Tessa M. Smith, Ph.D. Student, Educational Studies, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University
I’m sitting with Dr. Nicolazzo’s astute reckoning of grief as unmetabolizable. “Metabolize” is a word that feels so wholly connected to the body. Although our brains are of course parts of our bodies, the cerebral nature of how we, as a society and as educators, acknowledge grief certainly seems insufficient. I can feel a sick pit in my stomach from the incredible losses of the last two years especially. Plagues of gun violence, hatred, white supremacy, and the coronavirus have devastated the country. Meanwhile, many of us are chugging along, trying to find the “new normal” while so many deaths settle into the background of American life, the pits in our stomachs chugging along with us. I’m not sure if grief is something that can be metabolized, changed into something useful for the body, but perhaps that’s worth exploring.
If grief were metabolizable, it seems that we as a western society and as a field haven’t allowed ourselves to discover what’s needed to process it. The United States is a death-denying country that deems death, dying, grief, and bereavement as morbid, depressing, and taboo. So, what is the role of education in normalizing mortality issues, and in this case, in addressing the collective grief that Z mentioned more fully? What can we learn from other cultures that hold grief differently? How do we build community in educational spaces around these issues and allow ourselves to feel them?
A few years ago, my therapist taught me about disenfranchised grief. Disenfranchised grief refers to a loss that cannot be publicly acknowledged, or mourning that is not socially supported (Doka, 1999). It could be the loss of a dream, an identity, a pet, or an experience that a person chooses not to share—not only the loss of human life. My therapist used an analogy that disenfranchised grief is like a gooey, sticky substance over a person’s eyes, always clouding their view of the world, and that through acknowledging the loss that caused it, the gooey stuff can be moved into the periphery, where it doesn’t cloud everything, but rather sort of tags along. I wonder if acknowledging something, truly, does involve feeling it. Although everyone needs something different to manage grief, perhaps there are ways to cultivate grief-conscious educational opportunities where people can sit with their pain and move it into the periphery with others.
I think about instances of disenfranchised grief as “little deaths.” I don’t mean to say that grief is small, but rather that there are losses that become parts of us, though we keep on living. As Z said, grief is altering. Although the pandemics have raised our collective awareness of lost lives, our students and colleagues have always carried with them grief and little deaths. For example, I’m reminded of the incredible, secret grief I carried for years after being sexually assaulted by an acquaintance in my early 20s. Well into my first year of graduate school, I had nearly convinced myself that I had imagined the whole multi-hour assault scene, torn clothing, and bruised body and all. As an aspiring student affairs professional, I felt that the wretched secret that I was a survivor crept up at the worst times—particularly when I was trying to support students who were disclosing their own trauma to me.
Eventually, I felt like I was doing a disservice to students because my “stuff” lingered in my mind during our conversations. I tried to deal with the little death of my ideas about my safe, powerful body. I wish that I had found a community where people wouldn’t just interrupt me to tell me they were mandatory reporters or one where it felt safe to sit in my grief with others at that time. Since I couldn’t, I decided to run a half marathon and replay the entire night in my head in an effort to “process” it, to get it out of my soul and into my body where I could feel it. I let the grief sit—well, run—with me for a while. While this way of feeling may not be the best idea for everyone, it felt healing for me to surface the rage and sadness that this little death caused, and now I’m more able to acknowledge it in community with others and hold it in my periphery. It’s more just a part of me than it is an encompassing weight. Does that mean it’s more metabolized?
I love Z’s intention to feel in community with her students, and I certainly will certainly ways to do that myself. In thinking about the grief students carry from altering experiences like the COVID-19 pandemic, coming out to their families, declining mental health, racism, and all the other losses they may be holding, I will try to feel with them and their grief when they need it rather than “later.”
I’m sending so much gratitude to Z for sharing a bit about her mother and her grief through her writing. I’m curious if she feels any different, having gently expressed this grief with others. The fact that Z had to call out that gentleness is not meant to exist in place of intellectual depth speaks volumes about the culture of education at this time. It’s disturbing that scholars need to justify their grief alongside their productivity. To me, thinking about and grappling with issues of mortality and grief is a critical human need. Without an honest, intellectual, and holistic exploration of how and which people are dying in the United States, so many opportunities for social change and human connection will continue to be lost. Death education and bereavement are valid and necessary endeavors, and I feel fortunate to be in conversation with a scholar who recognizes that she’s not “distracted” from the work of higher education but rather that feeling the collective grief with students is the work of higher education. I look forward to following Dr. Nicolazzo’s deeply intellectual and deeply human journey toward a pedagogy of grief.
References
Doka, K. J. (1999). Disenfranchised grief. Bereavement Care, 18(3), 37-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/02682629908657467
About the Author
Tessa Smith (she/her) strives to cultivate critical consciousness in education through interdisciplinary research, collaborative pedagogy, writing, and experiential learning. Tess has worked in various higher education and student affairs roles over the last decade, and currently is a third-year PhD student in the Philosophy and History of Education program at the Ohio State University. Her scholarship is focused on the ethics of censorship and the role of education in addressing and normalizing death, mortality, and grief. Outside of higher education spaces, Tess enjoys exploring her own mortality and soaking up her aliveness by connecting with nature, sharing stories over coffee with friends, and completing home projects in Columbus, Ohio where she resides.
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