The Scene

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The Worst Kind Of Goodbye

Letting go of a parent is never easy,
especially in early adulthood.

5/8
1998

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
Scene Editor

IV hen Jon Dwoskin's
mother passed away in
February, it almost
seemed surreal. Even
through the funeral and then sitting
shiva in a house filled with well-wish-
ers, Jon couldn't believe that his
mother was gone.
Because in a way, she wasn't.
And isn't.
"I spend a lot of time think-
ing about the good things,"
says Jon. "Even though I get
sad, I do what my mom did
— she lost her sister and both
of her parents within five years
— she still stayed positive. I
take that with me."
Jon can talk about his
mother's death because he
worked through his grief—
while she was battling a rare,
inherited disease, and after
she passed away. "She taught
me a lot that'll live on forever
— through me, through my
children, through her
friends," he says. "The key is
remembering the good times.
I think the fear of it [for
many young adults] is
you're scared you may
forget. Even now, we'll
be telling stories that
only my mom knew,
that she could tell in a
certain way."
We know that our
parents won't live forev-
er. But we expect them
to live for most of our
lives — to see weddings,
births, grandchildren's
b'nai mitzvot. To lose a
parent is perhaps one of
the worst imaginable
tragedies, but it happens
to plenty of young adults.
One young woman who
spoke on the condition of
anonymity says Mother's
Day is one of the hardest
times for her. She refuses to
speak of her deceased
mother.
"It never gets easier," she
says. "You just learn to live

with it."
It was hard to find young adults
who were willing to speak about the
death of a parent. For some, even
when it happened years in the past,
its a tough issue that they choose to
rarely revisit.
"Sometimes the experience of los-
ing a parent is so devastating, people
will close themselves off emotionally,"
says Stacey Rautbort, a clinical social
worker at Jewish Family Service. It
can even affect a young person's abili-
ty to have successful relationships
later on. Sometimes, "they won't
allow themselves to get intimate or
emotionally connected to another
person so they won't re-experience
that pain again."
The age of the child can determine
how he/she will cope. "Depending
on the emotional developmental stage
that a person is at, your struggles are
different and your sense of self is dif-
ferent," says Stacey. "A teenager who
loses a parent may not have a sense of
time or foresight of how it will affect
them. A young adult may think into
the future." For example, a teenager
may simply feel the pain at the
moment, but a young adult may con-
template the fact that a parent will
never see his/her grandchildren.
There are five stages of grief:
1. Denial and isolation, when you
can't believe it's happening and you
cope by isolating yourself from sup-
port.
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining, when you think, "if
I just did something different, maybe
this wouldn't have happened."
4. Depression.
5. Acceptance.
"There's no time limit on h- ow
long it takes to go through these
stages," says Stacey. "Everyone copes
with loss differently, and that needs
to be respected. In the Jewish culture,
we have a very comforting way of
dealing with death and loss — the
whole experience of shiva creates an
environment where you can feel corn-
forted, not only by the food that's
provided, but by the people. When
we sit for seven days, people are con-
stantly coming in and out, we have a
tendency to sit around and reminisce
about good times, tell funny stories.
It's a nice way of beginning the griev-
ing process."