[Introduction]
How do we talk about grief, death, and dying without stigma and as inevitable truth? The Reverend Doctor Jamie Eaddy Chism serves congregations and communities as an ordained minister, death educator, and death doula. Her research and work is primarily concerned with the way people navigate loss and grief. Jamie is a 2015 fellow of the Black Theology and Leadership Institute at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a certified trauma professional holding a certification in death, dying, and bereavement from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. She's the director of program development for the International End of Life Doula Association. In this episode, I speak with Jamie about the ripple effects of loss. Jamie also talks about loss as it can be felt in addition to the death of the loved one. In our conversation Jamie reflects on individual and communal grief and how to be gentle with ourselves during our new normal.

You're listening to the Distillery at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Susahama Austin-Connor
Jamie, I'm excited about your topic, as you know, and I wish to start by asking you to share with us what a "death doula" is because I think most of us are familiar with doulas——so, can you talk about what a death doula is and some of the things that you do in that role.

Jamie Eaddy Chism
So, a death doula——when you think about what a birth doula does, they accompany someone throughout their pregnancy, right? And so, when you think about a death doulam they do the same thing: they accompany, they journey with you toward your last breaths. And that could look different for everyone because all of our end of life journeys are a bit different. And so that that death doula comes in, and they may work with you on discussing your fears or your family's fears around your last days. They may work on preparing rituals for you to celebrate you and or your family members. They'll ask you questions about how you wish your last days to be here on earth and do everything that they can to make that happen, and that means working with your families, that may mean working with the funeral home, it may be working with your faith leaders as well. But the death doula is really someone who just accompanies you on your journey, dealing with your fears, your anxiety, your anger or frustration, your questions. They help encourage you to ask doctors more questions if you're still in that phase where you're visiting a doctor's office. So, that's pretty much what I do as a death doula: it is me coming in, asking you how you wish your last days to be, and then trying to figure out what I can do to help you and/or your loved ones get you to that place in peace.

Susahama Austin-Connor
Can you talk about if it is more complicated or not, for the person dying or for the loved ones, or if it is kind of equal across emotion?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Yeah, so that's a great question, and it really varies based on the person in your family, because their fears or their anxiety, their thoughts are kind of different, right? So as the dying person, I might be thinking about the folks who I'm leaving behind, whether or not they'll have what they need, well, you know——how will they get along in the next few days or weeks or years to come. As the family, as a loved one, I am thinking about whether or not my loved one is one in pain or not, and how I'm going to get along without them, but there might also be some questions around, say, afterlife because we often have to, you know——we have families who, some are Christian and Muslim, some are Jewish, Christian and Muslim, some are Buddh——so there are different faith traditions in there as well, so that that dying person and their family members, I would say that their concerns, their fears, their anxiety, their grief is fairly equal, just different.

Susahama Austin-Connor
Being different, I'm assuming that there are a lot of different questions that come from both the loved one and the person dying. Can you talk about some of the conversations that you have, I know, without naming people, but some of the conversations or issues that people are thinking of when you are dying, or when your loved one is dying?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Yeah, and thanks for that. I'm going to sort of give an example with a younger person. She was thirty-five and dying of breast cancer, and so some of the questions that she and I worked through, talked through, listened through were what will my children need in the days to come——she had two children——and who was going to be there to provide that for them? Now, she was married and obviously, she's like, well, my spouse will be there, but there's——I'm not going to be there. So what will my children need and how can they know because they're so young? And when they become a little older that I was here, right? How can I——what can we do today to remember——to help them remember me? And so, for that person, they're asking questions about are there projects that we can do? Is there some kind of legacy? Something that I can leave behind that when my child turns eighteen they still have a piece of me that they can hold on to. And so I'm thinking that that's the kind of questions that we work through. And in terms of grief, they want to know how can I explain to my young child that I won't be here? And then, what does that look like for the child in their development in the days to come? Because they may process grief and loss a bit differently. And so now you take the children; now we're trying to explain to the child what it means for mom to be here today, but possibly not here tomorrow——what it means for mom to be able to do activities with you today, but how, in the days to come, what she's able to do on Monday in January may not be what she's able to do on the first Monday in February——and how the child is going to adjust to the way mom is showing up in their lives. Same with the husband: your wife is able to do this today, but her energy is——she's losing energy with each passing day——and so you have to now process the grief of being able to see her, but a different her every day because she's not the same person. And so, working with each person to sort of process where they are in that journey.

Susahama Austin-Connor
I've been looking at this larger kind of communal grief and I wanted to start with the individual grief because I think that's what we always think about when we think about death and grief and grieving——we think about a recent loss or the biggest loss in our lives——my grandmother passed away in November. Jamie where I'm struck with is that, yeah, the emotional grieving, but it's the ripple effects. It's the ripple effects in our family that have been shocking because it was such a big loss in the sense——not that there's a small loss——but it was a big loss. Her presence is so deeply felt and so are the ripple effects. And so, as we're working through our grief then there's the *LIFE* grief——what's happening for our communities and for our world. From November to now, in my eyes what has gone on——or even, you know, before that——this kind of communal grief that we're experiencing. and so I wanted to ask you to just expound on a belief that I read from your bio, which is that grief is not just associated with the death of a loved one. And I wanted to know what you meant by that because then I wanted to also talk about this communal grief that we have been experiencing.

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Thank you. Grief is——so grief is about our response to a loss in our lives. And the reason why I'm so passionate about this——especially now——is, if you go back to 2020, the world shut down. We heard about this virus, no one knew what it was. What is this thing that we're talking about here? What, we have to wear a mask? We can't go anywhere near people? So, when I think about grief——and I try to help people understand grief——yes, it is the death of our grandmothers, right? That our grandmothers are no longer physically with us, but they remain in our hearts and even in our personalities in many ways. But it is the death of relationships that——there were some relationships that we were nurturing that required us to be face-to-face and we took that face-to-face option away. There were people who entered into 2020 with dreams: they saved their money, they had their business plan together, and they launched, right? They took a risk and they launched this business that required people, people to come in and people to spend money, people to be present, and they had to shut their doors. We had people who could no longer go to work, whether they were laid off or had to figure out new hours. And you had people who could not visit their loved ones in the hospital, so the loved one is not necessarily dying, but they are in a hospital and there is——you can't be present during this time when they might need you most. And so, when you think about grief it's important for us to realize that it's not just the loss of life, but it is the loss of touch, it is the loss of being present with people. It is the dream that you had that now feels like it is dying. It is the death of people, places, and things, is how we respond to that is our grief. And so, when you think about the community, there was this communal, what we have seen all the time, right? This violence, violence really against black bodies and we're seeing this on social media and so you're seeing these videos and communities are sad and grieving the loss of people that they don't quite know, right? I didn't know George Floyd. I didn't know Breonna Taylor——I didn't know these people, specifically, but I got to witness their absence in a way. And so, all of us, wherever you are you're watching this and you were also grieving. So this communal grief, this great loss that we're all experiencing, this inability to be present with one another and hold one another, this inability to bury our dead or whatever particular ritual that you're used to doing according to your faith tradition where someone dies unable to do that, this——I lost my job, I may lose my home, this my dream is now dead——that communal grief that all of us experiencing that, at the same time, witnessing a change in our world at the same time we're all carrying a heaviness. And then, if you think about some of the grief that we've inherited from our great-grandparents and our grandparents and even our parents, that is still living out in us as well. So when you think about communal grief you think about this response to loss from the community, you think about the grief and the trauma that we may be carrying from our ancestors, and how we are all experiencing that at the same time. It's not just Jamie or Sushama's loving grandmother who was no longer here. But it is that on top of this great loss that we're experiencing in the world, even now, when you see country's at war, there is the loss of life——we don't necessarily know the names of all who are no longer breathing because of the war. But we see their losses every day, we see their cities and towns being invaded so there's a loss of safety or security. We see the changes in prices for food in these food shortages. So there's this sort of loss of security when it—— food security——the we see that in that communal grief is us experiencing all of that, at the same time, and our response to it. So, yeah it is something that weighs very heavily on me, because if we don't figure out ways to start talking about both individual and communal grieve, then the heaviness that we're all carrying, I'm afraid, is going to continue to wear us down.

Susahama Austin-Connor
As we think about this communal grief, can you lay out a little bit for us some of the stages of communal grief and if they are similar or not to stages of individual grief? Are we feeling the same sort of things individually and in community?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
I am always a bit hesitant to talk about stages of grief. Because, right? Because one, the popular concept of stages of grief really only deal with five stages and there are many more stages of grief. And it looks like those stages are linear——when you talk about stages people tend to think steps, right? That I'm here, then I move there, then I move there, and at some point I'm good. But that's not quite how grief works, right? So, I will say, yes, the stages——or the way we navigate our way through grief——the way we move through grief, the way we experience grief, are very similar, individually and communally. We might experience anger in our loss, in our loss we might experience this kind of bargaining where we are asking God and/or the universe, whatever language feels more appropriate for you, like, can you let up a little bit? Does it——if you give me this, this thing, this person, right, I'll give up this, right? We try to figure out a way to hold on to what we think we might be losing. So in many ways, individually we do that, communally we do that. We might feel some overwhelming sadness or depression, we might feel relief in our grief, right, that there is a loss that we needed to lose, and we might feel that both individually and communally. So in terms of how we move through grief or we say, sort of, stages of grief, yes, they can be very, very similar. I just let people know that, don't expect——one, grief is not orderly, right? So when we think stages, we think order. And that is sort of really a more patriarchal way of thinking through grief, that's systematic: I have A, B, and C. No, grief is disorderly. Grief is raw. And so, give yourself permission, whether it is you as the individual or your community to feel what you feel——if you're angry, and then you move to this place of what it feels like acceptance——but then you move back toward this angry place, right? Because I believe that we can be angry and accepting at the same time. Like, acceptance for me is, I acknowledge that this loss has taken place. I can't do anything to bring this loss back, but I am still angry about it. I can have experienced all of those stages or phases of grief at the same time as an individual and as a community. So give yourself permission to move through, if you're thinking stages, to move through them in any old way that your body and your mind and your heart moves you through those those stages, all those ways of experiencing/expressing our grief.

Susahama Austin-Connor
In doing some research, Jamie, as I was thinking about you for this interview, I was looking at a lot of articles and blog posts and things about when grief is over. What would you say about that? like, when is the date that grief is over?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Yeah, it's a girlfriend of mine asked me what does my grief for——she's like, we have a question for you. What does grief look like and when is it over for me? I say, "Looks like you." So, it looks like you, who——however you move through this world, that's what your grief looks like and when it's over is when it's over, right? And what does that mean? It means that when it comes to the person, when it comes to someone that you love, you're never the same after a loss. You're never the same. And my cousin died in 1989. My cousin Pauline——I always say her name, because I, when I introduce myself, I say I'm the daughter of Anise Hill, the granddaughter of Alberta Brown, and the cousin of Pauline Bennett. And Alberta and Pauline are no longer with us, but they have had so much to do with the woman I have become. So Pauline died in 1989——her husband now, right, he remarried. He, you know——but died in 2019. And when I walked into the funeral home, I could not breathe. My breath literally was sucked out of me. I ran back to the car, because I was, I was doing the eulogy for his funeral! I ran back to my car and I wept warm tears. Fortunately, my mascara didn't fade——I had good mascara on that day. But warm tears flowing down my cheeks. And I did, like——I yelled a bit, like "Ah!" You know? This hurts! I Let it come out. It was only about two or three minutes——I let it flow out of me. It had nothing to do with his death, though. It was in walking into that funeral home, going to eulogize Charles Bennett, that Pauline Bennett's memory and the feeling of her rolls in me again. And I began to grieve thirty years later, a loss that has not had me crying in probably, you know, in a number of years. I hadn't cried when I thought about her——I'm not crying right now, as I think about it. But there are moments after our loss——it could be a year, it could be five years, it could be for me thirty years——where all of a sudden the loss feels fresh in that moment. Right? The grief is alive in me in that moment. And so, when I say to people when might you be able to find some sense of normalcy again in your life? Well, here's the thing: your life has a new normal now because you are forever changed as a result of your loss. Now, can you get out of bed? Are you able to take care of your food? You know, can you eat? Are you sleepy——are you doing the things that keep you alive? Now, if you are not eating months after a loss, then perhaps we need to process in a different way, because we want you to be here. But the grief itself? It never really goes away. What we learned how to do is we learn how to live with our loss and our grief. We learn how to play a song that reminds us of the person and we learn how to smile and hold on to the memory while the song is playing. And so I say to grief, grief lives with us. Grief is——I wrote an article——grief is our constant companion, right? But we learn how to live with grief and grief doesn't have to be the end of life for us. Grief can show us how to live life in new and meaningful and different ways. So, there is no real end to grief, we just live it out and experience it a bit differently, because that loss has changed us forever.

Susahama Austin-Connor
When you mentioned naming the losses, can you give an example of what that might look like if it's, like, a loss that's not of a loved one? So if I named a loss that wasn't like——oh, I deeply, deeply feel my grandmother's loss in November——what are some other losses that you feel like we're not naming? And how would we do that?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Here's what naming losses look like: I invited a group of thirty——these were actually clergy persons——to a Zoom for a grief, we called it a grief and healing session. And in that session, first people named the first losses that they could think of, and you, as you mentioned, the first thing that came to people was auntie and spouse and child and those people came. And then I asked questions like, the dream that you have for your life in 2020, what was it? Write that down. They wrote it down. How much of that dream were you able to make a reality in 2020? How do you feel about that, right? So you're pausing, obviously, between these questions, because you want people to actually sit with and think about that 2020 my dream was to do X, was to visit so many states, was to develop a relationship with some family members, to strengthen relationships. And how did 2020 in, like, were you able to make that happen in 2020? I might say why and how does that make you feel? And that's a way for people to dig into some of, what some of what else they lost besides people. I also do this thing, where I asked you to name someone that you lost, someone who was not with us physically. And then I'll say tell me about that person's impact on your life. And so I'll use my grandmother: my grandmother died in 1995. And my grandmother was the best cook in the world——I don't care what anybody else says, I know, everybody has the best cook in your family——my grandmother was the best cook in the world, best baker in the world. My grandmother taught me how to bake. In fact, she taught all of my cousins roughly my age how to cook and how to bake. My grandmother was also the space where my mother was kind of strict but I could have fun at my grandmother's house——so my grandmother was this place of refuge for me. So when she died, it's not just that Grandmom Alberta died, it's also that the person who was teaching me to be the cook that I was trying to become died, right? That also died, this relationship of, you know, apprenticeship, if you will——me learning from this chef. What else——that was this place of refuge that I had, I no longer had the place to go where I felt overwhelmed by, you know, being a teenager at home with what, at that time, felt like a strict mother, right? So when you think about the person that you lost, even that person is attached to things that you have lost as a result of them not being here anymore. So in me talking with you about what that person represents for you, you're able to name a little bit deeper than just our grandmother is no longer here——it is this person who was teaching me how to cook, who was showing me that, with the power of food to heal——I lost that! I lost this place of refuge. Now I can mourn. Now I can grieve my loss because it's not just me grieving my grandmother. It is me also grieving what she represented in my life because that's the totality of the loss is when I can acknowledge the loss, but also all of the losses that are connected to that main loss, because there are often many losses and each of our one loss that we experience.

Susahama Austin-Connor
And you mentioned grief and mourning. What's the difference?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Yeah, so, grief is typically this internal way that we are feeling the loss, right? It's a combination of our thoughts, of our feelings. It's also some behavior as well, but when you think of mourning, mourning is that collective outward expression of the grief. And so when you think about, specifically, COVID——what COVID did was, we could grieve individually. But COVID cut off the opportunity for this collective grief and mourning, this collective coming together to do a thing that symbolizes the loss and the moving forward, where community could come and acknowledge with you a loss——and you have experience——could support you, could love on you, but also it marks moving forward, it marks a transition space. And so, some of us have had losses, but we've not had that transition moment where we now say, "Okay, I've had this loss, we're collectively mourning the loss, now we move forward in new ways." Many of us didn't have that opportunity over the past couple of years. We haven't collectively come together to support and to work through our grief together. So when you think about grief and mourning, mourning is that collective outward expression that we might do with rituals and community that allow us to express our grief together.

Susahama Austin-Connor
You also mentioned——and I know some of your background and certifications are attached to issues of mental health and, of course, death and dying and grieving have impact on your mental health in so many ways——what are ways that we can think about our grief——the ways in which we can think about our grief and then kind of turning that grief around to make it easier to keep living, to make it easier to keep thriving, how do we kind of walk with that grief and understand it, but also live our lives? When are we healthy again, I guess is the question?

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Yeah, so you're talking about how do we sort of integrate this loss into our lives because——

Susahama Austin-Connor
Exactly.

Jamie Eaddy Chism
——ultimately, that is what is required for us to live well, right? To live whole with the loss. So one is, I want people, all of us, to realize that the loss is always with us, I think if we have in our minds that we are going to get over, right, that at some point out I'll be over this, I think that hinders our integration. Because integrating does not mean getting over, it means finding a way to work with and live through and live with, right? So acknowledging the loss but knowing that the loss is going to live with me forever, I think, is the start. That's one thing. The second thing I would encourage all of us to do, as it relates to moving forward and finding a way to live is giving ourselves permission to pause. We want to move forward without the resting period, we want to move forward without the shedding of tears——and I'm using it as an example, I know, not everyone shed tears, because our grief looks like us, and not everyone is going to shed tears——but we want to move forward without allowing grief to have its space and have its say. And when we do that, grief is like, "Okay! All right! I'm gonna say something sooner or later!" So if I pause now and allow myself to feel what I feel, to name and to be——to be down for a moment, I think it's helpful in moving forward, staying connected to people, to our ancestors that are no longer with us physically. There's no rule that says you can't be in communication, in conversation with your grandmother who is no longer here——I talk to my grandmother all the time! I talk to Toni Morrison and she's not necessarily a blood relative, but when I am writing I talk, I'm like, "Toni, I don't know how you put these words on paper, but please guide me because I want to do something that lives with people the way your work lives with me." There is something powerful and healing in your ability to stay connected, and staying connected doesn't mean that you're holding on to the pain. It just means that you recognize that the loss is there, but that the person is meaningful. You can continue that relationship in terms of conversation and hopes, right? We believe that there is this cloud of witnesses that's encouraging us to——ecouraging us on, right? That's like got our back and behind us and supporting us. Why can't my grandmother be in that cloud of witnesses? And if she is there encouraging and supporting me why I cannot say, "Grandmom, I hope when I graduated I made you proud." I hope that when I'm feeding people in community that this——I think this is what you want, right? That is part of it! Naming the loss continuously. In my introduction, saying that I am the daughter of Anise Hill——my mother is still living——but I am the granddaughter of Alberta Brown——that is how I'm able to move forward, holding on to the hope and memory of my loved one, acknowledging their loss, but it allows me to move forward and not be stuck in the past. And then lastly, I would say, you don't have to do this alone. Like, we have——and I'm not talking about going to a therapist, although I do highly recommend therapy for everyone. But therapy, you know——financially there might be some some concerns——maybe not everyone can afford therapy, right? So we got to figure that piece out! But I encourage everyone: you don't have to do this alone! There are people, there are healers, there are clergy members, there are spiritual guides, there are just friends who are capable of listening and being with you as you try to navigate your way forward. And for the friends who are listening, who are here to be with people, please realize that in being with people you are not there to fix, you are not there to solve, you are not there to silver-lining their loss, you are only there to listen with empathy, to acknowledge that they are in deep pain and to not compare their loss to your loss. Just be with people. I think if we had that a little bit more in our community, a space to name, the ability to recognize that with some losses, there are gains, with some losses, we needed to let them go, and with some losses, we can hold on to the memory and continue naming and living with the memory of the loss, I think some of that will help us move forward in ways that are whole and healthy.

Susahama Austin-Connor
That's so practical and helpful, Jamie. Thank you so much for all of your words and your advice and you're——just clarifying so much for us today, I really appreciate your time.

Jamie Eaddy Chism
Thank you for having me. I'm glad that you found this conversation a worthy topic of discussion this morning, so thank you so much for having me today.

[Outro]
You've been listening to The Distillery at Princeton Theological Seminary. Interviews are conducted by me, Sushama Austin-Connor and Shari Oosting. Our producer is Brooke Matika. Like what you're hearing? Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And, while you're at it, leave us a review and let us know how we're doing. The Distillery is a production of the Office of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Find out more at thedistillery.ptsem.edu. Until next time, thanks for listening!