Simone Lakmaker           

I was pushed into a Bereavement Visiting course by a friend, after I had completed a four year counselling course at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation and was reluctant to get involved in anything new.

  In studying about bereavement, I realised I was also working through much of my own buried grief - experiencing my own healing - though I did not identify it as such at that time.

  Many churches offered this kind of support but there was little on offer within the synagogue community.  There was a myth that Jewish bereaved were well cared for physically, mentally and spiritually.  In fact, after the initial ritual bereavement visits a person is often left alone with their grief and expected to 'get on with it'.

  Inspired by Rabbi Lionel Blue, who spoke about our all being the helping hands of God, I approached my own rabbis to offer a Bereavement Visitors course for our community.  They accepted, and I set up a ten week course which covered adult and child processes of bereavement, loss of a child, listening, responding, empathy, boundaries and endings.  We had to emphasise issues of confidentiality and interpersonal boundaries, as many people in the community knew each other.  Some of those completing the course went on to become visitors, and we had a support group which occasionally included the rabbis.

  Similar groups were started at other synagogues and at a church, with a local person taking charge after they attended the course.  Rabbis have been generally appreciative of the help we offer, but one group had to close down because the rabbi of that community felt threatened in sharing his pastoral ministry.

  Groups become cohesive very quickly, and support members' work on their own buried griefs - a frequent unconscious motivation in their joining these groups.  For instance, one of the volunteers, a doctor, asked that the training group meet at her home.  It was immediately apparent that she was preparing herself for the death of her husband, who was paralysed, confined to a wheelchair much of the time and unable to talk.  On the first evening we assembled we were deeply moved when he typed a few lines of welcome to us all.  He became a part of the group.  After he died some months later his wife went on to lead that group into their visiting.  By that time she had worked out a great deal of her own grief and had received a lot of support herself.

  Healing takes place within the bereavement work at many levels.  We help to overcome our society's taboos against expressing our emotions and against reminding others that we are all mortal.  We acknowledge the bereaved as human beings in loss and grief and give them permission to talk, to cry, to show anger, frustration, and eventually to find relief.  In addition to the losses of loved ones, we help with the losses of status, financial security and life styles, and help people to deal with loneliness.  There were moments of sadness and for some, despair.  Sometimes we just sat, just being there, listening, hearing a familiar story repeated in its own variation, sharing a cup of tea, coming back over a few weeks or months.  Visitors in training worry about what they might say if asked religious questions.  In practice, this rarely arises.  Generally the visits extend to about a year, with contact being made, according to Jewish tradition, on the anniversary of the death.

  It has been heart-warming to work with men and women who give generously of their time to offer a quality of love which is essential for the bereaved.  Members also support each other in times of stress and sadness.  Healing takes place at the levels of recognition of feelings of loss within the circle of family and friends of those who attend the groups, enabling them to open up to spouses and children in new ways.  One who died of cancer some years after taking the training had been a difficult person.  His group struggled to contain his moods and problems.  Although he did not go on to become a visitor, he and later his wife were cared for by those with whom he trained and he was held in affection by all of us.

  I continue to visit bereaved people, not wanting to become distanced through my role of group facilitator from those we are helping.  I found I was viewed as a channel of hope, providing a few rays of light at the end of the tunnel.  The visits create a space in people's own homes with support which is not threatening.  Most importantly, I learned that there are no rules for grief.  Each person is unique and this has to be respected.

  Healing spreads in many directions.  Some of the visitors go on for further training as helpers.  One mother who had suffered the loss of her child in cot death went on to work for the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.  Two went on to prison visiting.

  The most wonderful aspect of healing in bereavement is that in acknowledging death we also acknowledge life.

Simone Lakmaker, healer, counselor, 41 Gayton Road, Harrow, Middx. HA1 2LT
 

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Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 1993 Reprinted with permission of the author P.O. Box 76 Bellmawr, NJ 08099 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com 

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