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Grief Perspectives
Scholar's Corner
Resource Review
Your Professional Library

Community's Value When the World Falls Apart

by William G. Hoy
As darkness again descended on the world, this time from the epicenter of sadness in El Paso, Texas earlier this month, there were bright spots of light. The story I have found most moving was the report of outpouring of support for a widower, left largely on his own when his wife of 22 years died in the Walmart massacre. How community stepped up for a man who had none of his own is the stuff of legends.


 
Like readers of this newsletter would most certainly expect, Anthony Basco was devastated at the news that his wife, Margie Reckard, 63, had perished. In the context of making funeral arrangements at Perches Funeral Home, he quietly noted to funeral director Harrison Johnson that he expected few people would attend the funeral for his wife; he and Margie had only recently moved to El Paso. In addition to providing their services without cost to the widower, Johnson posted a photo of Basco at the makeshift memorial in the Walmart parking lot along with a simple note: “Mr. Antonio Basco was married for 22 year to his wife Margie Reckard. He had no other family. He welcomes anyone to attend his wife’s services.” It was a simple request for response.

And respond, they did.

The phone at Perches began to ring with people wanting to send flowers; more than 500 arrangements showed up from all over the world. Dozens offered to reimburse Salvador Perches for the costs he incurred serving Mr. Basco at no cost, an offer the funeral home-owner politely declined as he pointed potential donors to the other charities helping victims. “I’ve got this one,” Perches told the Associated Press. The people came, too—from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, and of course, El Paso. In their report for NPR news, Held and Falk (2019) wrote that “people descended on Friday to wrap Basco in a community embrace.”
 
What are we to make of this outpouring of support for an unknown widower? First, it seems evident there is something deeply embedded in the human psyche that says grieving is not done well when we are left to go it alone (Hoy, 2013). The individual who tells his family to “just throw me in a ditch” and to “certainly not make a fuss when I’m gone” offers an instruction that blooms from a soil of ignorance. If grief is ignored, these people mistakenly seem to believe, it will magically disappear.

What we know, of course, is that the gathering of people who rub shoulders and share tears is a powerful reminder to bereaved individuals that they do not face the loss alone. At times, news reports widely noted, the crowd waited more than two hours outside in the sweltering Texas heat to express their condolences to Mr. Basco, a man none had ever met.
 
A second observation is that not only immediate family mourners feel the “uplift” from the show of communal support. Something valuable seems to happen in the lives of those who take time to attend, as well. Such was the case for Jordan Ballard, a resident of Los Angeles who flew to El Paso specifically for Reckert’s service after hearing Basco’s story: “The story just moved me,” she told NPR (Held & Falk, 2019). In reflecting on my own father’s death in 1993, I wrote, “An important principle I learned through the funeral rites for my father is that death is not just a private family matter. As much as some people may desire them, ‘private services’ rob the larger community of an organized opportunity to mourn” (Hoy, 2013, p. 47). The thousands of concerned citizens who line the procession route to welcome home a fallen soldier testifies to the need for connection that humans have, even when there is no relationship with either the deceased nor his family.
 
Robert Putnam’s provocative work, Bowling Alone (2000) articulated the importance of “social capital,” indicating that the quality of relationships between people was the most predictive factor in their well-being, and that this relational quality was more important than community programs, geography, and cultural history. Then, he explained what he meant by positive social capital. It includes mutual support, cooperation, trust, and institutional effectiveness (p. 22). Even though social bonds appeared to be waning, Putnam surmised these bonds were not so much in a downward spiral at the beginning of the 21st century, but that this pattern of engagement follows more of an up-and-down course of more community engagement followed by less.
 
In the face of tragedy, humans long for connection, a common observation in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This need for connection is ancient: the first book of Hebrew scripture reports God’s assessment following the creation of the first human: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18, NIV). Recent discoveries in the neurobiology of loneliness and socialization confirms the ancient wisdom, declaring that humans seem to possess an intuitive sense that isolation is not good. Humans are social beings, and a subjective sense of isolation leads to compromises in the endocrine system, increases in inflammatory diseases and hypertension, added risk for Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other physical, psychological, and cognitive pathologies. Cacioppo and colleagues (2011) have suggested that the pain of loneliness is actually a signal to the social self that more social connections are needed for physical development and survival.
 
In several recent seminars, I have reminded participants of the importance of “bearing witness” with others in their suffering. One value to community gathered in the face of loss is that the character values of the deceased are “spoken into the public record” in the eulogy or funeral remembrance. Honoring the qualities of generosity, friendliness, compassion, and thriftiness are sometimes “set in stone” through the public sharing of these memories. At least when the words are authentic descriptions of the deceased, having these words uttered in the “presence of witnesses” seems to solidify their validity in the minds of mourners.

El Passo resident Anthony Basco was “overwhelmed” at the show of support, even from people he did not know; he will not likely have any difficulty articulating the value of community support in the wake of tragedy. But Basco is not alone in his assessment. I will not likely forget the testimony of one bereaved dad who I interviewed in the research for Do Funerals Matter? He told of following his son’s casket into the church that was filled with community members and thinking to himself, “Wow, I can’t believe there are so many people here” and then reaching two conclusions: “First, he really made an impact on the world and second, we are not in this by ourselves” (Hoy, 2013, p. 52).
 
References. 
 
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., Norman, G. J., & Berntson, G. G. (2011). Social isolation. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1231(1), 17–22.
 
Held, A. & Falk, M.  (2019 August 17). El Paso shooting: Hundreds of strangers come to mourn with widower at wife’s funeral.” National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org
 
Hoy, W.G. (2013). Do funerals matter? The purposes and practices of death rituals in global perspective. New York, NY: Routledge.
 
Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling aloneThe collapse and revival of American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.


The Author: For more than three decades, William G. Hoy has been counseling with the bereaved, supporting the dying and their families, and teaching colleagues how to provide effective care. After a career in congregation, hospice, and educational resource practice, he now holds a full-time teaching appointment as Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.



Resource Review
Below is a list of well-maintained websites where you can either find local, bereavement support groups or online communities to join.
 
AARP Grief and Loss Resources - Support after the death of a senior
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - Support for suicide survivors
Griefnet.org – Email support for adults grieving a loss
National Widower’s Organization - Support for men grieving a loss
National Alliance for Grieving Children – Support for children, teens and families
The Compassionate Friends - Support after the death of a child
Your Professional Library
Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and leadNew York: Gotham Books.
 
Reviewed by Molly A. Keating, MA, CT
Editor, GriefPerspectives

“Vulnerability” is a word and idea that for too long has sent people scattering and running for the hills. And while “shame” is perhaps even less attractive, it is an idea that we as a society take far more comfort in than we think. Brené Brown argues in her incredible book, Daring Greatly, that it is in fact the act of vulnerability that can cut through shame and it is being vulnerable that most closely tethers us to ourselves, to others, and to more authentic and peace-filled lives.
 
While Brown’s book does not speak exclusively to or even directly address the bereaved, her data and voice cut to the core need of human existence at any stage; the need for connection. Asking the question, “What price are we paying when we shut down and disengage?” is a question that all bereaved people ought to consider. The survival instinct when facing a painful memory or event is so often to avoid or cope by disengaging. As a result, many bereaved people struggle to confront their grief in a way that moves them into new areas of living and instead isolates them further. She goes on to say that “The absence of love, belonging and connection always leads to suffering,” – and so, bereaved people can often find themselves suffering even more greatly in spite of their attempts to avoid more pain.
 
Brown’s book is excellently researched and blended with her warm, and easy storytelling. She shares her own hard-fought battle with vulnerability and her journey into laying down her pedantic, shame-filled-self for a Wholehearted experience of life. In her own words, “the most difficult and the most rewarding challenge of my work is how to be both a mapmaker and a traveler.” This book is not just an academic researcher laying out a map, it is an invitation to understand the map and join others walking the path.
 
This book has profound insight to offer for any life-stage and while “grieving” isn’t in the title, Brown’s wisdom could transform the hidden ways we grieve by showing us how to bring our pain into the light.
Research that Matters
Hunt, H., Abbott, R., Boddy, K., Whear, R., Wakely, L., Bethel, A., … Thompson-Coon, J. (2019). “They’ve walked the walk”: A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative evidence for parent-to-parent support for parents of babies in neonatal careJournal of Neonatal Nursing25(4), 166–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnn.2019.03.011
 
Even when an infant survives and is eventually discharged to a life uncomplicated by ongoing medical issues, having a child admitted to the NICU is an extraordinarily stressful experience for most parents. After a systematic search of literature related to how peer-to-peer support works for parents whose babies are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), these researchers analyzed the research methodology and findings in 14 separate studies; the resulting studies included both strong quantitative and qualitative research projects. Among the findings, researchers heard common themes especially among the eight qualitative studies that parents discussed the notion of trust of parents who had “walked in my shoes” because of their mutual ability to understand.
 
Parent-to-parent support was viewed by most as “well-timed,” meaning that parents who are experienced with NICU treatment seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge about when it was appropriate to reach out to parents of current patients. Researchers noted that this evidence was clear from parents who often felt more supported by other parents than they did by the professional staff who could have been perceived to be simply fulfilling an institutional role or “doing their job.”
 
Unfortunately, while parents receiving care generally report favorable results, studies to date have not explored any possible harms that could be done (to parents receiving care or those providing it), nor have any studies successfully compared the outcomes of parents who get support with a cohort of parents who do not. In spite of these limitations, peer-to-peer support enjoys a positive review from those whose vote might be most important: the parents of seriously ill newborns who report benefit from feeling cared for by people of their own community.
GriefPerspectives is published monthly by Grief Connect, Inc. Copyright ©2019. All rights reserved, including publication or distribution in any form, electronic or printed. For reprint permissions or suggestions for content, please email us at GriefResources@msn.com.
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