Esther Calling - Grief is Like a Fingerprint
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In the recent episodes, I've been focusing on courageous conversations or conversations actually that we typically avoid or things that we sweep under the rug or conversations we have in our own head sometimes instead of actually with the person with whom we should be having the conversation with or conversations that are in our own head because we no longer can actually talk to the person with whom

we would like to have this conversation because they're not there anymore. And so

This episode is about grief. It's about loss. It centers around the death of an older father, which seems to be part of the normal order of things. Parents go before their children. But then also the death of a sibling by suicide, which feels like a massive interruption in the fabric of life, in the thread. And as you listen to this episode, I...

want you to please take care of yourself know that this is about grief but also about how this can actually become not something that we sweep under the rug and avoid or get pissed at internally but that actually we begin to understand that

There are many parts to a conversation and we sometimes only inhabit one piece of the larger story. And other members of our family or our circle will actually highlight those parts. And it's not because our parts are the truer ones and they should switch. It's because the complexity of some of the large human experiences are multifaceted.

And we have a way, each of us, to just express one piece of the facet as it should be. So let's listen.

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Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Shall we listen to your question and then if there's anything you want to add to it, we can tweak it? Okay, let's do that. Yep. The question that I would love to talk to Esther about is understanding grief and

And the context is that my dad, two years ago, died. He was 86. And he died of old age and dementia. And then three months later, my little sister died from suicide. And she was 35. And she has three kids, little kids. And so I feel like I've

gotten this crash course in grief since then. And I think that grief is an intelligence and part of life and a part that's not really exalted or well understood or acknowledged, at least in Western society. And so I think it's an intelligence, but then there's this paradox where

I find myself trying to connect with other people and like getting out of my shell and sharing about it.

But then a lot of sometimes I feel lonelier after that. And I just experience these feelings that like feel ugly, like I have contempt for other people. And I just think their problems are so stupid or so small and that they should just get over it and feel bad for me. And because I just want someone to give me a gold medal for having the most pain.

And that doesn't seem intelligent to me. And so just kind of that paradox is something that I would love to just talk about. Taking a moment to sit with this very profound and big question. What's it like for you to hear it, to hear your own question? It makes me sad. It's like I'm listening to someone else. Like I'm disconnected, even though I'm the one that

I'm the one whose voice it is. Disconnected from... Pain. So you let her feel the feelings when she was asking the questions. And then another part of you today is trying to hold it together. Yeah. I had a...

a sentence that I was remembering as I listened to your question. And it's a quote by David Kessler in his book, Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief. And it says, each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprints. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grief, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed.

And that doesn't mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining. What is your question? Why is grief so confusing? And why does it bring out? I think it's brought out the best and the highest in me and other people and also the worst. Hmm.

Meaning that you get contempt and you get upset when people don't meet you, when you feel that you are in the gulf of this unbearable, unending pain and they're just living on a different planet. Or they try to be the silver lining. And I don't usually want a silver lining.

I also love the way you said grief is this intelligence. It's telling me a lot of different things. You know, there's another line that David has that I often think, because it's so, he says, you don't have to experience grief, but you can only avoid it by avoiding love. Love and grief are inextricably intertwined.

So when you think about this unbearable pain, it connects directly to two people that you cared about and loved deeply. And sometimes we think people don't understand my grief because they don't understand the magnitude of my loss. But sometimes it's because they don't understand the magnitude of my love. So you say, I'm surprised that I'm having nasty thoughts, primitive feelings, and

that are unbecoming to me. They're not who I am usually. And this grief is kind of making me feel and say and do things that are unusual for me. What am I learning from it? This is the intelligence, right? It's like, yeah, grief is not always sweet, polished, well-behaved by far. It puts you in touch with the extremes. Yeah.

Tell me more. I almost feel it's like when I've had those losses, part of me died and is like still dying. But then another part of me is like being born. And like my family of origin, I think, died as I knew it. And it's still just kind of like a rubble of people trying to figure out kind of the new life.

I don't know if it's like a new baby that's been born. We're all just like kind of clumsy and we're all handling it differently. But then I guess the parts that I like are the extreme things that I didn't do before are that I'm, I just have like a new sensitivity to other people, to like, to people's pain, to people's just like how they are. I notice things like I notice faces and like facial features and,

And I like to think that I scroll on my phone less. It is like this primitive thing. I notice animals. I notice the wind. I never noticed that before. I have developed an uncanny awareness in the details of the world around me. The human world, the animal world, the natural world.

The spiritual world. I notice absence and I notice presence. I notice joy. I notice pain and suffering. I notice calm. I notice agitation. I notice security. I notice fear. But it will, yeah. And the, like the mystery, I don't think I've ever been one that accepts, yeah, a lot of mystery, but there's just so much mystery.

uncertainty and impermanence and it's beautiful and it's also just painful sometimes. Incredibly fragile. Yes. Who is left in the family of origin and who is the chosen family? There may be more than one. Yes. The chosen family, my husband and two children. I have a toddler and then a seven-year-old and then my

Family of origin, my mom and two older brothers. And are there other members of the chosen family that were very connected to your family of origin? Extended family, friends, neighbors? Yeah, yes. And have there been rituals that have brought all the people together? Because the person died, but the relationship didn't die. Mm-hmm.

The only thing I can think of is the funeral. And since the funeral? No. Neither for your sister nor for your father? No. And is that something you feel a need to do? Yes. Okay. For both of them, separately, together, one of them? Probably both of them. Separately or together?

separately. I chose to not attend a family reunion that was like six months after she died. They like released lanterns. So I guess everyone went to that except for me and my chosen family. Why not? Because it was too painful to think about being with everyone. And I felt too reactive and

I'm not sure why other than my gut just said, like, I can't go right now. But you were not against it happening. You just didn't feel, you felt too bereft to be there. Yes. And would your family understand if you said, I think I need something now? Yes. And I would love for us to be on this together? Mm-hmm. And what would you want it to be?

If you could design the ritual. Rituals is one of the ways that every culture and civilization has dealt with loss and mourning and grief. For my sister, it would be something with dancing and just kind of like a wild... Party? Party, yeah. It was like karaoke. She'd always, you know, we're opposites in many ways, but she was always up for anything.

She'd get up at any restaurant in front of any number of people and just sing her heart out. She didn't care what people thought in one way. So yeah, something like that. We have to take a brief break. So stay with us and let's see where this goes.

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Um, she was, she'd been in the hospital, she was on all kinds of meds. So it, it didn't shock me on one hand, but on the other hand, it's shocking. You're seeing something as you're saying this. Um, I don't think, oh, I know she didn't want to die. I just think she was too sick and she, she wanted to be out of pain. And so I think she must have

Well, I don't know. I'm just giving my meaning to the story. But the only thing that makes sense is that she had to have believed that everyone would be better if she weren't here. You know, this isn't the first time she'd had really, you know, kind of scary depression. She'd been suicidal before, but it had worked out. And this time it didn't. And you have tried to tell her many times that.

This idea that we would be better off without you is so off. I miss you. I miss you deeply every day. Do you talk to her? No, I have written a few letters to her. My therapist invited me to just have a list of unanswerable questions. I haven't done it in a while. But I mean, I see her.

I see her kids. She has three little girls. And I talk to them. And you talk about her? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I try to be present with her kids. I know that when she was healthy, she could be present with them. And she was obsessed with them in a way that any mom understands. And even at the end...

It just was so disturbing because she couldn't be present with them. Her body was there, but she didn't want to be there. And I'm sure that her kids at some level knew that. So I try to make eye contact with them and just be engaged with them. And do karaoke. Yes. I haven't done karaoke, but I should for them. And you dance with them. Yeah. Yeah. That's what she would do. Her death is such a... It seems just...

so catastrophic that I don't always remember my dad. I think that he died almost because, I mean, being more aware of just like feeling almost primitive, like it's expected that your parent will die before you. My dad was 50 when I was born. And so, you know, he already, people thought he was my grandpa growing up. And I just, I think I knew inside that

He was going to die. But then the out of order-ness and that my sister was younger, she was the youngest, it was just so shocking. It almost makes my dad's death look like happy. His passing is in the normal order of things. But hers is an abrupt interruption. Yeah. Do you have witnesses who can hold you, who can just let you go through it?

without rationalizing, without trying to make it into a lesson. Yeah, I do. Or without trying to minimize it for that matter. We just know this is so painful, acute at first, and lonely, very, very lonely, because it feels like no one can reach you there. And it doesn't end, as in it's not something one gets through.

We become bigger and we learn to include it inside ourselves, to hold it, but we expand around it rather than getting through it. And it takes time and it takes rituals that celebrate her, that mourn her, that give meaning to who she was, not just to her absence.

And some of those primitive feelings you have are all quite normal. Because we are angry that this happened. It's unfair. It's stupid. It feels, how can I accept this? It can't be true. I still can't believe it. So we have the denial. We have the anger. We have the problem to accept it. And then we do, yes, she was struggling and

It wasn't totally surprising, but if this, if that. And we circle around and circle around. And if she was here today, she would say and she would think and she would smile. And so she goes, but the relationship stays. It's actually not that confusing, as you were asking. It's about, wow, this thing takes me to places I never knew existed inside of me.

From the acute awareness to what? You tell me. Well, I don't know, rage. And the rage says? My pain hurts more than yours. Or...

Yeah, your problems are small. You bug the shit out of me. Go away. Good. Keep going. There's many parts in you. This is one, the rage. He looks at people, he says, this is what makes you struggle. Want me to show you mine? Yeah. But then the same...

Another part in you, sorry, not the same, another part in you recognizes those who don't know sometimes how to express it and zooms into that pain and says, I see you. That's part of that hyper-awareness, right? Mm-hmm. What does that part say? That this pain, like your pain's mine. Is there another part? Yes.

That, yeah, this is this like beautiful dimension I've never known about. And sometimes I wouldn't mind not knowing about it. And in a way, like the realization that I don't think any of us have as long as we think sometimes. And so just, you know, less pretending, more honesty. So I don't just feel the fragility. I also feel the preciousness.

Treasure it. Savor it. Don't take it for granted. Don't waste it. Don't just walk like a ghost through it. Value it. Appreciate it. Hold on to it. Fight for it. Keep going. There's an author, Julian Barnes. Do you know him? You probably know the book that this is from, but he has a metaphor about that we don't emerge from grief naturally.

like a train coming out of a tunnel, strong and fast and into the light. We are more like a seagull that comes out of an oil slick, tarred and feathered for life. And sometimes I feel like the train and sometimes I feel like the seagull. It's beautiful. We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.

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So I've heard you say how much you enjoy the program, how much it adds to your understanding of your own relationships. But now it's time for me to do an offer and an ask, which means click on the subscribe button to the Where Should We Begin show page. I'd love to see you in Esther's office hours. Do you want the ritual about your sister to be

you about you with her and a few of the people who knew her or would you actually like I want to bring together other people who have experienced loss I think the circle of people that knew her okay there's a lot of them okay and what has stopped you from doing it if anything

Contempt and rage at them, some of them. You say this with a smile. It's embarrassing, but there have been certain people that have been great and other people that I know would want to be included. And I don't know why. It's like I'm a predator that's picked them because I feel offended at things that they've said or that they've dealt with this differently.

So I could invite everyone but them. So the part of you that has experienced these peaks of contempt, give me one. Someone right after she died telling me that she knew that my sister was in the arms of Jesus. Just, I don't know, it hit something in me and felt like I just wish she hadn't have said anything.

What did it mean for you, this? It meant for me that somehow it's good that people are with Jesus instead of with their families and their young children, people that depend on them. And I know she didn't mean like this, but it suggests that somehow this was determined. Meant to be? Yeah, determined. This was part of the plan. And that's probably not what this person meant, but it just bristled me. I want to be someone who...

and just understand that people say things like that and they still should be able to be afforded like their own space. Maybe, maybe you will with time, but not yet or not when this was said because this, the part of you that responded, that rage part, that part that says, how dare you make this into something that was almost a good thing to happen.

No, at the beginning you don't accept. So you don't accept and the anger part and the contempt, they all come together to basically say, do not try to make this into something that had a meaning or a purpose. Makes sense. At some point, maybe later, somebody says something and you say, that's their view. That's how they go through it. But at first, it is...

a combination of emotions that knock at each other. It's a combustion. It's confusing. It's not really confusing, but it feels confusing because it's intense, because it's a bunch of stuff coming from left field that you never knew existed inside of you. Like when we love. Like you do things, yeah, you do things that are not logical. Yep. And when we face sudden loss, it's

similar things can happen to us. So I see this as developmental. I see this as part of the arc of the experience. I don't see this as this is it. You're not today where you were six months ago. You won't be in the same place six months from now. But you do want to create the ritual that you didn't have it in you at the time to participate in. And maybe you'll have one every year on her birthday.

And you'll let a dove go out or you'll do something that symbolizes all these things that don't have to be said in words. It can have music, it can have dance, it can have drums. It can have people stand up in a circle when they have something to say and they're moved and called to say something and then sit back. And every time you see her treat girls, you will...

You know, you will see her in part, not only, but you'll see her and you are one of the main people through whom they will get to know her. Is she talked about? Is she spoken about between mom and your brothers and you? Not as much as I want, I think. I'm usually one to bring her up. I brought her up recently at this social event and I'm always unsure what

what my family thinks. But I think the worst thing is just to not even mention her, pretend like she never existed. I don't think they think that, but there's kind of an awkwardness when you're in settings or when people ask how many people are in your family or that's a chance to bring her up. So I usually, yeah, so this time I said we have a baby sister who's in heaven. And then I was too nervous to look at my family. When you come together for the holidays this year, how long will it have been?

a year and a half since she died. Okay. We all have experienced her loss in our own way, like our own fingertips. But we can all be witnesses for each other in how we each are living with this loss. Shall we take a moment and just kind of check in with each other? A pulse check. Something, where are you at with the big changes that we have just faced in our family?

I know that we are not typically a family that speaks about these things, but I also think that we have not typically experienced any of these things. And therefore, we need to breathe together, so to speak, to breathe her presence, her absence, as well as that, and acknowledge it and celebrate them and mention them and have them be absent, present, present, absent. Last Thanksgiving gift.

Her husband would talk about her and even though they were maybe stories that didn't highlight her strengths, it just felt good that we haven't forgotten her. Your family doesn't have to live like you. They don't have to feel the same as you do. There needs to be room for each person. Those who want to speak, those who don't, those who want to cry, those who don't, those who cry with others, those who cry alone. We're all going to be different.

each one highlighting different ways to experience and express grief. The most common one is those who say, let's remember, and those who say, we don't have to bring it up each time. Those who say, let's move on, and those who say, how can you? And they seem to each say, cancel each other out, when in fact, both of these exist inside each of us.

But in a family, sometimes instead of holding them inside of us and holding those tensions and those polarities, they get outsourced onto other people. So one person, one brother becomes the one who says, oh, come on, you know, let's only talk about the children, the little ones, the future. And the other one says, but what about the past? But in fact, they absolutely need each other. They are part of the holistic experience.

Holding on, letting go, remembering, forgetting the past, the future, the joy of her life, the sadness of her death, her strength, her illness. If you fight your brothers, you do to them what you don't like people doing to you. Because people become judgmental over how the other person is dealing with it.

rather than, hey, we each have a different way. We are different people we're holding on. Our grief is like our fingertips or fingerprints, sorry. And I love that image because the fingerprints are as personal and unique to you. So tell me about your fingerprints. I'll tell you about mine. And then just listening. Yeah, make room. It's the collective of each person's individual way that actually...

begins to resemble the multiple parts of this experience. No one has to take care of all the pieces. One person makes sure to bring it up at the table and the other one makes sure that we don't spend the whole evening about it. And instead of getting annoyed with the one who changed topic, it actually is good because it says we include, but we also grow.

Loss, you know, we tend to often talk about the trauma of the loss, and we don't always highlight that there is much more post-traumatic growth than there is actually post-traumatic stress in many instances, this being maybe one of them. So when I find myself being, like when I look back since she's died, I think my level of critique of certain people or certain things is just like 10 out of 10. Mm-hmm.

And I hate, well, in the moment it feels good, but I hate it. And so I don't understand that. It's because I'm critiquing myself, but I'm pinning it on other people. They are often expressing the parts of this that I do not express. Okay. And that is quite good because it's the collective of all the pieces.

that creates the universal human experience around grief. Who knows what your hole and your loss and your gap and your emptiness, but we all hover around the same area. We know. I know that you know that I know that you know. We don't have to compare, compete. Who's the greater victim? Who suffered more? All of that. And so in the family,

people will express different parts of the experience. It's the role distribution around it. This happens around many things in a family. But in fact, they all belong together. If you didn't have one brother who said, can we talk about something else? You would have to deal with the part inside of you that has to begin to think when is it okay to talk about something else or even necessary. Mm-hmm.

Because the complexity of these experiences is that they hold contradictions and multitudes. Shall we stop here? Yeah. Does that feel like a good place? Yeah. Okay. I wish you special holidays. Thank you. And I think you're going into the holidays with this, hopefully with this new frame in mind. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Bye-bye. Have a good day. Bye. This was an Esther calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther, it could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call. Send her a voice message and Esther might just call you. Send your question to producer at estherperel.com.

And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker.

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