I am excited to be here today to bring you a guest post from Debbie Augenthaler. Please help me give her a warm welcome to the blog.
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Grief Stories Matter
by Debbie Augenthaler,
Author of You Are Not Alone
“If I don’t learn to
face my grief, it would be like taking a deep breath and holding that breath
for the rest of my life.”
--Kate Pearson (Chrissy Metz), the daughter in “This is Us”
I’ve been riveted to the NBC show This
is Us, and I’m almost relieved season two is over so I can finally put my tissues away
and exhale. For anyone who has ever been grieving - which is all of us, this
show is not only cathartic, but takes courage to watch, explore, and
acknowledge the impact of loss. What I’m so aware of is how unspoken this is in our grief-phobic
society.
As a psychotherapist
specializing in trauma, grief and loss, it’s exciting to witness the first
television series to accurately depict the intricate web of grief and the
transformations that follows, both positive and negative. And because the
writers of This is Us aren’t afraid to show us the many facets of grief, we aren’t afraid to look.
The show is bookended
by two deaths in the close-knit and loving Pearson family, one occurring in the
delivery room and the other following a tragic fire in the Pearson’s home seventeen years later, though there are other
meaningful losses in the series.
In the first episode
of Season One, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) are expecting triplets. After the delivery, Dr.
K (Gerald McRaney)
informs a shocked Jack that one of the babies died. A
grief-stricken Jack listens as Dr. K shares his personal story of losing his
wife recently to cancer, and of the death of their first baby in the delivery
room more than fifty years earlier. The loss of his first child inspired him to
become a doctor. He tells Jack “one day you will look back and see that you took the sourest lemon that life has to
offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade.” Moments later, Jack makes a decision to adopt an
abandoned black baby a fireman brought to the hospital, and this decision changes the
Pearson family forever.
This beautiful,
tender, and sometimes tragic family story is mostly told in flashbacks, and we
get to witness the three siblings’ lives twenty years after their father dies, to see how
his absence in their lives and memory of his death still haunts them. Through
their own personal struggles, they show us how grief has shaped and informed
who they’ve become as adults. The experiences of each sibling, Kevin (Justin
Hartley), Chrissy (Metz) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) reminds us we all have different ways of coping with loss.
It also shows how grief is
not linear and has no timetable.
In the infamous
Season Two Super Bowl episode Jack is finally safe in the hospital after going
back into his family’s burning home to save the family dog. Rebecca goes to the vending
machine to get a candy bar. In slow
motion, as she’s choosing from a mostly empty vending machine, you see the chaos of the
hospital staff behind her, rushing into her husband’s room. When
she finally turns around, the doctor is there to inform her Jack has died from
a heart attack. Unable to take in the news, she crunches into her candy bar
with denial.
Instantly, I am
brought back to my own husband’s shocking death when I was just thirty-six-years old,
when his doctors came down the hospital corridor with the same look on their
faces, to tell me my husband Jim was dead, also from a heart attack.
Like Rebecca, I didn’t want to
believe it. When Rebecca goes into Jack’s hospital room and sees him laying motionless on the
bed, when she is handed the plastic bag with Jack’s wallet and other belongings, my body weakens and my
legs tremble again like they did when I was handed a similar plastic bag—and I
weep for her and also for myself so many years ago.
That’s the thing about grief and sharing our grief stories.
We remember that grief is so personal, but it’s also universal.
The show exposes the
darker side of how the characters manage their grief—through addictions, guilt,
and anger, and in doing this, we are able to admit to our own struggles and see
our own selves in these complex characters.
It also show the
other side of grief, the gifts that can come from loss, when
Dr. K., with great compassion, shares his story to give Jack hope. He does the
same with Rebecca after Jack dies - giving her a glimmer of hope in the
darkness. I love how strongly the themes of the continuing bonds of love and
how our loved ones live on in us thread throughout the series. Love doesn’t
die.
A good story reaches
out and reminds us of our own experiences and our own struggles and triumphs,
and This is Us delivers that in
spades. By witnessing the lives of
another family in grief, we are given permission to look at our own struggles,
to forgive ourselves our transgressions and also forgive those we love.
I’m grateful to NBC and all the writers for bringing grief out of the
shadows and into the light with This is
Us – for reminding us that grief is about all of us. These beautiful episodes
will help us start so many conversations about grief, and by watching this
show, whatever breath we are holding onto in our lungs, we can finally begin to
exhale.
Because This is Us is who we are and this is the way we feel. Grief stories matter, and
sharing them helps all of us heal.
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Thanks Debbie for the insightful post!
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About Debbie Augenthaler, LMHC, NCC
Debbie is a psychotherapist in private practice
in New York City, where she has specialized in trauma, grief, and loss. Her
husband, Jim, died suddenly in her arms when she was only 36 years old. He
had been healthy and vibrant – the doctors compared the probability of
his death by heart attack to being struck by lightning. That lightning
strike ended her life as she knew it and thus began the “baptism by fire”
that brought her to her new future.
Debbie’s book, You Are Not Alone: A
Heartfelt Guide for Grief, Healing, and Hope (May 2018), is the book she
wishes she’d had when she was grieving, and wishes she had now to offer
clients experiencing life-altering losses. With the connection of a shared
experience, Debbie guides the reader through grief to transformation and a
new beginning.
Debbie has as Master’s Degree in Counseling for
Mental Health and Wellness from New York University. She has completed
a two year post graduate Advanced Trauma Studies program from the
Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and is trained in various
modalities that inform a holistically based practice including EMDR, Internal
Family Systems, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Energy Psychology, and
Hypnosis. In 2012 she received the NYU Steinhardt Award for Outstanding
Clinical Service.
For more information, please visit http://www.debbieaugenthaler.com/book/ and follow Debbie on Facebook and Twitter.
Happy Reading!
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