite a few in Oxford—there are a lot of widows in Oxford—I mean even relatively young widows. I remember one woman (she’s five years out), she tells me this a few months out, “You know, after a year, people are going to stop calling” and I could feel the bitterness in her and I thought, “Oh! This is not going to be me!” Because what I think is that the phone works both ways. All these people who have been there for me, and they are there, it’s not just their responsibility to do all the connecting. I’m supposed to work at this too. And so, at first I got scared by other widows—at how they were either coping or not coping. I thought “Oh my god!” because you’re in such terrible pain, you can’t think. Well, I dare to tell you that it’s not everybody else’s job to take care of you, it’s your job to take care of you, whatever that means. So, I take care of myself. If I need people, I reach out. If I want some time alone, I set the boundary, and I’m responsible for myself and my own life. Nobody can fix it for you; no one can bring Ben back.

I enjoy interacting with my friends around Ben. They remember him. They don’t not talk about him. The most awful thing in the world is when people don’t talk about the dead person. It’s like, my God; they lived, they were here. Also, because we had this long goodbye, I had the opportunity to talk about it with my friends before he died. So, they had some anticipatory grieving on their own for him. And, I’m pretty direct. I don’t, in my personal life, have a lot of patience for mealy-mouthing around. It’s like, let’s get to the point here, what is going on really? Let’s talk about it. I didn’t grow up in a household where people were stoic and silent and sucked it in. I was in a house where people would talk about things. That’s my family of origin and my family of generativity is the same way. Our family talks about stuff and I do that with my friends, so, it’s kind of how I like my life to be. And, as I get older, if I can’t have relationships, personal relationships, where that occurs, than I don’t really want to be in it.

I think today, what really stood out, (and also there is some catharsis to this because I can never go through this without crying), is this realization of how powerful still—this desire in my life to save him—is. Even though I had thought about that, I don’t think I thought about it as deeply as I did today—about how powerful that failure to save him operates in my life and how, when I can not only think it, but feel it, how good that is going to be. It doesn’t benefit him for me to suffer in that way. It doesn’t benefit me. So that is really helpful to me, I think I’m going to get a really good piece of work out of this. I think I’ll take this to my close therapist friends to help me think about this—just to share how I think I’m going to work on this—and then part of my journey this summer is that I’m going to see my friends in Washington. This friend happens to be a Ph.D. chemist, has worked in hospitals, and knows what happens to the body when it is dying. He and I had a very long discussion about what was happening and what was going to happen and how I couldn’t keep Ben alive and this is why and he explained it to me in this medical technical way. Ben then died a month later. And then afterwards, I was going through this again, about why I couldn’t have saved him, or what was going on when he was dying. It might be that we need to talk about this again. I just need to share this with you because I think something really good will come out of this. Another piece falls into place, another step down the road.

Reflexive Analysis for: You Die a Thousand Deaths Before You Have To Do It. When listening to Laura share her experiences with me and when reviewing the transcript to create her performative writing text, I was impressed by her level of insight and admired her courage for facing the grieving process head-on. Laura had incredible resources to support her with the death of her husband, including her insight and education as well as her community, friends, and family. Despite these internal and external resources, there was a way in which her mourning process was stuck until her dream played a catalytic role in her adaptation to bereavement. Themes of the model of meaning reconstruction were present in the stories she shared with me and fostering a continuing bond with Ben was an important aspect of her grieving process. Ben died in 2005, but on some level, Laura’s grieving of him began in 1969, when they first met and entered into a relationship together. She realized from the beginning that if she were to open herself up to a relationship with him, that she would likely be alone in her senior years given their age difference. She came to the decision that it would be better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. Throughout her relationship with Ben, she had an awareness of how short their time would be together. On the one hand, she was motivated to cherish every moment, but there was also a way in which she lived in fear of his death from the day they met each other. The fear came to the forefront of her awareness with Ben’s first health scare in 1988. From that point on, she would sometimes feel sorrow in her moments of joy with

him, knowing that he would not always be there with her. For almost twenty years of their lives together, Laura lived with the fear that Ben could die. When Ben’s death became more imminent, Laura’s anticipatory grieving with Ben seemed to play a significant role in her ability to make meaning out of his death. Laura cherished being able to talk openly with Ben about his dying and appreciated that Ben, as a physician, could help prepare her for what would happen to him physically as he died. He also reassured her in the hours before his death, that “this isn’t it,” that his death would not be the end of their relationship. Knowing that Ben was dying also allowed her to have the opportunity to talk with friends about what was happening before he died, so they too could share in the anticipatory grieving. Although she spent years anticipating his death, she engaged in significant meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change following his death. After Ben’s death, she looked to others who she could connect with and who could understand her experience in various ways. For example, friends and family who knew Ben provided a comfort, as well as widows who could relate to the experience of losing a romantic partner. She forced herself to return to the routines of life until, after a while, the routines felt natural again. Specific to benefit finding, she was able to see herself as a strong person and realized what a hard journey she had traveled with him. She acknowledged that she had “meltdowns,” and that her experiences were “profoundly difficult,” but she knew from her experiences that she could “survive things.” She stated, “I see myself as a much stronger person than I saw myself before.” With regard to meaning reconstruction and identity change, Laura’s dream served a catalytic function and pushed her grieving forward in a way that she was unable to do prior to having the dream. She spent the first year following Ben’s death in a curious form of denial, where she knew cognitively that Ben was dead, but she did not have an embodied knowing that he was gone. As a result, she was not living for herself. Her dream jolted her into a deeper understanding of the fact that Ben was dead and, following this explosive dream, her life and plan for her life was re-narrated. Although she engaged in significant processing and thinking through cognitively what the dream could mean for her following the experience of the dream, there is a way in which she woke up from the dream feeling changed before she began to think through and process what the dream meant to her. The enactment she experienced in her dream helped her to gain an embodied understanding that something had changed for her. Prior to this

dream, she knew cognitively that Ben was dead, but it was not until this catalytic dream that she lived the knowing in a bodily way. Following the dream, she realized that, for most of her life, she had been living for him, and had been constantly on “duty.” With the experience of the dream, a shift happened for her where she began to willingly live for herself and gained a deeper, more embodied, acceptance of his death. She also realized that something good could come from her not having the on “duty” role and she willingly embraced that. In her processing of her experience of the dream, Laura came to appreciate and enjoy that her life is now fairly uncomplicated. She is imagining plans for her future and going about “the business of living,” knowing that Ben would have wanted her to. The love and mutual respect Ben and Laura had for each other came through as Laura narrated her story, and it is no surprise that Laura has and continues to nurture a continuing bond with Ben. Her dreams provided one avenue for a continued connection—especially immediately following Ben’s death. Although she was unable to remember the content of the dreams where Ben was present, she remembered how she felt having those initial dreams. She talked about feeling as though they had a conversation, were thinking about something together, or talking. She experienced these dreams as good, positive, warm, and as a real connection experience. In addition to the bond she felt with Ben in her dreams, of greater focus was her tendency to talk to Ben whenever she needed to, giving him updates, sharing insights, and letting him know that she misses him. Laura also feels that Ben is alive in her and that he is always with her, in her heart. For example, she described feeling as though she can “call him up” whenever she needs his counsel. Although Ben is dead, and she has a deeper awareness of that fact since her catalytic dream, she knows that she will always love and cherish him and that she, herself, will always carry a sense of being really loved by him and feeling worthwhile. Laura also demonstrated remarkable psychological maturity in her ability to hold and tolerate tensions within herself. For example, she is able to accept the ambiguities of feeling married to Ben and realizing she is now single, of feeling as though Ben is alive and that she is widowed, and of the ambiguity of not knowing whether he is still around, listening to her, or completely gone.

Laura was able to articulate how her participation in the study and reading of the performative writing text moved her forward in her grieving. She was an ideal participant, being someone who is imaginative, creative, thoughtful, insightful, and articulate. She was able to express how the act of narrating her story to me helped her realize how strong her desire to save Ben was. With regard to the performative writing text, Laura shared that she felt afraid to read her story and anticipated feeling “triggered” by the reading. She was surprised when she read the performative writing text that she felt a calmness, a sense of love for her story, and an ownership of it. For all of the performative writing texts in this project, I take full responsibility for the interpretations of the stories participants share with me. However, Laura adamantly took ownership of the text, stating that she loved it because it was idiosyncratically hers, and no one else’s. She “spent time” with the story and had a strong desire to “honor it,” reading it three times before we spoke about her reactions. Laura deepened my understanding of grieving and of the profound impact performative writing can have on the participants as well as the readers. When creating performative writing texts, I take great care and sensitivity in constructing the stories in a way that I feel honors the participant and the stories he or she shares with me. While I care about my participants and write the stories as respectfully as possible, I have often taken a reader focus and thought more about the influence such texts will have in creating an understanding for my readers. Laura helped me to realize the profound impact a performative writing piece can have on the participant. For Laura, the externalization of her story was extremely powerful for her. She felt as though her “head, heart, and whole being” were laid out on paper. Being able to touch the printed-out story and feel its concreteness felt calming to her. She talked about feeling as though grief is internal, something that an individual carries around, that is felt in the body, and that she can feel in her chest and throat when she talks about it. For her, having the story externalized gave her story another place to be, besides inside herself. She also shared that she tends to say, “I’m fine,” and in reading her story, she realized, “I don’t have to be fine. I am without that person and while I don’t dwell on that, I’m entitled to my pain.” Reading the performative writing piece helped her to feel validated that something painful had happened. She experienced the reading of the performative writing piece as cathartic and felt as though her story was valued. She stated, “It’s like you got my affect, it’s in there for me. It’s not just dry facts—it has affect

too.” She felt the performative writing piece had a wholeness to it because it resonated with her experience. She believed I had expressed how she felt and experienced that as validating, stating, “That’s why therapy works!” In talking with Laura about her experiences since we met, I also was reminded of how our conversation and the stories she shared with me were only a snap shot of her grieving process. She shared other rituals she had engaged in and how she had continued on her journey of grieving since we had met with one another. For example, she described how she traveled to places she and Ben had always planned to go to together and how she had bought herself a 35 th wedding anniversary ring. For me, Laura brought the model of meaning reconstruction to life, demonstrating one possibility for restoring order in one’s life following the death of a loved one, finding benefits in one’s experience, and experiencing posttraumatic growth by way of an identity change. Laura’s story also illustrates the profound influence dreams as well as continuing bonds with the deceased can have in an individual’s adaptation to bereavement. And, as a researcher, Laura helped me to appreciate the power performative writing texts can have in validating the participants’ experiences. You Can’t Control Things

My mom, She was Very strong Very industrious Was always there for us Was always there for me Was just very supportive and constant Was always involved in and Helped with our activities As I got older, I enjoyed her as a friend When I was in University, I would talk to her almost every day She was very interested in my work Very supportive She was so community minded—founded an association for children A safe haven in Nova Scotia for children in distress She was very involved in her church—participated in the Catholic Women’s League Always had a project undergo She loved her dog—trained her dog She was always busy Definitely

“I’m gonna stop smoking”

I remember her quitting when I was in about grade eight I remember supporting her along this She just stopped cold-turkey I remember always giving her little buttons saying “smoke-free” I even bought her a Garfield sweatshirt with a “no-smoking” sign on it She just stopped She ate healthily She exercised regularly—a regular swimmer and walker We can do all these healthy things and It doesn’t matter She is still a statistic for lung cancer It still impacted her It still affected her

We never talked about her dying I don’t think she was aware that she was as sick as she was When they did the first biopsy It came back cancerous But then they did another one And they got good cells They were losing time, Because of doing these tests. They had to do the biopsy three times They had to send it to the lab We had to wait longer Then, it didn’t get to the lab So we had to wait longer She was just fading away Weeks had gone by and They were still trying to determine what the problem was

“Audrey, I need to drop something off at Anne’s, will you walk with me?” mom asks me. “Sure, Mom” I reply. Mom’s request gives me quiet comfort knowing that she is up and interested in going for a walk. She has been sleeping and unable to really eat for days. She moves slowly towards the door, her body creaking with each step. I support her, holding her tightly as she shuffles out the door. The sidewalk is uneven and fragmented from the tree roots, providing us with somewhat of an obstacle course. With each exhausting step, I hear her shoes drag against the pavement. I move cautiously with mom clutching me. Step by step by slow step, I guide her on our four-block marathon. I know she is in pain; her arthritis has been so horrible recently. As we come to the corner, we see our neighbor on her porch with her boy, her young, eager, helper. “It looks like you’ve got some good hired help,” Mom calls over to her. “Yes, he is quite the helper!” I smile at mom’s casual neighborhood talk. Holding her up, we continue on our journey and I think back to my daily walks with Mom—she had always been such a power walker. Now, four blocks is a challenge for her. How could she be in so much pain?

We didn’t know exactly what we were really facing If I had known she was going to pass away in October I definitely would have asked for a leave… Or something

I must return to Oxford, back to work. I head to the hospital early in the morning to see mom and to say goodbye. It’s OK that I’m leaving, I tell myself. I’ve been here in Halifax for two weeks and my sister will be here soon to take my place—to be here for our parents. I walk down the sterile hallway to my mom’s room, passing patient after patient tucked away in their mechanical beds. “Mom, hi.” I say with a smile. “Come, sit with me,” she says. I enter her room, watching as she works her way out of the covers and to the edge of the bed. I sit beside her, taking her cold hands into my own. She looks at me, her gaze piercing and filled with emotion. I stare back at her, feeling the power of her look, the striking intensity. I continue to look back at her, my eyes locked with hers, connected to hers. Words are not necessary. Soon my friend arrives—she is there to bring me to the airport. That’s it. I don’t have a choice. I have to go. Again, I look at my mom and we agree we aren’t going to cry. This is not goodbye for good—we’ll see each other again. I hold her hands again and give her a gentle hug, not wanting to hurt her by holding her too tightly. She is achy all over, especially in her arms. I look at her again and feel the intensity of her stare. I hold her look as long as I can, then turn to leave.

I don’t think she knew how sick she really was I think she was in a lot of pain But she had a high tolerance for pain She just didn’t complain a lot She really didn’t, she didn’t complain She wasn’t needy She would never want us to worry I don’t know if she knew that she was sicker than she was She would never want us to worry So I think Maybe It was she knew she was really sick I guess she didn’t want us to worry She maybe knew She wasn’t going to see me again in the same way

We don’t know the origin of the cancer They think it was the liver She definitely had a tumor on her lung By the time they figured out what the problem was She was too malnourished She never had any treatment

What I remember from the time when my mom was in the hospital was how Powerless We all are Really There we were in the hospital Yet there was nothing we could do for her She was just fading away We were powerless

That night when we all arrived I just felt really powerless We had a hospice nurse who would come in Every half hour and Tell us what stage of death she was in. I found this most annoying I found this very bothersome I didn’t need to know that. I knew the outcome was that she was going to die. I didn’t need to know that her liver was shutting down right now. I didn’t need to know those exact stages of death I found the nurse incredibly annoying. The only thing we could do to possibly comfort mom was to wet her lips or Give her some moisture in her mouth with this sponge I just remember sitting there thinking She’s dying, Because this nurse is telling me about every stage, And here I can’t do anything to stop it. No control over it. You’re watching someone die and Realizing how little control we do have over it The nurse came in She took the oxygen off my mom And the noise, I’ll never forget that— They call it the death rattle It’s just this horrible laboring sound of trying to breathe You just want it to stop Because you can’t do anything to save them, And you just want that to stop

I remember saying a prayer Just holding her hand Sitting on the right side of the bed Just holding her hand and

Just rubbing it and, Just sitting with her, But also thinking This so doesn’t look like her Her face was so gaunt She looked so small in that bed, Her skin was just waxy It was like she just faded away

I let go of my mother’s hand. She is dead. My mother is dead. I turn away from her bed and walk out into the hallway. Tears stream down my face and the feelings of loss crash through me. In the hallway, I see my brother holding my sister. A pit forms in my stomach as I think about their loss. I walk towards them. “Oh I am so sorry, so sorry for you.” “What are you sorry about?” My sister is confused. “Because you don’t have a mom anymore.” My sister shakes her head and rolls her eyes, turning back towards my brother. “Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say again. They’ve lost their mother.

I wish we had stepped out of the room. She was still alive. She probably heard us talking about her eyes—giving them permission to take her corneas—the one organ she was able to donate. Did she hear us? Why, why did we talk to the doctor in front of her?

I stand in the hallway terrified. Please dad, please don’t come back in yet, I don’t want you to see mom being wheeled away. God! They’re taking so long to remove her eyes! Please God, don’t let dad come back in. I pace back and forth, back and forth in the hallway petrified that my dad will come back in just as they are removing her body. I sprint outside. “Don’t come in yet! Just wait outside” “OK, Audrey,” he says. I rush back in and see they are still in there with her. What is taking so long? What are they doing in there? Soon the door opens while dad is still safe outside. I watch as they wheel mom out, her face covered. Goodbye mom.

It was really early in the morning I remember we all went out to breakfast It was like 6 AM by the time we left I remember her two sisters and nieces were there. Her brother in law, my sister and brother, my dad We just all went out to breakfast And went home And just carried on. It’s what you have to do. I remember thinking back and thinking, Why did we go to breakfast? Life goes on, you know, Even though we were in this state of not being aware, You just carry on

And you just do everything that you have to do.

Even though I thought time would stand still, I remember having this sense of strength to do the things that we needed to do.

No one could do her obituary so I remember writing her obituary I had to do her eulogy I remember preparing it and I remember reading it to my brother and my sister and my father on the deck I didn’t have to do it, but I thought My mom deserves this I had a sense of almost ownership of it I wanted this to be my last gift to her In the church, I didn’t cry during the eulogy, But afterwards, When I sat down, I can still hear myself sobbing

During the receiving line, all I heard was “You’re so strong,” “You’re so strong,” and I started to feel guilty. People must not think I’m grieving because they keep saying, “You’re so strong,” “You’re so strong.”

My dad was amazed that I could do everything that I did because I was probably the closest to my mom.

I really struggled.

Does it mean that I’m not grieving or upset just because I’m not showing it out-front?

For the longest time after her death, my reaction to things was, well, my only control is how I respond to it. You can’t control everything, you can’t control things. I can only control my response. So, for the longest time, I really felt that, and then I was thinking, am I apathetic? Do I not care about anything?

When I got back to Ohio, I just phoned and went to see a grief counselor for a few sessions—just to talk to her. Because there is that intense time when everyone is paying attention to you and then it just sort of fades out and you’re just to move forward, carry on, but you still need to talk about it. You’re still going through it. I had to talk about my mom because some days I would cry at the drop of a hat, thinking about her, and other days, it didn’t impact me as much. I wanted to make sure I was healthy—that that was a healthy situation I was in. I was angry—I felt robbed that she had died so young and that there were so many things that were to happen in my life that she wouldn’t be a part of.

I was the first one to get home that Christmas My brother and sister came home a few days after I remember just sitting on the couch and crying and crying

Just driving somewhere, I would start crying and crying I would just start thinking of her and Even though I have no regrets in the relationship, I just Missed her.

I packed up all the letters and cards and things she had given me over the years I remember all the sympathy cards I received. I put them in a box and I remember putting the eulogy in it too

I have a lock of her hair—I have it in this little baggie and I still look at it I took some of her IDs I have her driver’s license, her birth certificate, her library card One piece of jewelry—a sapphire pendant I also went through all the family photos before I left Halifax and Put together a photo album of her I’ve looked at that from time to time I still have all her emails—I downloaded them onto a disk

Christmas day and I open an email from my friend Sarah. She discloses that her younger sister committed suicide the day before—Christmas Eve. I have not seen her for years and years and years, but we have always had a special connection. Still, how bizarre that she would email me in this total time of chaos.

Sarah and I talk a number of times About her grief and The sadness of it She would ask Did you feel this way with your mom? I remember talking to her a lot in those first few months I helped her with her grieving process

I win the Excellence in Librarianship Award. The gift is $500. My mom would have been so proud of me. My friend phones me, “Audrey I’m getting a new car and the dealership is willing to give me $400 for the trade-in. Do you want it instead? Do you want it for $400?” “You know what, Lauren, I do!” I reply. My first car! What better way to use my award money than for my first car.

On Easter Monday A staff member at the library committed suicide I was really full of anger at this boy for taking his life When my mom wanted to live I was confused about that with God

Here my mom wanted to live and This boy didn’t So why didn’t he get the cancer? His death could have been prevented My mom’s was on course It was going to happen It made me really look at the value of life How some people really don’t value it.

I remember feeling angry about that situation for a long time, but then also realizing that he was in pain as well—that’s when the anger stopped. I remember just crying and crying about Matt and feeling so sad for his family.

That spring, a few months after my mom’s death, I had my first dream:

I remember standing in a parking lot, it’s actually the parking lot of the mall in my neighborhood as a kid, but it was empty and it was a big parking lot. I remember seeing my mom get in my red Subaru and I remember running up to the car and I was crying and she turned to me and held my arms in both her hands. She never asked me what was wrong or why I was crying and she simply looked at me with motherly concern and said, “I’m alright Audrey.” I remember hearing the tone, like being concerned, but a little exasperated, like “Why are you crying!? I’m alright. Everything is alright.” And I still cried and wanted her to be with me. I was the one who was lonely without her. She didn’t respond. She said she had to go because she was very busy and had a lot of things to do and I remember standing in front of her and remember that she didn’t have time to deal with me. She continued on and just drove off. And this is the funny part and before she completely got in the car, she turned to me and said, “Don’t forget to tell your father to use the coupons for the dog food.” I just remember that she drove off and I can just remember seeing myself standing in the parking lot and her driving off and me just crying and waking up crying and feeling so sad.

I remember that when she drove off in the dream, just feeling so dismissed inside. She was just like, “I’ve got to go,” “I’m really busy,” “I’m alright, just I’m alright,” and realizing when I woke up that I was the one who wasn’t alright. She was alright, she was at peace, and I wasn’t. I remember standing there and just seeing her drive off in the parking lot, and seeing her getting smaller and smaller, and just feeling alone. I wasn’t a part of that new life. It wasn’t like, “Come on, get in, lets go,” it was like, “I’ve got to go,” and she drove off.

I guess what I remember most, was the tone of her saying, “I’m alright Audrey.” I was an analytical person and if I was over-analyzing something she would be listening, but exasperated that I wouldn’t just let it go, and I can remember hearing the tone before, like, “Audrey!,” just— “I’m alright.” I think it was the tone, she was supportive, yet there was a familiar exasperated kind of tone that she used with me sometimes. Not mean, but just saying that she was alright, and that I needed to carry on. She wasn’t an emotional person. She would say “I love you,” but she wasn’t one who was all gushy. I always remember her hanging up the phone and saying I love you and that kind of thing, but she wasn’t an overly emotional person. She was busy and she had

things to do. I remember waking up and thinking, “Oh she’s probably on all kinds of committees and doing things like that.” She’s fine. I’m the one that has got to get moving on.

The car dream put in perspective for me that my mom was OK and that it was me that had to keep moving forward with my life. That I was the one who was suffering—my mom was no longer suffering. She was busy in her other life and I was the one that needed to just come to terms with it. It made me more aware that I had to keep moving forward and not let go, but just be conscious of moving forward with my life, and taking opportunities, and making the most out of it, and being happy because that’s the way my mom would have wanted it to be.

I think the only comfort I got was that I do believe she is in heaven. I do believe in heaven so that gives me a sense of peace that I know that my mom is there. She’s in heaven, she’s busy, she’s doing her thing, and I’m the one struggling here. I realized after that car dream that she did gain a new life—a new eternal life with God. I also felt that I continued to want her to be here in the physical and that I had not fully accepted the idea that she was not here. At that point, I was only connected through my memories and had yet to feel that “close” feeling. Everyone said, “Oh, she’s still with you, she’s still with you.” But at the point of that dream, I didn’t feel it.

I always found myself feeling as if I was going backwards in the grief process when I would go home to visit my dad because going home and being in that environment just really hit me—she wasn’t there.

Spring 2001, I return to Halifax to visit my dad. For a faint moment when I walk through the airport, I expect to see my mom with my dad waiting for me at the gate. I scan the mass of eager greeters and soon see my dad, by himself. My mom’s absence echoes in my awareness. On the car ride home, my grief returns—ripe and rushing through me. I haven’t been back to Halifax since Christmas. The band-aid I had placed on my grief wound has been ripped off again. I walk into the house and I am greeted by racks of my mother’s clothes. “Dad, what is this?” I ask. “I had to clean out her closet, Audrey, I can no longer face opening the closet everyday and seeing her clothes there.” I respond with silence as my eyes register each piece of clothing. “Audrey, I need you to put them in garbage bags and take them to the women’s shelter.” Without thought, I respond, “OK, dad, I will do that for you.” My dad needs me to do this, I can do it. I walk to the rack and notice her business suits are part of the collection to be removed. I cannot—will not—get rid of her business suits. No. I remember her feeling good in those suits—proud, confident. She picked out those suits after she got her promotion. She wanted to dress the part. I decide I will gather all of my mom’s clothes as my dad asked, but not her suits. The suits are coming with me.

December 2001, more than a year after her death, I had a second dream:

It was like I was with a friend who I had not seen in a long time. I was walking along a cobblestone road, and I was thinking excitedly as I was giving her an update about everyone. I remember telling her that Owen and Terri (that’s my brother and sister- in-law) were finally

going to have a baby and I proceeded to tell her about the names that they were thinking about for the baby. I remember telling her that if it were a girl they were going to name her Amelie (I had just seen that movie). My mom only said it was a “different” name, but that was alright because she wanted her grandchildren to be unique.

I remember waking up with a good feeling; it felt so real, like I had actually spoken to my mom. I can still visualize that dream—the walking especially—because we used to go for a lot of walks together. When I lived there, she would walk everyday and I would join her. Even if we were just going downtown, we walked and could talk and catch up.

And then, soon after, I had another dream about my mom which had the same positive feeling:

I was inside a shopping mall and I ran into my mom and I remember touching her face on the cheek and saying “Oh, it’s so good to see you, I haven’t seen you in so long!” and I remember my voice and actions were so full of affection and I woke up feeling as if I had seen my mom.

With these new dreams, I have felt “close” to her. I just feel like it’s been a little time I’ve spent with her and I carry on thinking that I had a positive interaction with her. It seemed like after the car dream, all of my other dreams were just being together and not feeling sad, but feeling good and waking up feeling like I spent time with her even if it’s just a short little dream.

I still feel like I’m grieving especially with each new big thing in my life. When I had my son, I remember thinking, “Oh, I wish my mom was here” or “I wish I had asked her these questions.” But, why would I ask her questions about having a child?

I named my son after her—his name is Sam, her name is Samantha.

I think with every new milestone you grieve because you don’t have that person with you. You feel the loss again. Career advancements, she would have been very happy, but I really wish she had been there when I was getting married, having my son, and then going through a divorce.

I remember having another dream a few years after she died:

We were driving in Halifax and going down all these roads, it was just like a maze, and I remember it was cheerful and upbeat. We weren’t in a hurry to get where we were going, we just weren’t getting there. It was this funny dream and it was almost like a joke where we couldn’t get down a street without running into a dead-end. I don’t even know where we were going, but I remember just sitting in the car and we were laughing.

When I woke up, I remembered more my mom’s reaction in the dream, of, “Whoop! Wrong street again” and then she just kept driving down the road. She was being goofy and having fun with the mistakes. I enjoyed her companionship, laughing, and the humor that went along with it.

November 2003, my friend’s father was in the hospital It was awful, really really awful I didn’t want to be there It just brought up that whole feeling of having absolutely no control You’re in the best hospital in Nova Scotia and Yet they can’t do anything They’ve tried everything they can And seeing someone going down into what they’re going to look like when they’re dead It’s just not pleasant But you have to be there for people So you have to find that strength again

When my friend’s father passed away She kept asking me Did you feel this? Is this how you felt? Did you feel this? Is this how you felt?

I could relate to her and my friend Sarah’s feelings I knew Immediately after the death Everyone is contacting you Sending you cards or letters, Phoning you And then it’s within a month that sort of stops I remember being conscious of that for my friends Phoning them two months after Three months after, Or sending them cards I was aware that they were still going through the grieving process They still needed that chat

I have this old jar—a mason jar—that my mom made jam in. She wrote “jam” on it in ’98 and I can’t throw the jar away. It has her writing on it, which probably sounds silly, but it’s just like a part of her. I don’t want to throw it away because I can recognize the writing—it’s hers.

I never feel her with me in a supernatural way. I do think that when I’m faced with a decision, I might say, “I wonder what mom would say?” or I try to think like how she would advise me.

This past spring, I just had dreams where she was in them—like almost a cameo kind of thing. She was just there and I woke up feeling, “Oh, mom was in my dream.” It felt good. In one dream:

We were sitting at a table and I was with my mom and I was with my cousin who is one day older than me and she used to always say to me, you know, why don’t you ever wear make- up? And then she turned her face and the whole side of her face was painted. I remember looking at mom and we gave each other this eye, and she gave me this reassuring look, that it’s OK you don’t have to wear make-up like that.

When I woke up, what struck me in that dream was my mom’s reassuring look. Like, it’s OK, you’re OK, and then I just woke up.

I had another dream where she was baking all kinds of things. We were in the old kitchen that I grew up in. She had cookies on the table and all these baked goods, and she asked if I would help organize them, and I just went, “Oh, OK,” and then I woke up.

With all of my dreams since the car dream, I don’t wake up with that melancholy type feeling of wanting her here—that’s not the focus of it—I wake up feeling, “I saw mom.”

Last year was probably the hardest year since her death That was the year of the divorce

I remember back to a conversation I had with her the spring before she died—her words just ring in my head because I think she would have been so saddened to know what I’ve gone through during these past two to three years.

“Why Audrey? Don’t do it!” my mom warned me. “But mom, this time will be different—he’s changed” I protested “Well, Audrey, I wonder what will happen, then, between you and Peter?”

I think she knew that it just wasn’t going to work, even though I wanted it to work, it wasn’t going to.

Having our son was a huge life changing experience and he just couldn’t, he couldn’t balance it at all—he just couldn’t and so he backed out sooner than later. He pulled away from us. The only blessing, I think, is that it happened when our son was so young. I’m just waiting for the day when he asks, “Why did you get divorced?”

Through the divorce, I remember talking to my dad a lot Making major decisions and trying to figure out what was going to happen I really could have used my mom there to talk to I thought a lot about her then. I think she would have been very upset I know she would have been.

There will always be a hole in my heart, or a void, but I think I have accepted her death now, and it’s just a part of my life. I have a picture of her and her dog on a bulletin board . The picture is probably from about two summers before she passed away—she looks so healthy. I see that photo everyday.

When I go home, I’ll see her sisters and nieces and just connect with her side of the family That’s important—I’ve kept up with them I always send Christmas cards to her more distant cousins because that’s my mom’s family Every mother’s day, I order flowers from this store in Halifax and my dad picks them up and takes them to put on her tombstone Every year I try to donate to the cancer society just in her memory

I wonder if it would be different if I were still in Halifax versus having my own separate life in Ohio?

I think having my separate life has played a role in moving forward Not being so surrounded by memories It’s intense when I go home because I’m in that environment I have a lot of good, good memories about my mom, and good times

My plan was always to move back—I wanted to But now, With the divorce I’m confined here until my son is 18 I would have to prove that it’s best for him to be relocated It’s hard My son won’t grow up knowing his aunt and uncle and cousins It’s hard to accept I really do feel stuck How did this happen? I trace back all the decisions that led me here But I can’t help but feel a little robbed and limited I try to look at the positive But it’s hard to accept Maybe you envision for your children what you had as a child growing up When you have kids You just want to go back to your roots

Even though she is gone physically She is still really powerful in my life and I want my son to know who she was I carry on her traditions I carry them on for my son I can always remember having a special birthday cake when I was younger Maybe it will mean something to my son when he is older His sailboat cake His inchworm cake His racetrack cake

She has left legacies and traditions and I want to carry on these traditions with my son It gives me a sense of family A sense of connectedness A sense of belonging to something I try to do what she did I’m modeling her because I realize how great she was

Reflexive Analysis for: You Can’t Control Things Through the experience of losing her mother and in going through her divorce without her mother, Audrey felt a sense of powerlessness. For Audrey, her dreams often provided her with the comfort and reassurance she so needed in her mother’s absence. Not only did dreams allow her mother to have a continued presence, one dream, in particular, served a catalytic role in helping Audrey gain a new understanding about herself and how she was coping with her mother’s death. Moreover, dreams played an integral role in Audrey’s efforts to make sense of the loss, find benefits from her loss, and experience a changed sense of self. Following her mother’s death, Audrey was mindful about how she was going about the process of grieving and took comfort in knowing she could not control everything, but could control how she would respond to things. She experienced great pain with the loss of her mother and would take notice of how other people responded to her following her mother’s death. Audrey needed reassurance that she was grieving in the “right” way and that the manner in which she was experiencing her grief was healthy. She joined with friends to compare experiences of grief and even reached out to a grief counselor. She also found comfort in being there for others and used her own experience of grief to inform how she could be there for others. Audrey wanted her mother to have a continued presence in her life and carefully selected some of her mother’s belongings to have. Initially, following the death of her mother, Audrey longed to feel “close” to her again. Even though others would tell her that her mother was still with her, Audrey had yet to feel that closeness. Audrey was only able to feel connected to her mother through her memories. It was not until she began dreaming of her mother that she felt a sense of closeness and connection again. Although Audrey had a series of dreams, her first dream, in particular, served a catalytic function in her adaptation to bereavement. After her dream where she is in her red Subaru and

her mother asks her in an exasperated tone, “Why are you crying?” Audrey woke up feeling changed. Up until the point of this dream, she had been struggling with her grief and felt tied to the pain her mother had been experiencing right before her death. Following this dream, however, Audrey gained the new bodily understanding that her mother was at peace now, and that it was Audrey, herself, who needed to move forward with her life. Prior to this dream, she had been actively trying to grieve and move on in an intellectual way, but she still felt connected to her mother through feelings of suffering. This dream did not require cognitive processing or interpretation. Instead, Audrey woke up with an embodied understanding of her grief, and a bodily realization that her suffering was not helping her mother or herself. She realized that she could love her mother and be sad about her absence, but also could let go of her suffering without letting go of her mother. Following this dream, she continued to miss her mother and wish that her mother could be there for her during significant moments in her life, but Audrey was able to miss her without gripping tightly to feelings of suffering in order to feel connected. Following this catalytic dream, her dreams then became an imaginal space for her to reconnect with her mother. While interpretations can be made for each of her dreams after the fact, what was most important for Audrey was the experience of having the dreams. The greatest meaningfulness in the dreams came from the experience of having them, with no need for cognitive, propositional, or conceptual interpretation. In the enactments her dreams provided, she could feel connected to her mother, feel as though she had a conversation with her mother, could share her life with her mother, feel reassured by her mother, enjoy her mother’s companionship, and laugh with her. Her mother could not be there in waking life to support her during her divorce and times of struggle, but the imaginal space of her dreams allowed her to feel a continued bond with her mother. Although Audrey believes she has never felt her mother in a supernatural way, there is a way in which she is able to connect to an inner sense of her mother by asking herself, “I wonder what mom would say?” when faced with a decision. In addition to her dreams, Audrey looked for ways to honor her mother. She made an effort to stay connected to her mother’s side of the family and worked to carry on her mother’s traditions so that her son would get to “know” who his grandmother was. It was also important to Audrey that her mother’s memory and belongings be treated with respect. Audrey viewed the eulogy as her last gift to her mother. She also honored her father’s request by helping him to clean out her closet, but not without protecting her mother’s business suits. She has celebrated

Mother’s Day each year since her mother’s death by ordering flowers for her mother’s tombstone. She also honors her mother’s memory by donating to the cancer society every year. While Audrey continues to feel the loss of her mother, she has figured out ways to stay connected to her as well as to honor her memory. In response to the reading of the performative writing text I put together based on Audrey and my conversations, Audrey appreciated being able to feel her emotions as they related to her mother’s death. The text felt “so real” to her that she could “feel the emotions welling up in [her]” as she read it. She also felt as though my depiction of her experience was “accurate.” She shared that she had not had any dreams of her mother in some time and that she hoped that her mother would again appear in her dreams. What stood out to me the most in Audrey’s stories was the value that her embodied experiences in her dreams had on her grieving process. At first it was curious to me that Audrey had not spent time trying to process and understand her dreams in addition to the benefit she gained from the experience of the dream. I had to resist the urge to go beyond the meaning and benefit she found in them. I certainly value the experience of the dream and the embodied understandings that can come from dreams, but also often process dreams after the fact and complement the experience of the dream with an understanding of the dream’s multiplicity. What Audrey reinforced for me is that the value and benefit from dreams can come directly from the experience of having had them. Audrey had no need for a cognitive understanding of her dreams. For her, the greatest significance came from feeling a sense of connection to her mother in the imaginal space dreams provided. Waiting for the Next Blow

I don’t think my parents should have ever gotten married. She let him be the way he was, which was the kind who was dealing drugs and the alcohol thing. My mother says that I was planned—I mean my brother was pure accident. I think she had kids to have someone to love her and I think my dad, well I know my dad…

Never really wanted children.

That set him up for this feeling of needing to escape something He had this family that he needed to get away from

That drove him to drink.

I felt less angry at him than I felt guilty myself.

I had done that to him. I had driven him to that… I couldn’t possibly have, but that’s what I thought.

Thump, thump, thump, thump. Slam. There is the all too familiar sound of my mom racing to shut herself in her room following a heated yelling match with my dad. I sit still, watching my dad as he sighs, with blushed cheeks and fists clenched, and storms into the kitchen. I continue to watch as he paces around the kitchen, his bare feet pounding against the cold linoleum floor. He rummages through a kitchen drawer and pulls out the aluminum foil. I smile, and move closer to him, watching him make one of his tin foil rings, the rings he so carefully creates by rolling up the tin foil and pinching it together into a ring. “I want it, can I have it?” I ask my father. “No, no, I’ll make you one; just go give this to your mom. I’ll make you one when you come down here.” I begrudgingly march upstairs to my mom’s bedroom and knock on the door. “Come in” she shouts, and I slowly open the door to find my mom laying on the bed, her face damp and eyes puffy from her tears. I walk over to her, displaying the tin foil ring and handing it to her as if this will be the magic antidote to her pain. Unimpressed, she takes the ring from me. “Okay, fine.” Anxious to get back downstairs to where my own ring will be waiting for me, I turn and race back down to the kitchen. My father greets me, eager to know whether or not his tin foil gambit has been effective. When I have nothing to report on my mom’s behalf, he sighs, shakes his head, and begins to walk away from me. “Ahh Dad! I want my ring!” He ignores me and continues on into the dining room. “But Dad, you promised…”

When you have stability and it’s broken in some way, it makes you feel unsafe. The minute my dad starting ripping the phone out of the wall And my mother ran away That took it to another level of arguing, which I had never experienced before I had never seen my mother run away from my father before—that part was really unsettling. The police showed up, they took my dad.

She had taken him to AA twice, but both times it failed and he just went back to drinking. My mom was pulling the weight of supporting the whole family. He was ruining her credit, He didn’t have a job, He was spending all her money at the bars—

I’ve never been in the dark as to why they got divorced.

My mom worked 12 hour shifts, so we spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandfather—he was a lawyer—but he didn’t do the normal lawyer thing. He represented people like the Hell’s Angels He worked from his office at home, but I never felt like he was at work

“Where’s Grandpa?” I playfully ask my Grandma as my eyes scan the room searching for a leg or some kind of movement. Playing hide and seek with Grandpa is my favorite part of the day—my daily after school challenge. I listen for him and quietly tip-toe into the dining room. “Grandpa!” I cheerfully call out. I glance around the room and discover a shoe peeking out from under the dining room tablecloth. I sprint over to the table and lift the cloth. There, under the table, is my one-and-a-half-legged, partially blind, diabetic grandfather, crouched on his knees. I laugh and cheer for my victory of finding him. He falls out from under the table, giving me a welcome home bear hug. I am glad to be home.

I knew he was diabetic, I knew he had diabetes, but I didn’t know what that meant. We never really talked about it I had the impression that when you get old, your body parts start falling off and you get fake ones to replace them. I also assumed that surgery was just something you do—it never occurred to me that the regularity at which my Grandpa was going to the hospital was abnormal. I had no idea he was sick. Looking back on it, Grandpa had oxygen machines, he was in surgery all the time, and he was giving himself shots every day, multiple times a day. He was very sick, but he didn’t act like it.

He invented this game called “Grandpa’s Game” where he took the lid of a box and he drew a square on it, giving the box the appearance of a board game. He then took a piece from his oxygen breathing machine and those were our game pieces, which we would move around the board at the roll of the dice.

“Shelly, it’s time to go shoe shopping,” my grandpa yells up the stairs to me. “Yes!” I think to myself. That phrase is code for only one thing: It means it’s time to go to Baskin-Robbins to get ice cream and that is my cue to tell Grandma I need some new shoes. “All right Grandpa, I’ve gotcha” I reply. “Grandma, I’ve got to get new shoes! I’ve got to get new shoes!” My grandmother smiles and grabs her car keys. We all hop in the car and pointing, Grandpa says, “Go this way,” and then, continuing to direct my Grandma, “Go this way.” Grandma replies, “Oh, okay, is this the shoe store?.... Is this the shoe store?” “Oh yeah, this is the way,” says my grandpa. When the Baskin Robbins is in sight, I giggle, yelling, “Oh!! Fooled you Grandma!” making eye contact with my Grandpa. He winks at me with his good eye.

The court awarded my dad visitation rights on Sunday 1-7pm. I remember that first time my mom dropped us off to have a visit with my dad Not wanting to get out of the car, I didn’t want, I really didn’t want to get out. I felt like I was going to spend time with a stranger. It didn’t feel special in any way. It didn’t feel necessarily bad in any way either. It just sort of felt like something I had to do, like go to church, or go to school, you have to go see your dad.

When you’re really young, you don’t really expect anyone to die. It seemed like it was a routine-ish surgery We didn’t really see it coming—I don’t think anyone expected it going in My mom sat us down We didn’t really know what she was going to tell us Then she told us Grandpa had died the night before.

At the funeral home People were putting things in his casket My grandpa really liked to go fishing So there was a fishing pole He really liked baked beans, which is strange, They put a can of baked beans in there I kept thinking why would they put that in his casket I remember trying to justify it in my head thinking why on earth would you possibly need a can of baked beans in your casket when you’re buried I remember sitting there as my 7-year-old self trying to reason it out Trying to think of a possible legitimate reason as to why that would be necessary the only thing I could come up with was for in case he wasn’t really dead, in case he was just sleeping, so if they weren’t sure they wanted to put some food in there in case he gets hungry I reasoned Grandpa really liked baked beans, He also really liked butterscotch candy or redhots. I didn’t have any redhots on me but at the reception desk They had Wherthers butterscotch candies I remember taking all of them out, thinking grandpa really likes these, I cleaned out that bowl of butterscotch candies and put them in his casket I didn’t take them all at once, I was kind of trying to take a few at a time I’d go back and take a few and stash them again. I got caught towards the end of the bowl. “Shelly! What are you doing?” “Well grandpa liked baked beans and he also liked these,” “Don’t do that anymore!” I’m pretty sure I still did it…

At the funeral, I sit next to my grandmother and can feel her petite frame shake as she sobs. She holds tissues saturated with her tears. I want to make her feel better, but I don’t know

how to do it. In my seven year old rationale I say to her, “Grandma, wouldn’t it be funny, if Grandpa wasn’t really dead, and he was just faking it, and then he sat up and was like ‘Surprise!’” My grandma replies, “Shelly, that would not be funny, I would be very mad at him if he did that.” Alright, fair enough, I think to myself. I then ask, “But Grandma, wouldn’t it be better if he were alive instead of dead?” Grandma lets out a huge sigh, turns to me, and says, “Shelly… just let it go.”

Outside of the church, I see my mom standing alone, gazing down, crumpled tissues in hand. I watch her closely as I approach her; is she crying? Although my mother’s tears are a familiar sight, they always make me feel very uncomfortable. I don’t want her to be crying. I really want her to just have a cold, or the sniffles—I don’t want her to be crying. “Mom?” I ask, snapping her out of her trance and pulling her attention towards me. “Yes Shelly?” she replies. “Are you crying? Or do you just have a cold?” I ask. She pauses, looks at me, smiles, and says, “Nah, I just have a cold, Shelly. Don’t worry.” Relieved, I slide my small hand into hers and walk back towards the funeral home.

My mom was dead set on things getting back to normal again We took a day off for the funeral but then the next day We had to go back to school, and Get back in that routine Trying to have us go back to a normal life After the unfamiliarity of burying a relative I think it’s easy to cling to what was normal in a schedule But we stopped going to my grandmother’s for a while

My mom was really strong about not showing she was sad For our sake.

It was really strange at first not having him around Because we didn’t stay with my grandma for a long time after She didn’t need the burden of two kids running around to take care of We weren’t seeing my dad during that time because he had screwed up a couple times Pretty bad with us So we weren’t seeing him My mom was on bed-rest for a while because she had hurt her back and had surgery, so she was home That was weird to be around my mom that often I found that really strange I had never been around her that much because she had always been at work It was really strange I remember not getting along with her And feeling really uncomfortable, wanting to go back to my grandmother But grandma was different for a while She lost her husband

Before grandpa died, I went through a short period where I didn’t want to be around him, I wanted to be around Grandma—the last few times before he died. To this day, I can’t tell you why I felt that way. I should have not felt that way I should have taken advantage of my grandpa when I could

My aunts and uncles helped my grandma go through grandpa’s stuff I was there one day when they were sorting through things But it was like they were cleaning house It wasn’t like we’re going through these things deciding What to keep What to give away It was almost like we were cleaning I’m not even sure if my grandmother was there It was very matter-of-fact People would try to protect my brother and me from having to see the sadness or Mourning I think I was intentionally distracted They would go, “here play with this”

I was sort of delighted to see all of the stuff my grandpa had saved He saved everything! I got to keep that piece from the breathing machine that was my play toy and The lid that he made the game on I got to keep some of his coin collection—My grandfather was going blind, so he used to have me read off the dates and the classifications of his coins for him I got to keep a few of his army things I still have some notebooks of his because I was really into writing I have a sweater of his

When I was eight years old, my snake dreams started and kept coming through middle school. In my dreams:

We’re at my old house, my mom’s old house, and my grandma and grandpa drop me off. We’re all in the living room in their house and my brother and my grandparents are there and my mom and my brother and my grandmother leave and it’s just my grandpa and me. A giant snake comes and starts to eat the house and we’re trying to run to the top of the house to get away from him. The snake is outside eating the house and I don’t know why, but we need to get to the top of the roof. My grandpa follows me upstairs to get to the attic and when I go to climb out the window to jump, I notice my grandpa is gone.

I used to have this dream a lot, a lot, a lot. When I wake up, I’m really freaked out. When I was younger it would really freak me out. At eight years old, that happened really often, with incredible frequency. It was always the same kind of dream, it always starts the same way. My

mom, my grandpa, and I are there. The sun is outside and the giant snake is terrorizing the community. It’s on the media too and it always ends with my grandpa and I running up to the roof, and when I go to jump off the roof, I wake up.

For a little while, when I was younger, I thought I had a hand in killing my grandfather I didn’t know what it meant to be diabetic He would ask my brother and me to sneak him candy, but I didn’t know it was hurting him...

I always remember making myself give my dad a hug and a kiss and telling him that I loved him before he got out of the car to say goodbye because I wasn’t sure if I would see him again next week, I didn’t know if I would see him again because he wouldn’t show up, or something was going on, or, something could happen he could be drunk and get into a traffic accident any number of things could happen where he might die before the next week and I wouldn’t get to see him again I remember feeling like I wanted to tell him that I loved him and give him a hug and kiss goodbye, in case that happened I remember thinking at 8 years old, someday you will regret not saying goodbye to him so you should say goodbye to him and tell him that you love him. He would give me a hug back and tell me he loved me, but I felt like we were just going through the motions It wasn’t because I wanted to say goodbye… It was because it was for when I would be older— I wouldn’t feel guilty about not saying goodbye. I could have been angry with him, but I remember thinking, You need to have that clear conscience in case something happens

There is another grandpa dream I have had repeatedly since I was a little kid. I am always the same age in the dreams—always seven—never my current age. The strangest part about the dream is that everything in the dream is exactly like it was the day after my grandpa died. Everyone is together at my grandmother’s house, the furniture is the same, everyone is dressed the same—I’m wearing a red Christmas dress, my Uncle is wearing a stupid sweater he used to wear all the time, a big Cosby sweater with stripes on it, my grandma is in a dark fuchsia track suit, my aunt is in this hideous eighties dress, my brother is wearing navy slacks and a jacket, my other uncle is wearing this grungy sweatshirt that he used to wear when he worked on his car. There are other family members there as well, but I can’t remember what they are wearing. The whole family is there and my grandpa is there with us too, only he’s healthy, walking without any assistance and doesn’t have an eye patch on or anything like that.

In the dream, I’m standing in the foyer and I see my grandpa. I bring him in to see the family and everyone is really happy. Sometimes the dream is really nice, other times it’s really dark—more often it’s dark.

I see my grandpa in the foyer and say, “Oh my god, Grandpa!” I turn around to bring him in to the living room. As I do this, I look out this big picture window on the front porch. It’s pitch black out and there are thunderstorms. I see a man there dressed all in black—a black trench coat, black coat—everything is black. The man is about the same age as my grandpa and is sitting in a wheelchair on the front yard, by the front porch. He stares in the window at me. I get really creeped out by him and I try to leave. I’m in the foyer, the front door is open, and the man in black is just sitting there in his wheelchair facing me and is holding a gun in his hand. He shoots me and I wake up.

When I wake up from this dream, I need the reassurance that I’m awake because the dream feels so real. It takes me a second to say, “OK, you’re awake, you’re in bed, you’re twenty-three (or whatever age I am at the time), you’re not seven.”

I feel sort of responsible For being shot in the dream. I don’t know why I feel responsible for being shot, but I do.

I’ve had this dream maybe ten to fifteen times over the past ten years.

I get a little upset because I have these dreams of my grandpa and he’s dead and I don’t really get to spend time with him. Instead, I spend my time running away from this guy in the wheelchair.

Upstairs in my bedroom, I listen and hear my mom downstairs, screaming on the phone. I try to ignore her piercing voice, but the thin walls do not offer enough of a protective barrier from her screeching. She is yelling at my grandfather, my dad’s dad, and telling him I am not coming over for my visit with my dad and that I will not be there on Sunday. I anxiously wait for the phone call to be over and to the hoped-for freedom from having to see my dad this weekend. I hear the door open at the bottom of the stairs, “SHELLY! Come down here please” my mom yells up to me. I hesitate in dread about what she could be calling me down for. I slide off my bed and make my way down the stairs, bracing myself for what might happen. My mom greets me before I can make my way all the way down, handing me the phone and instructing me, “Tell your dad you don’t want to see him anymore.”

A pit forms in my stomach and my eyes immediately well up with tears. I shake my head no, looking at Mom with panicked eyes. I stand there, phone in hand, my mind racing. I told my mom that I did not want to see my dad again, but I am not prepared to tell him myself— especially at this moment. I slowly bring the phone to my ear and timidly say, “Dad?” My dad responds, “Is it true? Is what they are saying true?” Not wanting to upset him, I blurt out, “No, I still want to see you.” The conversation soon ends and I hang up the phone. Ashamed, I glance up at my Mom, who looks back at me with warm eyes. “You don’t have to be afraid, Shelly” she tells me, “It’s OK, you know, it’s all right. If this is what you want, you need to tell him.” With my mom’s support, I gather up enough courage to call him back. “Hi Dad, it’s me, Shelly. I’m sorry to call back again, but I wanted to tell you that it is true… I don’t want to see you anymore.” He snaps back at me, “Do you know how to write a letter?” I think—of course I know how to write a letter—and reply, “Yes.” He then hangs up on me, and that is the last time I talk to him before he dies.

When I got off the phone with him that day, I was pretty shaken up, but I also felt an overwhelming sense of relief, I didn’t have to go see him again I just always sort of felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop with my dad. I just constantly felt like I was waiting for the next blow I remember feeling this is really done with, It’s over, I don’t have to deal with this any more.

A week later, I had just gotten home from school and My grandparents called They told me my dad Had died My initial reaction was Do we have to go to the funeral? I just told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore… Should we go to the funeral? Would that be rude or inappropriate? Would the rest of the family look down on us for being there?

I had known he was really sick He needed a new liver But they don’t put alcoholics on liver transplant lists If there is a liver They are not going to give him the transplant So,

I knew that his time was very limited But I didn’t know That it was going to be that quick I thought he was going to live for ten more years I was surprised by his death No one had explained to me how dire his situation was

That year, it’s like everything got shaken up We moved We started at a new school My mom started taking computer classes so she could get a better job We stopped talking to my dad’s family New people My mom found a new job and She was beginning to travel a lot That year is the year where I draw the line Between my two lives It’s like there is a part of my life with My dad, My grandpa And my old school And then there was My new life Everything is rooted in post-fifth grade and None of the roots that were laid pre-fifth grade Still exist— They don’t feel connected to anything in my life now The best way to describe it is that It feels like it happened to somebody else But, I speak for that person Because I’ve taken on their life I don’t identify with me being little I have Severed it

For a while after my dad died, My brother and I Would give each other a glance On the day that he died And go “Hey, you alright?” And that would be the end of it

My sophomore year in high school

My English class read the play “I never sang for my father” Except for the fact that the dad is dying, There is no particular reason why anyone Should care about the dad He has been a tyrant in the family The boy grows to hate his father, but After the father dies, The boy wishes he had sung for his dad Reading this play I started thinking about my dad again And it hit me I was really angry at my dad Really angry Any sadness I felt was only a byproduct of being Angry

I don’t like it when people call alcoholism A disease I really don’t like it I really hate it actually Because I feel like calling alcoholism a disease gets Him off the hook For what he had done I feel like he had chosen alcohol over us Calling it a disease forgives him for Not being a responsible father I feel like it was a choice He made Over and over again Night after night To drink He could have made the choice not to get Drunk the day before he was supposed to see us or Drunk the day he was supposed to see us I’ve never had an addiction I don’t know what it feels like, to have to have something To get through the day So I have to allow for the fact that Addiction is so strong That some people really can’t get through their day. Only by acknowledging that and Sort of understanding that Can I have a little bit of forgiveness I have to believe that deep down he was a good person That he just got wrapped up in something

He felt was bigger than himself I don’t think that becoming addicted is a choice I don’t think that is a choice that anyone makes So I guess I have to forgive him for that He probably wanted to be a better father

When my dad is in my dreams, he always wants to shoot me. He’ll shoot me, always in the back, and I always bleed to death.

I started having these dreams in high school…

In the first dream,

I am in my high school English class and my English teacher is there. My dad comes into the classroom, shuts the door, and has a gun in his hand to shoot me. It’s like a hostage situation and so everyone there knows instinctively not to do anything because that’s what you do in a situation like that, you don’t question the person with a gun. They all know it’s my dad even though none of my friends have ever met my dad. I get up to walk away. I don’t know why I’m not afraid of him because he has a gun. I just know that I need to get out of the crowd, out of the students, and handle this between the two of us because our situation doesn’t concern them. I don’t want to have a confrontation with my dad in front of them. As I walk away towards the back of the classroom, my dad shoots me in the back, in the kidney region. The classroom is set up so that there are five rows of desks that go back six desks each. I fall down in one of the middle aisles and lie there at people’s feet. I can still breathe, but my breathing slows down and becomes very rhythmic. Everyone stays in their seats in shock, waiting for him to leave or to give them instructions. I bleed to death.

In my dream, I’m not afraid, or scared, or surprised by my dad. It’s almost like I knew he was going to show up at school eventually—that he would come to embarrass me.

December 4 th , senior year in high school, and the tenth anniversary of Grandpa’s death. Every year, for the past ten years, I have gone with my family to his grave and said a little prayer. I don’t want to go with them this year—this year I’m going on my own. I want to have a private moment with him. After school I drive over to the cemetery. I drive carefully through the cemetery until I am near his grave. I walk up to his grave and read his name. Ten years later and it still feels strange to see his name. I can feel his presence—feel him there with me. Like a tidal wave, my grief crashes through me. Ten years of pent-up sorrow floods out of me. I sob and think about how much I miss him. I wish he could be here to see me graduate high school, to apply to college, to meet my friends, to meet my boyfriend. I sit in front of his grave and cry and cry and cry. After a while, I decide it is time to clean myself up. I’ve got to pull myself together. I realize I have been crying for half an hour and I should really get going. I manage to compose myself and head towards the car. As I’m driving out of the cemetery, I turn the radio on. Out of dead air, I hear the lyrics, “If there is anything that you want, if there is anything that I can do, just call on me and I’ll send along with love from me to you.” I can’t help but smile and think it’s my Grandpa’s way of telling me he is here for me—his way of saying, “I’m still

around… if you need something, you can still talk to me, or count on me in some cosmic way.” I listen to the Beatles continue to sing, “From Me to You” and think to myself, Grandpa is telling me everything is going to be OK. He’s still around in his own way.

Now whenever I hear that song, I think of him

Junior year of college, I remember having another dream of my dad:

I am in an outdoor market-type place and just walking around. I feel a gunshot and turn around, realizing it’s my dad who shot me. I fall to the ground and my dad disappears in to the crowd. I’m still aware that he is there, but I can’t see him. I don’t know where he is, but I know that he’s watching me bleed to death. He shot me in the lung, so I can feel myself bleeding to death, but I can also feel myself starting to suffocate because my lungs are filling up with blood. Somebody calls a doctor and a doctor shows up to help me. The doctor is like a doctor in the movies—he looks like he is a doctor from the ‘20s and is carrying what looks like a little lunch box of medical gear. He asks, “Did someone call for a doctor?” He has glasses and a brown coat on and he leans over me with his little medical kit. My dad shoots the doctor so he can’t help me and the doctor is lying next to me, dying, and bleeding to death. Everyone keeps walking past me and I’m very aware of people walking this way and that way, swarming past me. It’s almost like a busy airport—everyone has an agenda and the crowd is a blur going past me as I bleed to death.

The thing that stands out the most to me in the dream is the sensation of watching the crowd moving around me. In this dream as with the other dreams I’ve had of my dad, everyone around me is aware of what is happening, but no one is doing anything—not because they want me to be in pain, or suffer, or die. For some reason, they feel like they can’t do anything or shouldn’t do anything. They are all very robotic. We shouldn’t help. This isn’t our problem. This isn’t our mess. We shouldn’t get involved type of thing.

My senior year in college, I had another dream.

My dad shows up one day at my house. I live there with three other girls. He is there with a group of guys who are all wearing black suits and they come in a black limo. He gives us instructions. He says, “You can run away, and then I get one shot at you. If I hit you, I hit you, but if I miss you, I’ll take you on a shopping spree.” My other roommates go first and he takes a shot at them but misses all of them. I go last and I almost feel like I might have a chance to get away from him, but I really don’t. My dad shoots me right in the middle of the back. I collapse on my front yard and I start to bleed to death. They all get in the car and drive away for the shopping spree and I am left in the front yard to bleed to death. Their leaving doesn’t faze me because I am distracted by the fact that I’m bleeding. It’s very calming. I feel like my breath starts out really fast, and then it slows down. I feel like everything centers around my body and all of my senses become heightened. I’m on the front yard and I feel the grass and the dew on the grass and the wind blowing over me. I can feel it, and I’m bleeding. I feel cold and numb, and

then have this physical feeling of warmth on the outside and can feel my blood. At first I panic, but then it’s very calming. I get very calm and then I die.

What role have these dreams played in my life?

Not much of any. I wish I had better dreams. I feel in awe at the sort of brutality that I bring on myself in the dreams. Having these dark dreams makes me feel strange. But, the dreams seem to fit with the relationship that I had with my dad—they don’t feel out of place in that way. They are so bizarre that whenever I have a dream about my dad, I try to shake it off and get on with my day, but it’s hard for me to get rid of that creepy feeling.

In a lot of ways I still feel the divide Between my pre-fifth grade And post-fifth grade years I have worked hard To close everything off To Sever it But my dreams Won’t let me forget

May is a time for great celebration—mother’s day, my birthday, my aunt’s birthday—and this May, 2005, I am graduating from college. In celebration, we have a huge party to celebrate everything. I scan the party tent and smile as I look around and see my mom, my brother, my grandmother, aunts and uncles—everyone is here to celebrate, except my grandpa. Everyone seems to be having a fun time, but I am preoccupied with thoughts about my grandfather. I wish he could be here, I miss him. I majored in Russian—my grandfather was Russian and spoke Russian—I would have loved to be able to talk to him. Feeling sad, I walk over to my aunt and uncle and start talking with them. I continue to think about my grandpa as we are talking. I can feel the effect of the drinks I have had, and the urge to talk about my grandfather grows. I stop my aunt and uncle and ask, “Can I ask you a stupid question?” “Sure, what is it, Shelly?” my aunt responds. I continue, “Do you think grandpa would have been proud of me?” I feel tears well in my eyes and I can’t stop from crying. “Of course he would,” my aunt says and gives me a hug. My uncle looks like he is about to cry and turns away from us. I continue to talk to my aunt, but soon the topic changes.

I guess the way we grieved, it was just… clinging to, remembering to, choosing to, and electing to remember the good times over the bad times.

I have an ex-boyfriend

things didn’t end very well but we were still able to stay friends afterwards I always had the sneaking suspicion, Because he was a scuzzy guy—we’re Ok now—but at the time he was a scuzzy guy, but I always had the sneaking suspicion that he cheated on me and I don’t care anymore because it’s over, you can’t be more upset, but Last night, I was talking to an old friend of mine that was an acquaintance at the time, who had known him because they had lived in the same dorm he told me that my ex-boyfriend had been cheating on me I was soo angry “Argh!” and then I realized, “Oh there is no reason to be angry, it’s so dumb, you always knew, whether you knew officially or you knew in suspicion, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t care anymore.” I was so angry! for about an hour. Not because of what he had done, but because I had asked my ex-boyfriend point-blank several times and he lied to me so I was upset about it, and I got in my car to drive home it was like three in the morning because I got in my car and turned on the radio and it was a Beatles song it was “Hey Jude” “Don’t make it bad…” and I was like, “Ohhhhh, it’s Grandpa,” I could be grasping at straws, Because there are a lot of Beatles songs, and they get played a lot, and you can always sort of interpret things to fit whatever situation you’re in. But whenever that happens, I can’t help but feel that it’s my grandpa’s way of saying, “Yeah, that sucks, but, it’s OK, I’m still here for you”

I always feel as though my Grandpa is around I know that he is watching over me Grandpa is watching over me Or around somehow I tell him that I love him I want him to know that People always like to hear that they’re loved Even though I’m sure he knows Or if I need something, I’ll go, “Ah! Grandpa, give me strength, grandpa, help me out!”

Reflexive Analysis for: Waiting for the Next Blow While dreams seemed to play a more obvious healing role for other participants by way of moving their grieving processes into new and different places, Shelly’s dreams instead had a persistent and haunting quality to them. Although Shelly had a loving relationship with her grandfather when he was alive, she carried self-blame and guilt around his death. Shelly also was not prepared for the death of her grandfather and seemed to have little support in grieving his death. Shelly’s toxic relationship with her father influenced the quality of her dreams and her grieving process. For both her grandfather and her father, Shelly worked to cope with the deaths by attempting to sever that part of her experience from her awareness—so much so that she saw her life as pre- and post- fifth grade. Despite her attempts to sever her memories and to draw a line between her “two lives,” she stated, “my dreams won’t let me forget.” Shelly’s dreams were frightening for her and felt unsettling. When she woke up from them she felt “freaked out,” terrorized, and left with a “creepy” feeling. She often felt the need to reassure herself that she was awake and safe. Although rationally Shelly could reason with herself and challenge herself on her feelings of guilt, on some level she blamed herself for her father’s behavior and for her grandfather’s death. Consistent with her feelings of guilt, she believed that her dreams were her own fault and that she brought “brutality” in her dreams on herself. Although the dreams were haunting, Shelly did not believe the dreams felt out of place. For her, the dreams seemed to fit with the relationship she had with her father when he was still alive. Her dreams seemed to provide an imaginal space for a continuing bond, but a continuing bond with her father that was negatively impacting her. Shelly felt sadness at her grandfather’s brief presence in or complete absence from her dreams. Her dreams left her feeling as though time with her grandfather had been stolen from

her and, as such, did not provide the space for the kind of continuing bond she craved. She would end up feeling upset because in the dreams where her grandfather was present, she spent her time running away from the man in the wheelchair. Although her dreams had not provided an imaginal space for her to feel connected to her grandfather, she utilized her imagination by way of Beatles music in order to feel connected to her grandfather. While she had the insight to note that she felt as though she was “grasping at straws,” she also found great comfort in the moments when Beatles songs came on the radio when she needed them most. Through the songs, she felt connected to her grandfather and felt as though he was watching over her. Shelly also cherished the few items she saved that were her grandfather’s. These keepsakes helped her feel a sense of connection to her grandfather and her memories of him. With regard to Shelly’s adaptation to bereavement, there is a way in which her family did not welcome emotion and, if anything, Shelly learned at a young age that tears are something you shed in private, if at all. Throughout her life, Shelly had often tried to silence her grief and completely cut herself off from it. Aside from a few moments where she had opened herself to the sadness and anger, she tried to keep the emotional floodgates closed. Shelly’s way of coping was not unusual for her family context. She described several instances where her family tried to “protect” her from seeing and experiencing sadness. Consistent with her family’s practices, as she described them, she tried to avoid and to deny her feelings of grief. Shelly helped bring to life for me an instance where dreams may not be serving a catalytic function where there is a dramatic change in the dreamer’s life. Instead, Shelly’s dreams may have been healing in the sense that they kept her grieving process alive in a context that was promoting denial and repression of the deaths. Shelly’s dreams seemed to mitigate against her denial and numbness. While they are awful dreams, they may still serve life by forcing her to acknowledge that the deaths happened despite her attempts to deny that part of her experience. It comes as no surprise to me that Shelly’s dreams would have such a persistent and haunting quality to them, when she and her family did not allow themselves to grieve. I cannot help but wonder if her dreams might have had a different quality to them if she had been given or had found a space to make sense of what these deaths meant to her. When asked what brought Shelly to the study, she simply stated that she thought her experience could be helpful for my project given she experienced the deaths of loved ones and had dreams following the deaths. My sense, though, was that Shelly wanted to better understand

why she was having the dreams she was having. Together we talked about the ways in which the dreams would become more frequent and intense at times when she tried to deny her emotional experience. This insight seemed to provide Shelly with some comfort. With regard to the performative writing text, I wondered what it would be like for Shelly to immerse herself in her experiences again—experiences she had worked so hard to wall off. When I initially contacted her about the performative writing text, she responded immediately, eager to see what I had put together. Although she expressed interest in reviewing the text, she was not interested in following up with me regarding her feedback and reactions. When she did not contact me again, I attempted to check in with her on a few occasions, inviting her feedback. To my disappointment, Shelly never responded. All I Ever Hope to Be, I Hope to Be My Mother

Mom She was the kind of person whom everyone Loved and admired She was a woman of many talents She grew up one of nine children As a middle child, I think she was a peace-maker She got along with everybody And as a child of the Depression Knew how to be very thrifty and very creative She could make something out of nothing When I say creative I also mean she was talented at Crafts Beautifying flowers Sewing She and my father were Advisors for the youth group at church She was a 4-H advisor and I remember Teenaged girls being at our house Not just sewing But talking to her about boyfriends and other things

I was really proud to have her as my mother

I was so excited When I found out my parents were going to have a Baby Probably I thought she was going to be like a

Living doll or something I really wanted a younger sibling I had an older brother But oh goodness I was just so excited about my sister I even made up a song about my mom being pregnant And sang it in music class in the third grade

Sara was nine years younger than me She was a pretty special little kid She learned to walk when she was eight-and-a-half months old She had a great vocabulary She had these blonde ringlets—she looked nothing like me I felt like a second mom to her

Oh! It’s Mom’s birthday and I want to do something special for her. My brother and I stay home and I decide to make her an oatmeal cake—one of her favorites. Using my ten-year- old expertise, I carefully follow the recipe, adding and combining each of the ingredients. I put it in the oven and look forward to surprising Mom with her favorite cake. When the buzzer goes off, I open the oven expecting to see a wonderful fluffy cake and instead, I am disappointed to find a goopy mess. Oh no! What could have happened!? Mom’s cake is ruined! I hurriedly review through the recipe trying to figure out what I could have done wrong. There, on the bottom of the recipe in what now looks like flashing, 3-D letters is the instruction to “add flour.” How could I have missed it? The final and key ingredient and I totally missed it. Disheartened, I set my pudding catastrophe on the counter to cool. Mom comes into the kitchen smiling and comments on how wonderful the kitchen smells. Her compliment feels like a dagger. My eyes begin to well with tears and, surprised by my reaction, Mom asks me what is wrong. “I’m sorry, Mom, I wanted to do something special for you, but I ruined your birthday cake!” With care and concern, Mom says, “Oh honey, what do you mean you ruined my birthday cake?” I point to the cake/pudding and wait for her reaction. She moves her face closer to the pudding/cake, and breathes in. “Mmmmm this smells so good! You know, I think this would make a great oatmeal pudding sauce on ice cream. In fact, it’s probably better for us than cake.” Feeling comforted, I say, “Really?... Thanks, Mom.”

Mom had a very playful spirit I just loved her stories She always had time for us If we had questions She would always go to the encyclopedia and we’d look up the answer She was always willing to do things Like play cards with us or Go out and pitch a ball I could always talk to her about things if I was worried

Growing up, The church was extremely important

My mom and dad were like Pillars They did everything from teaching Sunday school To being in the women’s group To being clerk of the session, to being trustee We were very involved That was my second home growing up

I am getting married! Mom and I enter the bridal store and I smile as I look around and see all of the beautiful gowns displayed throughout the shop. A cheery sales clerk approaches us and we accept her offer to help us. The sales clerk suggests dress after dress and I dive into each, hoping to find the perfect one. Satin, silk, beads, long, flowy, off-the shoulder, so many styles! As I’m trying dress after dress on, I finally try on the one. I feel like Cinderella and say to Mom, “Oooh! This is it!” The sales clerk knows she has made a sale because I can’t hold back my enthusiasm for this perfect dress. Unfortunately for the sales clerk, I have known all along that mom is going to make my wedding dress. We just wanted to try out styles and have one in mind as a model. I’m wearing the dress and admiring it in the mirror when the sales clerk takes a phone call. Mom whips out a notebook, jotting down notes and studying the details of the dress. The sales clerk returns confident of the sale and I can’t help feeling a little devious when I tell her, “I really like it, but I’m not ready to make a decision.” Mom then shops for patterns and fabrics, improvising and designing the perfect dress for me. Day after day, she meticulously sews thirteen hundred seed pearls into the gown, her fingertips becoming raw with each loving stitch. She never complains, but instead smiles with love, determined to make my perfect dress. I watch as the patterns and fabrics transform into this magnificent hand-sewn gown. Thank you mom.

I feel lucky Because I got to spend a lot of Casual time with Mom Daily conversations Sharing everyday life Lots of laughter

She had tons of Recipes Pictures of flowers Flower arrangements She won best in show for her Flower arrangements She was a natural talent

My first home with John, and Mom is here to help me try to wallpaper the bathroom—a half bath. Neither of us has ever wallpapered before, but we are excited to complete our project together. We prepare the wall paper and decide to start with the ceiling, the most difficult part. Mom is standing on a ladder and I stand on the toilet, each of us attempting to apply wet wallpaper to the ceiling. As we do this, the wallpaper is dripping and begins to fall down on our

heads. Mom says, “Now I know why they make all these jokes about one armed paper hangers!” Mom’s comment snaps me out of my frustration and all I can do is laugh. We look at each other, wet wallpaper hanging on our hands, and laugh until our stomachs ache.

Friday night 2:30 in the morning I get a call My father The first thing he says is “Now get a hold of yourself” I knew then that something really terrible had happened “Sara and Kelly were in a car accident and they were both killed.” “I’ll be right over” I get off the phone My husband says, “What is it?” “Sara and her best friend Kelly were in a car accident and they were both killed” “Are you sure?”

We all gathered at my parents’ house And were just numb the whole weekend People came and went We made the funeral arrangements I don’t really know what to say Because it’s so hard when somebody that young Dies If only they could have had their full life

One of the things I most admired about my parents Was that they grieved her And they always missed her But they were able to go on with their lives They didn’t let her death become the overriding control They didn’t let it totally take away their love of life— Their ability to enjoy each other or other people I’m not sure how they did it I mean once I became pregnant I more fully understood how incredible that was— That they were able to draw strength from each other From their faith And to go on It’s not that they ignored that it happened She was a part of us We would talk about funny things that she did but her death Didn’t become the defining feature We were able to talk about the happy times

The funny things And let her be part of our memories—our good memories

I had two dreams that I can remember of Sara:

In the first dream, I remember my sister was in a play pen and my mom and I are standing by the play pen looking at her. My mom turns to me and says, “Isn’t it a shame what is going to happen to her.”

Her death had already happened, but in this dream, I was going back to when Sara was a baby and we were talking about the fact that she was going to die.

Then there was this one dream where we are riding in a car and Sara and I are in the car with other people, but I don’t remember who they were—maybe family members. I am sitting in the front seat and she is in the middle seat in the back. I kept turning back and looking at her. Sara is the age she would have been at the time of the dream. We are having a conversation and going somewhere together. I knew exactly who she was in the dream, but she was older, she wasn’t fifteen.

I really loved that dream because one of the things about her dying when she was fifteen was that I did not get to see what she would have been, when she was an adult. Would we be friends as well as siblings? Would we have had fun together? It was almost like I got a little glimpse of what life would have been like.

I’m pleasantly surprised when Mom stops by to say hello. We sit talking as my son— only a couple months old—sleeps quietly. We talk and laugh and I enjoy her company. Mom stops me and says, “I know you’ve invested a lot in your career, if you want to go back, I’d be happy to watch him part-time.” “Oh Mom! Really?” I have been on maternity leave for two months. I love my son, but I can’t help but miss my work, miss being a librarian. I love helping people find the answers they need and introducing children to the joy of books. “Thank you, Mom, that would mean so much to me.”

Mom was integral in raising my son I don’t know if I could have ever gone back to work Without her help I mean, who could I have trusted to watch my son? Mom watching him part-time was perfect Because she was watching him and she loved him When he was off during the summer He could be with my mom And my dad And that was very special

My mom loved going to Florida in the winter

Because that meant she could have flowers all year round In 1991, she was out in the yard watering her flowers And tripped over a tree stump When she fell, She had a spinal contusion and was paralyzed My brother and sister and I flew down The morning of her surgery, She said, “All I want is to be able to get these back… Everything I do, I do with my hands, My sewing. My gardening, My cooking.” She had the surgery three days later She was sent to rehab

We worried about How far along her recovery she would be able to come Would she be able to walk again? Would she regain functioning? We never dreamed that maybe some of her Vital organs were stressed or Shutting down because of this

Three weeks later Sunday morning, I had just gotten home from church There was a message from dad “Mom has taken a turn for the worse and we have taken her to the hospital” I later found out She had been dead at that time But he wanted to tell us He didn’t want to leave a message He called back an hour later “Well this morning Jesus said, Sara, here’s your mother.”

I couldn’t believe it When a parent dies It’s like they’ve always been there, They are the people that know your whole life And love you unconditionally—especially when you have a good relationship I can’t believe she is not going to be there Shock I didn’t even have time to think at first It’s just,

Shock Then For a few days, You have to do what you have to do The funeral was going to be in Ohio And dad was in Florida There were a lot of calls back and forth

You wake up and For a second You think Life is normal and Then you realize And you wish That it were a dream Then you know it’s not Then there’s that pit feeling in your stomach When it comes back And you think OK This is real.

Funerals are hard in some ways But I also think that they are strengthening Because it’s a tribute to a life well-lived and We were supported by lots of family and friends, and Community and the church I have to mention the flowers Because the flowers were so important to Mom Stargazer lilies Bright pink roses Some blues and Yellows and whites mixed The arrangement was just perfect I gave the eulogy It meant a lot for me to be able to do that To just talk about her and say what a great person I thought she was That was kind of healing for me To publicly say how much I loved her

The night before Mother’s day The year that mom died I had my first dream:

We are having a family get together at our house. It isn’t fancy—I may have invited them to come down for dinner and everyone is here. Mom and I are in the kitchen and mom is standing

right in front of the microwave. I know that she is dead, but there she is in my kitchen. I say, “Oh, Mom!” and I go to put my arms around her but they go right through her. Then, she is gone.

This dream was so upsetting. It was so upsetting We got up that morning and went to church I couldn’t even tell my husband about it I was still upset about the dream when we were driving home from church. “I had this really awful dream about mom last night” and shared the dream with my husband “Well honey” he said “Your mother will never really be gone from you. So much of who you are is because of her… she has had more influence on who you are than anybody in the world, you’ll always carry that with you, she’ll never really be gone from you.” That was such a perfect thing for him to say

This dream helped me with the realization that She’s not here! Wanting her to be here and She’s not here.

Not long after I had that dream, I had another dream. I think of the second dream as a partner to the first dream because they were so much alike.

Again, everybody is at our house. This time, Mom came up to me and hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I could feel the kiss in my dream. I mean it wasn’t that I knew she kissed me, that I saw it or whatever, I felt it. That was a very peaceful dream. I really felt her presence there.

The dream felt so reassuring. It felt like Yes She is still here I might not be able to talk to her But she is still here

After the second dream I knew I had her love Her love was so real Not to be questioned It was so real and I have that. I have that and it will never be gone.

These dreams have also helped me to connect to my faith They verify for me that she is not really gone Maybe her body is not here anymore But I believe very much in her spirit I believe that God was letting Mom physically kiss me I don’t believe that death is the end That our life here is all that there is To me, the dreams are reassuring

I’ve had other dreams But they are normal kinds of dreams She and dad are just there

I did have one other dream that was funny My sister, my brother, and I decided we were going to have to clean up Some of the flower beds and work in the yard And so we went up to my parents’ house one weekend In the front of the house, mom had some flowers and hostas and things There was one plant that was growing really high. We were wondering Is this a flower or a weed? We didn’t want to pull it because we thought it could be some beautiful flower That none of us could remember

That night, I had a dream:

My mom’s voice was clear, as if she were sitting right next to me, and she said, “It’s a weed, you can pull it!”

So the next morning, on my way to work, I pulled in the driveway and Poooohf I pulled it up Because it was OK I knew for sure it was a weed

The year after my mom died I decided I was going to make a garden in my yard In her memory I put stargazer lilies Because she really liked those I put a pink rose bush I really like purple…so I’ve planted mostly pink, purple, and white I found this statue— A little cherub holding an open book with the quote, “See heaven in a wildflower and eternity in an hour”

I also found a little plaque that says “In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.” I just recently enlarged my garden—I made it twice as big There is a sundial in it that I had given my mom Mom would walk her gardens everyday

And I understand now When you’re a gardener Every day is different I think you appreciate when you garden That days are not all the same So much can change A flower that is just a bud one day Will be in bloom the next And if you don’t tend to your garden for a few weeks The weeds will take over Everyday really is precious and has something to offer If I don’t walk out in my garden today Then I might miss that lily when it blooms

There are many, many ways that I remember her and Feel connected to her She loved books I love books Cooking I love the recipes in her handwriting I collect teapots So I have the teapot that I had given her in a special place There is an antique dresser that had been in her family I have that now Recipes Flower Vases A couple clothing items Books Some books on flowers Her pie safe Pictures

So many of the things that you talk over and share I still miss that She never knew where my son went to college She never got to go to his graduations There was something very wonderful that happened in my life I was honored as the Woman of the Year in my town She would have been so proud and happy I wish that she could have been there to see her grandson graduate from college

I’d like to think that most of the those qualities I got from my parents— The wanting to help other people and Be of service for the community—because They were so much like that They were always helping at school Or at church And volunteering They were my role models.

Maybe it’s just my personality But I think it’s really important to let yourself think About the person And cry And miss them I know after Sara died, I had all these really nice cards and notes from people And I actually made a point of sitting down and reading those and having A good cry At first it was once a week, Then once a month for almost the first year I thought it was very cleansing for me

I think we get back to our daily lives We go back to work We go back to routines, But We’ve suffered a loss and It’s real and I think it’s OK to cry and to miss the people You’ve got to find a way to let the feelings come to the surface.

I still get out the eulogies that I wrote for each of my parents and I read those

This past fall, We had an auction That’s part of the recovery, the healing, the dispersing, the dividing up What we wanted and Dispersing their goods I said to my husband, “I just feel drained” “Well, today you saw the end of your parents’ home, so of course that is draining” That’s true You see their things go off With other people But that’s also part of the process It’s part of what needed to be done

There is an aunt Who was always close to my mom I had her and her gentleman friend for dinner She kept saying, “Oh, this is just like your mother!” the way I had set the table and the flowers To have her say that Was very healing To have someone who was a peer of my mom’s And who was very close to her say, “You are taking after your mom with her entertaining” That was healing

My mom She was just a very special person When I saw the sign that you had posted I guess the thing that struck me is Yes I have dreams about people who I loved Who have died I don’t mind talking about the people I loved I’m happy to talk about them Because to me that’s one of the ways that they’re still with me Those dreams—the companion dreams of my mom— To me they were significant because it was recognizing the loss The death And then the counter balance That there are things that live on and it’s important to hold on to the Essence of the person What they meant And your memories Those things will always be with you. Those things don’t die

Reflexive Analysis for: All I Ever Hope to Be, I Hope to Be My Mother Barbara’s affection and admiration for her mother was apparent throughout the stories she shared. While she talked about her sister and her mother during our conversations, she shared the stories of her sister to help give context to her experience of losing her mother. Both were significant deaths for her, with the loss of her mother emphasized in our conversations. It was clear that her relationship with her mother was one filled with respect, and that her mother served as a positive role model for her both with regard to how to live life and with how to grieve the loss of loved ones. Barbara was a participant who embraced her grieving experience as an

opportunity to remember and honor her loved ones, especially her mother. For her, grieving was about maintaining a connection to her mother by way of dreams, memories, reflections, carrying our her mother’s legacy, and sharing with her husband, family, and friends around what her mother meant to her. In her adaptation to bereavement, Barbara’s dreams served both a catalytic function, shifting her grieving in a new direction, and provided a space for a continuing bond with her mother. With the help of her dreams, she was able to engage in significant meaning making, benefit finding, and identity change following the death of her mother. Unlike Shelly’s family experience, where death and grieving were denied within the family context, Barbara’s family courageously embraced their bereavement experiences. Following the death of Barbara’s sister, they drew strength from each other and from their faith. Barbara’s parents served as positive role models for her and helped her learn how to grieve openly. With the death of her mother, Barbara could then take the lessons she learned from losing her sister and carry them with her as she grieved her mother. Following the death of her mother, Barbara tried to focus on what a great person her mother was and to honor her mother’s memory in whatever way she could. Her family, and especially her husband, was incredibly supportive for her. Although she faced her grieving process head-on, her family’s preparation and her faith in God could only take her so far in her grieving. It was her dreams that created a dramatic shift in her grieving process and propelled her into new and deeper embodied understanding of loss and grief. Her first dream of her mother, the night before Mother’s day, served a catalytic function in her grieving process. The dream was incredibly upsetting for her, but following the experience of the dream, she gained an embodied understanding that her mother was no longer here with her. The experience of the dream facilitated her letting go of her living, breathing mother in a way that she had been unable to do up until the experience of this dream. With the motion of going to hug her mother and feeling her arms go through her mother, she woke up feeling changed and feeling a deeper sense of loss. The dream felt devastating to her; but with her new understanding of her mother’s death, she then could open herself up to a healing continuing bond, forming a different continuing relationship with her deceased mother. Although the dream felt too upsetting to share initially, when she was able to talk to her husband and process the dream with him, she was able to put words to her bodily experience.

Not long after this catalytic dream, she had what she called a “companion dream” to her first dream. In her companion dream, the experience of the dream was incredibly moving for her. Feeling her mother’s presence in the dream and feeling her mother’s kiss on her cheek was life changing. For the first time since her mother’s death, she could feel her mother’s presence and feel intimately connected to her again. The dream felt reassuring to her and helped her feel a renewed sense of trust in her mother’s love. Following her companion dream, she had an embodied understanding that her mother’s love was real and that it would never be gone. Although the experience of the dream, in and of itself, was powerful for Barbara, she also processed her experience after the fact by thinking through how her experience in her dreams connected her to her faith, her belief in God, and her trust in an afterlife. In addition to her catalytic companion dreams, she talked about having “normal kinds of dreams” where her mother was present. These dreams have served a role in her ability to maintain a continuing bond with her mother by way of maintaining a sense of connection and feeling her mother’s presence in the dreams. One such dream was when she dreamt of her mother providing clarity about whether the plant in her garden was a flower or a weed. In this dream, Barbara was able to feel connected to her mother and appreciate her mother’s humor and directness. Not only did this dream allow her to feel connected to her mother, she also gained, through her dream experience, an embodied sense of knowing that the plant was a weed. Prior to the dream, she was thinking through with her siblings about what the plant could be. However, after the dream, she just knew on a deeper level that the plant was for sure a weed. The dream seemed to bring her down into her experience and connect her to a bodily as well as cognitive sense of knowing. In addition to her dreams, Barbara has maintained a connection with her mother in a variety of ways. Of most significance to Barbara is her connection to her mother by way of gardening. Gardening was a passion both Barbara and her mother shared and through gardening, Barbara has been able to honor her mother’s memory and feel deeply connected to her in the process. While gardening holds great importance in Barbara’s remembrance and connection to her mother, Barbara also feels connected to her mother through books and reading, and through recipes and cooking. Barbara cherishes her mother’s belongings and has chosen items of her mother’s to save that hold special meaning to her. Barbara also aims to live out the qualities in

her own life that she so admired in her mother. Doing so helps her feel a sense of pride and an ongoing connection to her mother. When reading the performative writing text I put together based on our conversations, Barbara talked about how reading the text brought tears to her eyes, but she believed the tears were in recognition of her love for her mother and sister. She believed I “captured [her] affection for them” and that her mother, especially, was “so very real in the text.” She believed the texts reflected her mother’s humor, her caring, and her talents. What was most striking to Barbara in reading her text was that she felt both intimately connected to the text, seeing her experience unfold, but also felt that in her reading of the text, she could be reading about someone else’s experience that was similar to hers. Prior to reading the text, she believed she would experience it in a “purely personal, emotional way,” but in reading the text, she found that her experiences became “both personal and universal” and this felt incredibly validating for her. She noted that “it was not sad to read the text, it was strengthening” knowing she had made it through that “terrible time.” Barbara’s story reinforced for me the significance and meaningfulness that can come directly from the dream experience, even when someone is so guided by their faith and feels supported by family and friends. Barbara’s belief in God and her faith helped her process and make sense of her dream enactments after the fact, but her experiences of the dreams were instrumental in her grieving process. Not only did they propel her grieving process forward, they enhanced the cognitive, intellectual understanding she had of her bereavement by way of her family’s influence and her strong faith in God.

The Big Trip

In high school I led an outwardly Pretty conventional life With some outbursts from time to time I wasn’t entirely preppy, But I didn’t have a lot of role models for pioneering I was much straighter, More conventional Coloring within the lines I was intellectual and private Never just picked up a backpack And hitchhiked half way across the state

To see a concert or an arts museum I would read all sorts of occult books and Science fiction But I didn’t have a buddy for those things That is Until I met Rob in 1965

Rob wasn’t a roommate, He was somebody that I met up with soon after college my freshman year and Spent lots and lots of time with Probably spent most of my spare time with He was from a rather different, more chaotic background in raising than me and That’s what made me interested in him He was a sort of pirate character and I was much tamer and From a well-ordered background myself He was from the Midwest, but he had a rocky start His parents were divorced His mother didn’t have a lot of money He was in foster care for a while and He dealt with this By becoming a very independent person

I became the shadow of this very colorful guy He had a girlfriend before I had a girlfriend He found somebody to supply us with pot Before I even thought of smoking a joint He was a kind of pioneer He was a sort of Don Quixote and I was his Sancho Panza He opened my life to a lot of things Helped me push back the boundaries of my thinking Just knowing him Talking to him Brainstorming with him Building things with him

We were best friends for most of freshman year and part of the next year too Which in college years are quite long It felt like a whole era of my life We would listen to the Rite of Spring over and over and over again The Ninth Symphony over and over and over again Simon and Garfunkel over and over and over again We would take the tape recorder and make strange light effects in the room Projecting lamps through bottles of liquid To make patterns on the ceiling We would talk about the coming dark ages

Post-nuclear life and how to survive How to live on nothing and We would fantasize about riding freight trains

He would skip classes so he could work on designing his Deck of Tarot cards He was working on a sort of post-modern deck of Tarot It was based on Pythagorean proportions and number theory A non-Euclidean post-modern Tarot He would come home from seminar at ten o’clock at night And go about improving, scraping, changing, and working on new drafts of the Tarot I didn’t quite push back the boundaries like he did, but I lived and reflected life from his pioneering eccentricity

I learned that There are actual boundaries out there and You can actually push on them. Unconventional ideas and pushing of the boundaries Can take a behavioral form Not just an ideational form He was living proof.

Thanksgiving of freshman year, Rob and I scrounge a ride to New York City. I have been to NYC briefly once or twice but never have taken a trip like this. We jet off by car to NYC with no money and no plans. Rob’s only “plan” is to spend Thanksgiving on the streets, bumming meals, and meeting whomever he can meet. I feel like we are jumping out of the airlock, big time. Late in the evening, we arrive in NYC and decide to head to Greenwich Village. We walk into a smoky, dimly lit coffeehouse and chat with some locals, sharing our story and letting it be known that we need a place to stay. We meet a young man who is a poet and a writer. There is mutual interest between him and Rob and me and we have an intense brow clutching existential conversation. Near closing, he says to us, “Well you can stay at my place.” Rob appears cool and relaxed, so I follow his lead. The poet lives only a few blocks from the coffeehouse, and we casually walk with him. He offers his floor to us to sleep on. Rob immediately passes out, but I lay awake, reflecting on the evening. Wow! How freeing! I have never done something like this before.

Most of our trips Were local and pharmacological Rather than geographical We took morning glory seeds together We took acid together The second year Got more druggy than the first year We would talk about conspiracy theory A post-apocalyptic, post-industrial world

Pyramid symbolism Geomagnetic currents, alignments, coincidences He loved patterns and we both talked about Pythagorean correspondences and Catalytic numbers and apocalyptic Word and letter magic

Here was somebody who would actually say stuff that I was thinking, out loud and develop a huge wall chart with correspondences and a flow diagram with circles and arrows.

He met a need for me at the time—an external expression of the transmundane impulses in my mind.

My sophomore year I think I began to mature more And focus more I realized that In order to join the world I was going to have to study more than I had been and I needed to do more than Have crazy ideas together with Rob

The main form of social interaction was still Getting together in the evening and smoking pot and studying But Rob didn’t study for very long. He would read astronomy for about an hour because it was full of things he loved But he drifted off to occult symbolism instead of the 200 pages of Greek or the 2 gospels that needed to be read He just wasn’t on the same wavelength as I was I drifted away from him.

College keeps you extremely busy if you’re doing your reading Which he wasn’t doing He was hanging out with his girlfriend I wasn’t seeing much of him

Spring of our sophomore year, I decide to visit Rob. I knock on his door and hear him yell, “Come in!” over the industrial music. Inside, his room is dark and has a Mad Max kind of ambiance, as I had remembered. I look over at his desk and see his tape-recorder still in its place with its casing off and its innards exposed. I look at Rob—see his big rangy, rough and ready self. He is wearing a shirt with cut-off sleeves, his hair is long, and he has a beard. “Man, it’s been a while,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting to see you—you’ve been gone for months,” he replies. “I’m sorry, I’ve missed you. I wanted to come see you,” I respond. “You’ve changed. You’re not the person I was friends with.” Not appreciating his brusque tone, I respond, “Well you’ve changed too! Maybe you should think about joining the rest of the world rather than living in

some fantasy.” “You’re just like everyone else—I thought you were different” he snaps back at me. We continue to verbally spar and my frustration grows. A cooling has obviously developed between us. In an effort to retreat from our arguing, I tell him I have to go. “See you around, man” I say, though I know our relationship has changed and will never be the way it was. We have different priorities now.

I didn’t see him for much of the remaining spring Other than in passing And even then We had a sort of cool “hello” At the end of that year, I left for the summer. I went with another friend to NY While we were there We got a call from a mutual friend He told us Rob had been killed

During the last weekend of school— The weekend between the end of school and commencement— Which I hadn’t stayed for because I wasn’t staying for commencement. Rob had been sitting on the ledge of his third floor, dormitory room, Almost nobody was still on campus, But he was there And a couple other people in the building He, like a lot of other people, took the screens out of his windows, Which you weren’t supposed to do, And he would sit and lean out the window Or sit on the wide windowsills of the dormitory Nobody really knows what happened, but He was found in the morning Dead on the ground Underneath the window

We were just devastated Everything came to a halt for me We were struck dumb by his death We sat around over the next day On and off talking about Rob and Remembering things about Rob and Speculating madly about how this could have happened Do you think he took his life? No, I can’t believe he would have done that I felt I had really blown it By drifting away from him That I missed out on opportunities to really know him better Because I got so preoccupied with other things over the course of the year

I felt guilt for his sake I had betrayed him By abandoning him I felt guilt for having missed out on him Having not been a part of his life when I could have

There had already been a sort of drug scandal. The faculty were very concerned that so many students were using pot and acid And issued all sorts of bulletins about how this was incompatible with rational inquiry. Some people had already been thrown out of school because they were using drugs. I was asked if I had been using. I was called in to the dean’s office, A lot of people had been, and There was this sort of inquisitorial thing, but This very mild-mannered dean Was not well equipped to be inquisitorial, I denied it. I said, “Well I know people do, I know people who do, but I don’t use drugs myself,” which was a lie, but I wanted to stay in school.

His death created a huge stir in the college. It created a purge— This time there was a much different inquisition Ten people were asked not to come back to school I got that call I was in California at that point. This was the summer of 1967 When everybody who was disaffected Was flocking to San Francisco and Berkeley. I had family in Berkeley so I was staying with them When I found out I couldn’t go back to school At first I was very upset and then I thought, Hey! That means I don’t have to go back to school! Well that’s kind of cool. I’ll get a job out here and we’ll just see. The whole world opened up for me again But first, I decided, I’m going to hitch hike around and be a hippy.

With only a backpack and a change of clothes, I decide to hit the road and hitch hike up and

down the Coastal One Highway. The road curves in and out of the cliff face and several strangers assist me along my way. This time I am on my own—Rob isn’t here to guide me. As night falls, my last ride drops me off just below Big Sur. The night is warm and clear, so I continue to hike along the winding road, looking for a suitable place to sleep for the night. The moon shines brightly and illuminates my path. I come to a bridge, which looks like a hospitable place to sleep for the night. I crawl under the bridge, which had a wide sandy area under it. Clearly others have had the same idea as me, because it is covered with graffiti, and there is a small cooking fire under there. I continue to explore my sleeping space and discover a sort of free store—the kind where if you need one, take one, if you have one, leave one, sort of thing. I find canned goods and drinking cups.

That night, I have a dream:

In the dream I am entering that same space, I am coming in from outside, as I had several hours before. But this time, there is a fire there. It is a small fire, the kind of fire you would light for one person, just as companionship or to have a little bright place where you’re camping. I remember the color of the fire very vividly—it is a sort of mellow fire-lit scene. And, sitting on the ground on the other side of the fire is Rob. His arms are resting on his knees, he is stoking the fire, and his eyes are quite big. He is wearing this old rotten leather jacket that he had actually stitched fake leopard skin to the collar of. The jacket is rubbed, shredded, and threadbare—if leather can be threadbare—with rubbed out places. It is so vividly him. And this is one of those dreams where you and the dream person are both aware that the other person is dead. I say, “Rob! You’re dead,” or “I thought you were dead.” And he nods and says, very wide-eyed, “Yeah, it’s a trip man, it’s a trip.” And the expression of awe on his face is more intense than anything in my life. This trip is something ultimate—he is just struck with it. It isn’t pleasure or pain; it is just (gasp) awe. It is very typical of him, this sort of expression, this sort of being struck with something cosmic and undeniable and ineluctable. It is very characteristic of him. He was always in search of experiences like that and would do dangerous things, seemingly dangerous things in order to be there, because that seemed like the sort of situation where you were ultimately moving out of your soul. That is the sort of expression he has on his face. He is very characteristic in the dream.

For him, this was a big step outside of the mundane. That is what we both understood by what he was saying, this is the big trip.

I don’t remember what went psychologically and emotionally through me when I woke up, but it is a dream that still stays with me. I remember what happened the next morning. I crawled out from under the bridge, and I looked down the slope and saw this kind of compound of buildings down there. I thought, this must be the Esalen Institute. I went down and tried to apply for a job, but they didn’t have any openings.

For me, the dream was a kind of renewal of a contact that preceded the cooling of the friendship. It sticks with me every time I think of Rob because it’s part of my experience of Rob—a sort of pure form of the friendship. It has the essence of the friendship in it.

The dream occurred when I was most doing, getting the closest to living the way he lived—just

rambling around, hitch hiking up and down the coast with no plan, no destination, just going out to see what was there and absorb experience. It makes sense that it would be there, under that bridge, under those circumstances, that I would reconnect with him.

Sometimes, now, I wonder what if I ran into Rob right now and he had a look at my life and what I’ve done with it? Would he think that my life was a big letdown—that I wasn’t building earth sculptures in the Andes somewhere or killing myself in an ultra light plane crash, doing something, somehow, more adventurous. For me, crazy ideas have gone back to the margins rather than the center of my life. They certainly serve as a seasoning for my clinical and academic work, but they’re not in the middle of it. I didn’t become a scholar of Renaissance Pythagoreanism. I think that would have been the thing to do. Or, scraping by on some tiny occult bookstore in Yellow Springs. Or, better yet, Prague. Or, founding a hermetic commune in Scotland. Something off the maps, something off the usual maps. I think Iceland would have been too mainstream.

Rob was certainly someone who was absolutely and naively true to his craziness. It was never, “Could I make a living doing this” or “How can I get people to approve of this,” or “How can I find a way to plug this into normal life.” He hardly had any part of him that was a part of normal life…

I wish I could say that at every turning point in life, I have a dream of Rob and then I know what to do, but no… I suspect he’s too busy for that.

When I think about Rob and about this dream, I can’t help but ask myself: Should I be truer to my own craziness than I am?

Reflexive Analysis for: The Big Trip “Should I be truer to my own craziness than I am?” such is the question that Jerry is left pondering some forty years after his friend’s unexpected death. For Jerry, his relationship with Rob connected him to a part of himself that he indulged his freshmen year of college and then later pulled away from. Jerry has not actively worked to stay connected to Rob since his death, but he has looked for ways to stay connected to the essence of what Rob offered him in their friendship. Jerry’s dream played a significant role in his grieving of Rob and has, to some extent, taken on a life of its own, where the experience of the dream, itself, stays with Jerry and is an inseparable part of his experience of Rob. As Jerry described his relationship with Rob in our conversations, it was clear that he and Rob shared an intimate friendship early on in Jerry’s college career and that Rob helped Jerry access a part of him that had been dormant for Jerry prior to college. Jerry recognized the differences between his and Rob’s upbringing and admired Rob’s approach to and philosophy for life. Although Jerry only knew Rob for a couple years, he felt as through he knew Rob for an

“era of [his] life,” given the intensity of the time they spent together their freshman year. Through his relationship with Rob, Jerry learned that he could push boundaries and take adventures. Although Rob helped Jerry feel alive in a way he had not experienced before, Jerry pulled away from Rob as he progressed in his college career, but not without some regret and nostalgia over what he and Rob had shared. When Jerry learned of Rob’s death, he was devastated, with feelings of guilt and regret about having withdrawn from Rob. With Rob’s death came a literal and figurative death of Jerry’s connection to his “crazy” part of himself. Following the news of Rob’s death, Jerry felt the impulse to reconnect to the adventurous part of himself—a part that he had previously abandoned along with his friendship with Rob. In his return to adventure, he departed for a trip that was characteristic of Rob; but Rob’s living, breathing presence was absent. In his effort to reconnect on an experiential level to what his friendship with Rob had offered him, he had a powerful dream. The experience of the dream allowed him to reconnect to the essence of Rob and what Jerry experienced as a “pure form of the friendship.” He woke up from the dream feeling a renewed contact with Rob and a renewed connection to the friendship he and Rob shared before their parting of ways. The experience of the dream was so powerful for him, that whenever he remembers Rob now, he is reminded of his dream. Although the essence of what Rob’s friendship offered Jerry is not a focus of his life, he often looks to “season” his work with the qualities of life that Rob and his dream of Rob exposed him to. The continuing bond that Jerry nurtures with Rob is one that connects him to his own “craziness.” He can reflect on his own life and wonder what Rob would think of the decisions he has made for himself. For Jerry, Rob was someone who was “naively true” to his craziness and in that sense, Jerry has looked for ways to incorporate Rob’s philosophy of life into his own. Jerry’s dream seems to be less dramatic and more subtle in its influence, having offered him seasoning, spice, coloring, aroma, and a small taste of the unconventional. When presenting the performative writing text back to Jerry for his feedback and reactions, he felt the tone was right but he was surprised by the language he had used during our conversations. When asked what it was like for him to read the text, he stated: I can only say that it was like those odd moments when you unexpectedly see your reflection and don't immediately recognize yourself but see yourself as other, and bring to

bear all your categories for judging others: "a pudgy red-faced old man" etc - until yikes! you realize it's just you . . . He went on to say: I knew the objective image was deliberately constructed/distorted by a third party (you) and so I found myself feeling a moment of resentment or blame at the perceived flaws in the narrative: "Surely I couldn't have worded it so crudely" or whatever. Until - yikes! - I realized that those were in fact my words. That's when I told you that the tone was in fact right, warts and all. Jerry felt as though his “raw” data had been exposed without him having the opportunity to rework his thoughts for “conscious consumption.” Reading the performative writing text made him realize that, “our personal narratives use a subjective language that we don't usually look at critically.” There was a way in which reading the text, was eye-opening for him. In our conversations, he moved into a sort of stream of consciousness mode without monitoring how his stories might be interpreted. My interpretation of his stories was somewhat difficult for him to digest. In thinking of the theme I saw in his story—a questioning of whether he should be truer to his craziness than he is—I can not help but wonder whether having that question highlighted for him brought on a deeper level of questioning and assessment of his life. I was struck by Jerry’s reaction and was reminded of the importance of my taking ownership over the interpretations of the performative writing texts. Unlike other participants who willingly embraced the texts and took a feeling of ownership of the texts, Jerry’s knee-jerk reaction was to reject my interpretation. Only with further thought and reflection was he able to take in my interpretation of his experience and reflect on his experience in a different way. What also stood out to me in Jerry’s stories was the way in which his dream took on a life of its own. For Jerry, his dream connected him to the essence of his friendship with Rob, and the dream, in and of itself, became a companion. Now, whenever he remembers Rob, the dream is closely connected to his memories and his experience of his relationship. The dream is not only a connection to Rob, but also connects him to his final unbridled adventure. Discussion This collection of performative writing pieces provided opportunities for readers to become immersed in the experiences of the participants, for the purpose of gaining new and different perspectives on grieving. The accounts give special attention to ways dreams can play

a role in the grieving process. Though these are only five of countless stories of the various paths grief can take and the various roles the imaginal space of dreams can play in maintaining our connections to those who have died, this collection of performative writing texts highlights the powerful influence dreams can have on an individual’s adaptation to bereavement. For these participants, the imaginal space of dreams seemed to be functioning in at least one of four different ways: 1) Serving a catalytic function, bringing about dramatic change for the survivor 2) Mitigating against denial and numbness, keeping the grieving process alive 3) Providing nostalgic seasoning to the survivor’s grieving experience, and/or 4) Nurturing continuing bonds with deceased loved ones. This collection of stories also suggests that cognitive processing of grief only takes individuals so far in their grieving processes. An embodied knowing, which can be enhanced through various dream experiences, is crucial for moving an individual’s grieving process forward. Bringing the “body” into the model of meaning reconstruction In an individualistic culture where there is an emphasis on more abbreviated grieving rituals and a pressure to get back to school/work/life, there is a danger for the grieving process to become overly cognitive/intellectual. This collection of stories suggests that thinking through the death of a loved one can only take the grieving process so far. What is crucial for the process of grieving, yet missing from the model of meaning reconstruction, is that individuals must enhance their conceptual-propositional meaning-making with an embodied sense of knowing. Johnson (2007) argues that meaning is grounded in our bodily experiences and that “our bodies are the very condition of our meaning-making and creativity” (p.15). This collection of stories highlights the importance of embodied knowing as opposed to purely cognitive informational processing knowing. As Johnson (2007) writes, “Meaning traffics in patterns, images, qualities, feelings, and eventually concepts and propositions” (p. 9). When we make sense of our experiences in an embodied way, we “release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence renew and rejuvenate one’s felt awareness of the world” (Abram, 1996, p. 265). Moreover, this collection of stories shows how dreams can play a crucial role in opening individuals up to an embodied sense of knowing. Consistent with a Dionysian logic for dreams, the experienc e of the dream enactment was of most significance for each participant. Although

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the function of the dream experience (e.g., catalytic, mitigating against numbness, nostalgic seasoning, and/or continuing bond) varied from participant to participant, the greatest meaningfulness for participants came with the dream experience itself. The participants may have made later cognitive/propositional/conceptual interpretations, but the dream experiences themselves carried their own significance for the survivors. With a deeper embodied sense of knowing, individuals were in a better position to make sense of their loss, find benefits from their loss, and experience posttraumatic growth. This collection of accounts also suggests that, given the power of the dream experience , much power and meaning can be lost when individuals take an interpretive approach to understanding dreams. Knudson (2006), following Hunt (1989), argues for the understanding of dreams’ presentational rather than representational symbolism. He argues that if the “interpretive impulse” can be postponed, then dreams have the potential to animate individuals’ experiences (Knudson, 2006, p. 50, see also Hillman & McLean, 1997). Moreover, Knudson (2006) argues for the renewed attention to “embodiment, engagement, and experiential immersion in dreams” (p. 50). Consistent with Knudson’s (2006) argument, these accounts suggest that the greatest meaningfulness in dreams comes from the experience of the dream. Through the experience of the scene and enactments in their dreams, survivors—in particular Laura, Barbara, and Audrey—were able to gain an embodied understanding of their grief and experience a dramatic change in the grieving process. While each of them placed interpretations on the dream after the fact, their interpretations would have only taken them so far without the experiential revelations that came from their dream experiences. A Dionysian logic for understanding bereavement dreams as catalytic Based on a Dionysian logic for understanding dreams, dreams have the potential to shift our perspectives on events and to help us start to imagine, to go deeper, and to question our understandings of ourselves. As previously stated, dreams allow us to “express the turbulent emotions, work through the confusion, heal the psychic wounds, and creatively envision new possibilities for meaning and order in the world” (Bulkeley, 2003, p. x). Dreams do not give us messages for where we are going with our lives or who we will become. Rather, in the drama of our dreams, our issues are brought more vividly and more poignantly to life for us. Through the experiential immersion in the drama of our dreams, dreams present us with opportunities to imaginally play with and explore the multiple dimensions of our issues and

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conflicts. In the drama presented to us in our dreams, “masks, disguises, and doubleness inherently belong” and, from a Dionysian logic, dreams are understood metaphorically, dramatically, and theatrically (Hillman, 1983, p. 35). The dream becomes an imaginal space for individuals to enter into the drama, to wear different masks, and to play with different roles. Each role provides opportunities to play with the issues that are most salient for the dreamer at the particular time of the dream. We have the potential to experience the power of the dream when we can witness the scene of the dream as a whole and participate in it as actor of the drama. In the presentation of the imaginal drama in our dreams, we also are presented with critiques of the ego. Thus, according to a Dionysian logic for dreams, dreams show us where we are through drama, present us with opportunities to play with multiple roles, and enliven our issues so that we may have an embodied understanding of our conflicts. Three of the participants in this study experienced their dreams as catalytic. The experience of their dreams was so powerful for them that upon waking they reported that their grieving processes were moved along to new, different, and arguably better places. For example, Laura’s experience of her dream with her husband presented her with the opportunity to be present with her dream husband in an imaginal space and to experience him being angry with her like she had never experienced before. Her immersion in the dream scene was instrumental in the dramatic change she experienced in her grieving process, particularly in her embodied acceptance of his death. Similarly, Audrey’s experience of her dream scene where dream Audrey experienced her mother as talking to her in an exasperated tone struck such a chord with Audrey that she awoke with a deeper realization that her mother was OK, but that she was the one who needed to move forward in her grieving process. Finally, Barbara, too, experienced her companion dreams of her mother as catalytic. In her first dream, the dream scene was familiar to her, but the enactment of trying to hug her mother and feeling her mother disappear felt devastating to her. Upon waking, this dream was absolutely heartbreaking for her and Barbara experienced a deep sense of loss. Not long after her first dream, she had what she called her companion dream. Again, the scene was familiar, but the enactment was strikingly different in the end than in her first dream. In her companion dream, she could feel her mother’s kiss. The experience of this dream scene was incredibly healing and powerful for Barbara because, for the first time, she felt reconnected to her mother and, following this dream, she had a new more enduring trust in her mother’s love.

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Specific to the model of meaning reconstruction, catalytic dreams were instrumental in facilitating Laura’s, Audrey’s, and Barbara’s ability to make meaning out of their experiences and to experience posttraumatic growth following the death of their loved ones. Their catalytic dreams generated profound differences in their understandings of their losses and pushed their grieving forward in ways that they had been unable to accomplish prior to having their catalytic dreams. Consistent with Knudson’s (2001, 2003, & 2006) research on significant dreams, the experience of these participants upon waking from their dreams was one of having experienced a revelation. While Laura and Barbara added to their dream experiences some interpretations after the fact, the catalytic dream experiences themselves led these women to wake up with embodied understandings that something had changed for them and served as an inspiration for the survivors to re-position themselves relative to their previous experiences of bereavement (Knudson, Adame, and Finocan, 2006). A Dionysian logic for understanding how dreams keep the grieving process alive In addition to the catalytic roles dreams played for participants, Shelly’s experience suggested dreams can serve the role of keeping the grieving process alive when the individual, familial, and cultural context promotes a denial of death. A Dionysian logic for understanding dreams suggests that dreams open us up to our struggles and show us where we are through drama. In Shelly’s case, her dreams showed her where she was, in many ways stuck in her grieving process, and forced her ego perspective to face the fact that her struggles around the deaths were still alive for her. Granted Shelly’s experience provided only one possible expression of the role of nightmares in an individual’s grieving process, but her story suggested that dreams encourage an acknowledgement of death and a working through of one’s grief. While in her cognitive process she worked hard to become numb to the deaths, her dreams continually brought her struggles across the numbness barriers she had consciously tried to put up to protect herself. Her dreams haunted her with opportunities to become experientially absorbed in enactments of her key conflicts related to the deaths. Shelly’s unpleasant experiences with her dreams suggest that dreams should not be ignored but instead faced honestly and openly. Shelly had incredible pain and sorrow around the deaths of her father and her grandfather. Numbing herself to the experience was not the answer, as it seemed to keep her stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns—especially with men. The

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dreams were awful, but they seemed to be showing Shelly where she was in her grieving process, presenting her with her pain and unresolved issues around the deaths. A Dionysian logic for understanding dreams as seasoning for life Based on Jerry’s bereavement experience, dreams also have the potential to be more subtle, yet poignant, in their influence on a survivor’s life. From a Dionysian logic for understanding dreams, dreams have the potential to provide dramas that individuals may later enact in life. Moreover, dreams provide opportunities for play and a space for exploring roles that reflect the issues and struggles that are most salient for us. Jerry’s story illustrates how enactments in dreams can provide a nostalgic seasoning to a survivor’s experience. Jerry’s dream provided him with the opportunity to re-experience the unconventional qualities he so cherished in his relationship with Rob. The dream was powerful in the return it offered him to the essence of his friendship and to the feeling of having a renewed contact with his friend. It was as if Jerry’s dream offered him a resolution on the ending of their friendship and the kind of connection he would have wished for at the time of Rob’s death. His dream offered him a space where dream Jerry was able to play out an interaction with his friend Rob that Jerry had been yearning for. Decades later, Jerry’s dream experience of Rob was so powerful for him that it remained closely connected to his memories of Rob. Jerry did not separate his experience of the friendship from the experience he had in his dream. Thus, Jerry’s dream served the purpose of enhancing his memory of Rob. Continuing bond theory and dreams Continuing bond theory suggests that rather than severing connections with deceased loved ones, maintaining relationships with deceased loved ones can be adaptive for bereavement. Although numerous researchers have focused their attention on understanding continuing bonds with deceased loved ones (Boelen, Stroebe, Schut, & Zijerveld, 2006; Field, 2006a, 2006b; Field & Friedrichs, 2004; Field, Gal-Oz, & Bonanno, 2003; Field, Gao, & Paderna, 2005; Klass, 2006; Klass, Silverman, & Nickman, 1996; Neimeyer, Baldwin, & Gillies, 2006; Packman, Horsley, Davies, & Kramer, 2006; Reisman, 2001; Schuchter & Zisook, 1988; Stroebe & Schut, 2005; Strut, Stroebe, Boelen, & Zijerveld, 2006), and continuing bond theory research has elaborated on the ways in which individuals can stay connected with the deceased (Field, Nichols, Holen, & Horowitz, 1999; Jozefowski, 1999; Klass & Goss, 1999; Rando, 1993; Vickio, 1999), only Silverman and Nickman (1996) and Schucter and Zisook (1988) make any mention of dreams.

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Silverman and Nickman (1996) mention dreams as a source of continuing bonds; however, they only list dreams as a possible avenue for survivors to connect with the deceased, without going into any discussion of how dreams facilitate continuing bonds. Schucter and Zisook (1988) give more attention to the role dreams can play for the bereaved, with a focus on the experience of widows. They claim that dreams can be a source of wish fulfillment for the survivor, depict a scene from the couples’ life together, contain explanations of where the deceased has been if there is some suggestion of absence, and that a series of dreams may occur with a coming and going of the deceased. Schucter and Zisook (1988) argue that dreams serve a “powerful retrieval function” leaving the survivor to “awaken with a false sense of security” until reality “reasserts itself” leading to a “renewed sense of loss” (p. 277). While Schucter and Zisook (1988) hypothesize that relationships with deceased spouses are maintained, their position is more suggestive of a separation with the spouse than that of a continuing bond. Moreover, their interpretation neglects to acknowledge how dreams can promote a more realistic acceptance that the person is really dead, and fails to honor that dreams can lead to deeper more meaningful connections with deceased loved ones. Although Schucter and Zisook (1988) and Silverman and Nickman (1996) acknowledge that dreams may serve as a source for continuing bonds, how dreams provide a space for continuing bonds is a key piece of information missing from the continuing bond theory literature. Not only are dreams neglected within the continuing bond theory literature, research on imagination and imaginal process has been limited at best. With regard to imagination and continuing bond theory, research has acknowledged that “hallucinations” and “illusions” over the course of the first year following the death of a loved one is common (Field, Gao, & Paderna, 2005), has noted that survivors often have a sense of the deceased loved one’s presence (Conant, 1996; Datson & Marwit, 1997; Field et al., 2005; Packman et al., 2006), and has indicated that survivors sometimes believe the deceased loved one is in heaven (Norman, Silverman, & Nickman, 1996). However, only one study in the continuing bond theory literature addressed how imagery, memory experiences, and a sense of presence may play a role in the grief process (Conant, 1996). More specifically, Conant (1996) interviewed ten widows who had experienced the sudden death of their partners. The focus of the interviews was on understanding the imagery, memory experiences, and sense of presence that the widows experienced following the death of

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their husbands. Through what Conant (1996) termed a “composite vignette,” she illustrated the course of grief for these women, elaborating on certain aspects of imagery and experience in her account of their grieving processes. Conant (1996) viewed one goal of her project being that of seeking out patterns in need of further exploration. She noted that the sense of presence felt by these women seemed to be providing: “a space of inner safety of which to acknowledge a disturbing reality,” “transformative experiences that altered self-esteem,” and “representation of the past relationships to guide them and encourage them in their present lives” (Conant, 1996, p. 181). Conant (1996) argued that feeling a sense of presence represented positive coping and, as such, need not be seen as a symptom of anything. While Conant’s (1996) work offered a refreshing perspective to continuing bond theory by opening the theory up to the role of imagination, and in particular to the survivors’ felt sense of their deceased loved ones’ presence, her study makes no mention of dreams. Expanding upon Conant’s (1996) work, the collection of adaptation to bereavement stories in the current project illustrated how imagination, with a special focus on dreams, can play a role in the development of a continuing bond with deceased loved ones. While not exhaustive, these accounts suggest that dreams can offer an imaginal space for continuing bonds with deceased loved ones. Moreover, this collection of accounts suggests that dreams have the power to create a dramatic shift in the survivors’ grieving process, opening survivors up to the possibility of maintaining healthy continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones. What was most powerful for the participants in this study—especially Laura, Audrey, and Barbara—were their feelings of re-connection to their deceased loved ones in and following their dreams. For Laura, her dreams provided a space where she could have a conversation with, think through something with, or talk with her husband. For Audrey, who was faced with several difficult experiences following her mother’s death, her mother’s continued presence in her dreams provided her with feelings of comfort, companionship, reassurance, and a sense of closeness to her mother. Similar to the influence the felt sense of presence had on the participants in Conant’s (1996) study, Audrey, Laura, and Barbara’s dreams of their deceased loved ones helped them to feel safe in the face of their new realities without their deceased loved ones, to foster their self-esteem by way of feeling supported and connected to their deceased loved ones, and, especially in Audrey’s experience, to offer guidance and encouragement.

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Consistent with a Dionysian logic for dreams, the greatest meaningfulness of these dreams came from the experience of the dream enactments. A Dionysian logic for dreams suggests that dreams provide an opening to show us the issues that are afoot for us and to provide opportunities for play and for the enactment of different roles. Through enacting and playing with different roles in our dreams, survivors have the potential to work through their current struggles and difficulties. Audrey, Barbara, and Laura’s experiences suggest that the opportunity to experience feelings of re-connection to their deceased loved ones and to enact their relational roles with their deceased loved ones felt healing for them. In the imaginal opening their dreams provided, they were able to work through their current struggles and gain new perspectives on their life situations. Although Audrey, Barbara, and Laura welcomed their dream enactments where their deceased loved ones were present, Shelly was haunted by the continued bonds she experienced in her dreams. For Shelly, her dreams showed her the issues she had tried so hard to consciously numb herself to. Her dreams also seemed to provide opportunities for her to play with the conflictual dynamics and feelings of guilt she had experienced with regard to her relationship with her father and grandfather. Shelly’s attempts to deny her experience may have worked for her in the short term, immediately following the deaths; but, in the long term, her denial was detrimental to her ability to integrate the losses. Despite Shelly’s attempts to deny and ignore her experience of the deaths, her dreams have kept her relational issues alive for her. Moreover, the quality of her waking life attachments with her father and grandfather seemed to get continuously played out in her dream enactments. Through Audrey’s, Barbara’s, and Laura’s welcoming of their dreams, they were able to work through their struggles and gain new perspectives on their experiences. Shelly, on the other hand, reportedly tried to forget her dreams and close herself off from her dream experiences, and this may have led her to remain stuck in her grieving process. Granted her dreams were difficult for her and often unpleasant to experience; but in her efforts to forget and deny the imaginal experiences being presented to her, she may have prevented herself from being able to fully work through her issues related to the deaths. In addition to dreams providing an imaginal space for continuing bonds, dreams have the power to dramatically shift individuals’ grieving processes, helping them reach deeper embodied understandings that their deceased loved ones are gone. Field (2006a, 2006b) argues that a

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continuing bond with the deceased is healthy only when survivors have accepted the death of their loved ones and the reality that there has been an end to the physical attachment to the deceased. Moreover, Field (2006a, 2006b) argues that individuals must integrate new meaning from their losses in order to be in a position to maintain healthy continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones. The accounts in the current study suggested that dreams can play a significant role in helping individuals develop healthy continuing bonds with their deceased loved ones. For Audrey, Barbara, and Laura, they were unable to fully accept that their loved ones were dead and they ached for the return of their loved ones’ physical presence prior to their catalytic dream experiences. Following their catalytic dreams, there was a dramatic shift in their grieving processes where they were able to more fully integrate the finality of their deceased loved ones’ deaths and have an embodied acceptance of the deaths. Given the importance of accepting the finality of the death and of integrating the loss in order for a continuing bond to be healthy, dreams have the potential to play a significant role in facilitating healthy continuing bonds with the deceased. In sum, dreams can play a significant role in the development of continuing bonds with the deceased. The imaginal space of dreams provides one avenue for the survivor to feel reconnected to the deceased and to gain new perspective on their experiences through their dream enactments. Not only do the dream enactments, themselves, serve the development and maintenance of continuing bonds with the deceased, dreams also have the potential to help with individuals’ readiness for maintaining healthy continuing bonds. Based on Conant’s (1996) research on imagery and the felt presence of the deceased and on the current study’s accounts of the role of dreams in the development of continuing bonds, imagination and dreaming are important for more fully understanding how continuing bonds are formed with deceased and what roles continuing bonds may have. The role of dreams in a “Get over it and get on with your life” world American culture seems to portray grief as something that survivors get over quickly and there is a value placed on individuals returning to work as soon as possible. In this “get over it and get on with your life” world, there is little time for reflection on the experience of losing a loved one. With little time for reflection, there is a danger in the grieving process remaining in an overly cognitive place, as individuals attempt to deny their feelings of grief and get back to work. While cognitively individuals can reason through and make rational sense of their losses,

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their acceptance of the loss and integration of the death can only go so far without an embodied sense of knowing the loved one is physically gone. These accounts suggest the need for ongoing reflection of the grieving process that can bring us out of our overly cognitive way of living. Only by bringing the body into the knowing experience can individuals experience a more integrated and full sense of knowing and living in the world. Moreover, in a culture where there is a general disregard for dreams and/or an attitude that tends to trivialize them, this collection of stories suggests that individuals can miss out on potential richness and embodied knowing that can come from an openness to dream experiences if their dreams are not attended to. Unfortunately, in American culture, even if individuals are interested in their dreams and/or their dreams force themselves on their waking consciousness, there are very few resources to deal with or talk about dreams. While this collection of stories presents only five possible expressions of dreams as potential resources for individuals’ grieving processes, and do not exhaust the range of possibilities, this collection of stories does show how attending to dreams following the death of a loved one can serve individuals in multiple ways. Given the powerful influence dreams had on the grieving process presented in this study, dreams are an important, yet often neglected, part of individuals’ experiences. Moreover, this collection of dream stories could serve to educate American culture on the powerful, and often positive, role dreams can play in individuals’ lives. Performative writing and bereavement dream research Performance based approaches have the unique ability to compellingly present participants’ subjective experiences. Consistent with the influence dreams can have on a survivor’s meaning making process, this collection of accounts illustrated how performance based approaches pursue meaning-making of a phenomenon in its deepest, aesthetic fullness. As stated earlier in this document, performative writing, like a dream, is an enactment that “evokes worlds that are other-wise intangible, unlocatable: worlds of memory, pleasure, sensation, imagination, affect, and in-sight” (Pollack, 1998, p. 80). Performative writing animates a knowing felt in the body; and by recognizing what the body feels and senses during/following a peformative writing text, we have a better sense of knowing what matters (Pelias, 2005). While the power of these texts for readers remains to be seen, the process of co-constructing these performative writing pieces moved the participants and me, as the researcher, in unexpected and profound ways.

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There are other stories that could be imagined based on these participants’ grieving processes, but this collection of performative writing pieces emerged from the conversations I had with participants at a particular time and place in their as well as my own grieving process. Richardson and Pierre (2005) argue that ethnographic projects are “always filtered through human eyes and human perceptions, and bearing both the limitations and the strengths of human feelings” (p.964). Moreover, they write that “Postmodernism claims that writing is always partial, local, and situational and that our selves are always present no matter how hard we try to suppress them” (p.962). For the reader to more fully understand the construction and presentation of these performative writing texts, I must share my “research story” (Richardson & Pierre, 2005). Following the proposal of the project, but prior to collecting my data, I experienced the sudden death of my father. With great care and thought, and with consultation from trusted faculty advisors, I decided to move forward with the project. I believed that my new position as an “inside researcher” would help me to understand my participants’ experiences on a deeper level (Vickers, 2002), and that the project might play a role in my own healing. Beginning about seven months after my own loss, the interviews with my participants started. The interviews were at times difficult for me, but I was able to monitor and contain my own feelings so that I could delve into and understand on an emotional level what my participants’ experiences had been like for them. I found that having access to my own grief allowed me to know what clarifying questions needed to be asked in a way that I do not believe I would have known otherwise. Shortly following the data collection, I was moving toward the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. Work and grad school responsibilities offered a convenient excuse for me to take a break from my dissertation at that time. When I made the decision to actively work on the dissertation again, I then experienced a kind of stuckness and writer’s block. I spent time reading and re-reading the transcribed texts, but I could not figure out how to best present the experiences of my participants. At that time, I continued to read through the transcripts; but I also started reading novels, hoping that doing so would put me in more of a creative mind space. As I continued in this manner for several weeks, one night I had a dream in which my father was present. While I could go into detail about the dream and the multiple meanings the dream experience had for me, what was most significant

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for me was that I woke up from the dream feeling inspired to start writing and working on the performative writing texts. In writing each of the texts, I needed to move down into the sadness and be willing to access and open myself up to the feelings I experienced with each of my participants. While each of my participants’ experiences was unique and different from my own, I was able to empathically relate to their emotional experiences and then worked to translate the feelings our conversations evoked in me into the performative writing texts. By accessing my own grief feelings, I could get in touch with my participants’ experiences as I wrote each text. I believe that my grieving process moved forward with each text I wrote. What was also fascinating for me is that at times when I would be fully engaged with writing for my dissertation, I would have bursts of “dad dreams.” The writing of the texts and of my dissertation has, in a sense, seemed to awaken my imaginal world and, in turn, writing and working on my dissertation has been profoundly healing for me. Given the somewhat drawn out writing process, a good deal of time passed before I was ready to bring the performative writing texts back to my participants. For all participants, it had been a year to a year and a half since our original interviews had taken place. I was curious to learn of their reactions, especially given the time that had elapsed. The purpose of bringing the pieces back to the participants was to provide an opportunity for further reflection, and I hoped that through my conversations with participants about their reactions that both my participants’ and my own understanding of their adaptation to bereavement would be deepened. In particular, my conversation with Laura about her response to the text significantly enhanced my understanding of the power performative writing texts can have for the participant whose experience the interpretation is based on. Her idea of the “externalization” of experience resonated with me. Barbara, too, made comments suggestive of the idea of externalization. Barbara had indicated that following the death of her mother, she turned to novels and books depicting grief. She found that in reading other individuals’ stories, she could better understand her own. When Barbara read the performative writing text based on our conversations, she experienced the text as both personal and universal. She explained how reading the text felt like she was reading about someone else’s experience who had gone through the exact same thing as she did. Performative writing texts not only validate the participants’ experiences, they bring the experience outside of the participants to a safe external place. On some level, performative

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writing texts legitimize the participants’ stories and validate their pain, turmoil, and idiosyncratic experiences. My writing of the texts, my participants’ reading of them, and the feedback process for the texts allowed for a Dionysian sort of healing for both participants and myself to occur. For me, the opportunity to enter into the drama of each participant’s story, to play with different roles, to construct different scenes based on the conversations I had with participants, and to experience different emotions was profoundly healing. By constructing dramatic, playful, poetic texts, I could access and play with my own emotional responses to my participants’ experiences with the goal of creating texts that would allow for future readers to become vicariously immersed in the grief experiences of my participants. For my participants, reading through the texts based on my conversations with them evoked in them a dream-like experience. They could access their imaginations and participate in the drama of the texts as witness and as actor of them. Performative writing texts have the unique potential to make significant contributions to the understanding of significant life experiences for potential audiences, for the participants, and for the researchers. Specific to grieving processes and to dreams, narrative inquiry and the presentation of these accounts using performative writing texts provided depth to the understanding of the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement and opened the reader up to the complexity and nuances of the participants’ experiences. As previously argued by Knudson and Minier (1999), Knudson (2001; 2003; 2006), and Bulkeley (2009), narrative methods are essential for appreciating the power of significant dreams. As such, this project offered one such attempt at evoking an embodied understanding of the phenomenon of dreams and grieving. While this study opens the door to presenting some of the multiple ways dreams play a role in the grieving process, this study presented only five possible expressions of the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement. This collection of accounts invites readers to understand the role of dreams in the adaptation to bereavement in an embodied way; however, further narrative work should explore areas such as: nightmares, different types of relationships to lost loved ones (mother, father, child, sibling, spouse, etc.), different types of attachment styles to the lost loved ones, different developmental stages of the survivor, and survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder. Each of these areas has the potential to influence the experiential quality of the dream and an individual’s adaptation to bereavement. With these added stories,

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there would be further opportunities for embodied understandings of knowing and further depth and breadth could be added to our understanding of grieving processes.

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Appendix A Dreams and Mourning

Have you survived the death of a loved one? Have you noticed any dreams where your loved one has returned or you know the dream is related to your grief?

If so, I am very interested in having you share your story with me for the purposes of my dissertation on the “Healing Fictions of Dreams.” All participation is strictly voluntary and all individuals must be at least 18 years old to participate. Interested individuals will be invited to participate in conversations with me where I will ask you to talk about how you have mourned your loved one and have you describe the ways in which dreams supported the process.

For more information, please contact Gillian Finocan, M.A. at: [email protected] or (513) 529-8735

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Appendix B

Informed Consent for Participation

STUDY TITLE: The Healing Fictions of Dreams: A Performative Writing Approach to Presenting Recovery from Death of a Loved One

PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR: Gillian Finocan, M.A.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ways in which dreams contribute to the healing/mourning of the death of a loved one.

By consenting to participate in this study, the participants agree to share with the researcher their mourning experiences, including relevant stories and dreams. At no time are participants required to disclose information they do not wish to reveal. Participants are free to end the interview at any time for any reason and participation is strictly voluntary. All participants must be at least 18 years old to participate.

The interviews are expected to take between 1 to 2 hours each and participants may be interviewed over the course of several meetings depending on time constraints and the amount of information shared at each meeting. All interviews will be audio-taped. If at any time during the interview the participant would like the interviewer to turn off the recording device they are free to do so. The interviews will be audio-taped and later transcribed so that the information shared can be used by the principal investigator. Participants’ names will not be associated with this information at any point in the research process and any identifying information that participants mention will be removed. The names of participants will be kept in a separate, locked file from the locked file containing the interview materials. The only other persons who will have access to the transcripts are the principle investigator’s faculty advisor, and members of the principle investigator’s research team.

If participants have questions about the study at any time, they are invited to contact either Gillian Finocan by phone at (513) 529-8735 or by email at [email protected] or Roger Knudson by phone at (513) 529-2404 or by email at [email protected]. If participants have a question regarding rights of research participants, they may contact the Miami University Office for Advancement of Research and Scholarship at (513) 529-3734.

I have read and understand the above information and I agree to participate.

I give my permission for the researcher to quote from the interview responses I contribute, verbatim, in part, or in whole in any reports of this research (including papers presented at professional conferences, articles in professional journals, or book chapters). I am free to withdraw this consent at any time for any reason. There is no penalty associated with withdrawing this consent.

Signature of Participant Date

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Appendix C Debriefing Form

STUDY TITLE: The Healing Fictions of Dreams: A Performative Writing Approach to Presenting Recovery from Death of a Loved One

PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR: Gillian Finocan, M.A.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: The purpose of this study is to explore how dreams contribute to mourning experiences following the death of a loved one. Through conversations with individuals who have had these mourning experiences, I plan to present their experiences using what is called performative writing—a form of writing that creatively presents a participant’s experience by way of short stories, poetry, letters, diary entries, etc. The purpose of using such a writing approach is to evoke an experience for the reader and to help the reader gain an empathic understanding of the experiences.

The study’s aims are: First is to create performative writing pieces that evoke experiences in readers, giving them an empathic understanding of the participants’ experiences. Second is to show how dreams contribute to the mourning process. This may include showing how dreams help individuals make sense of the death and how dreams mark key experiences in the mourning process.

For further readings and resources on the topics of mourning and dreams, please see the following:

Barrett, D. (1991). Through a glass darkly: Images of the dead in dreams. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying , 24(2): 97-108. Barrett, D. (1996). Trauma and Dreams . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Becker, S. H. & Knudson, R. M. (2003). Visions of the dead: Imagination and mourning. Death Studies , 27:691-716. Becker, S. H. & Knudson, R. M. (2000). The re-membering of the dead: An archetypal approach to mourning. Spring Journal , 67: 121-130. Belicki, K., Gulko, N., Ruzycki, K., & Aristotle, J. (2003). Sixteen years of dreams following spousal bereavement. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying , 47(2): 93-106. Grubbs, G. (2004). Bereavement Dreaming and the Individuating Soul . Berwick, ME: Nicolas-Hays, Inc. Kast, V. (1991). Imploring eyes: Grief, dream, and fairytale. Quadrant , 24 (1): 25-33. LoConto, D. G. (1998). Death and dreams: A sociological approach to grieving and identity. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying , 37(3): 171-185. Moss, E. (2002). Working with dreams in a bereavement therapy group. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy , 52(2): 151-170. Romanyshyn, R. (1999). The Soul in Grief: Love, Death, and Transformation . Berkeley, CA: Frog Ltd.

For further information on dreams and available resources, potential groups, and upcoming events related to dreams, please visit the following website:

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http://www.asdreams.org/

Thank you for your participation in the current study on mourning and dreams. If you have any questions in the future please contact Gillian Finocan at (513) 529-8735 or at [email protected].

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