Honouring Loss Through Legacy: A Meaning-Making Journey in Grief

As a grief educator, I talk about grief with clients, colleagues, friends, and peers on pretty well a daily basis.  Talking about it from a personal perspective is a much different beast but sometimes noticing it through the lens of both together can create a huge impact.

We have all heard that there are various stages of grief.  They are not linear, not everyone goes through every stage, and not any one person’s journey is the same as another’s.  If you are in the midst of your own grief journey and you have not experienced what I am going to share, please know there is nothing wrong with you.  You are going through your own grief journey, and although we tend to wish there was a clear-cut one size fits all way to work through our grief, there is not. 

One of the stages when working through grief is referred to as “meaning-making”, and this can often be one of the most challenging stages of grief to understand, work with, and bring up from a professional standpoint.  I can tell you that it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to work with on my own personal grief journey as well.

Losing my father was one of the most significant moments of my life, and in many ways was something I never fully believed I could make meaning from.  I mean, there were times I could tell you I wanted to feel it or times I tried to tell myself I was feeling it, but truly, how could there really be meaning to losing someone I loved, cared for, and respected so deeply?

But today I have felt a shift.  An understanding of sorts, and it came when my mother shared with my brothers and I the completion of something that she began shortly after my dad died.  Perhaps, whether she or we knew it or not, my mom was working on this stage of grief right from the start.

Many of you know that I am a 60’s Scoop adoptee who does a lot of sharing of her story to bring awareness to this era in history, as well as other significant issues faced and still being faced by the indigenous population.  But there is much I also have to share and be proud of within the Jewish culture I was raised in. 

There is a Jewish concept called tikkun olam, that was extremely important to my father.  This concept means “repairing the world” and refers to actions aimed at fixing the world through social justice, charitable acts and environmental stewardship.  He told us time and again a story that took place while he was earning his law degree. During what I believe was the summer before his final year of university, my dad decided he wanted to do some travelling with his friends, but doing so would mean he couldn’t afford to pay his tuition that final year. After sharing with an undisclosed mentor that he would be taking a year off before finishing, this mentor insisted he finish with the rest of his class and paid his tuition.  There were only 2 conditions that were asked.  The first, was that my father never tell anyone who he was.  The second was that he pay it forward when he could.  Not only did my father pay it forward, but from that point on, tikkun olam became one of his main values, and one that I will always associate with him.  That and loving kindness.  He gave of himself both financially and through the precious time he gave getting involved in an assortment of communities and causes.

So, how does this tie into what my mother shared today and what created such a profound shift?  It is that she has finalized setting up a scholarship fund in my father’s memory.  One where he will continue paying it forward to other law students, and one where his name, memory, and very essence of tikkun olam will live on.  She has created legacy.

Legacy is about continuity.  It’s how a person’s presence, values, and impact can continue beyond their physical life, and it can be created in many different ways.  It can be through the sharing of stories, the creation of albums or art, or through rituals, just to name a few.  But when done in a meaningful way, it can move us from the heavy feelings of “I have to let go”, to “here’s how I can feel you now” instead.

What I understand now at a different level is that meaning-making is not about explaining his death away or finding a reason that makes the void of missing him ok.  It is not “coming to terms with it” or trying to trick myself with those “on the bright sides”.  No – not at all.  Instead, it is the honouring of all of my feelings while finding a way to integrate his memory in a way that still has me feeling connected to him in a good way in the here and now, and through this legacy I feel I am on my way to doing just that.