A CHAPLAIN’S MINISTRY TO A BEREAVED WOMAN

One of the first patients at a newly established mental health facility in a large southern city was a middle-aged woman whose daughter and four grandchildren had burned to death in a fire.  She was so distraught that the family tried to shield her from the reality of her loss.  They removed photographs of the deceased, wouldn’t let her talk about her anguish, wouldn’t even let her go to the funeral.  Not surprisingly, she soon became psychotic.  When she ran through the neighborhood on evening, screaming for her daughter, they took her to the psych ward at the county hospital.  She was Black, poor and uneducated, and nobody bothered to talks seriously with her.  Instead, they diagnosed her as schizophrenic, gave her shock treatments and drugs, and sent her home.  She seemed to do all right for a few days, but then again became distressed.  At that point, she came to us.

 The Institute was designed as a training facility, and we had trainees in psychiatry, psychology, and clinical social work as well as those in Clinical Pastoral Education.  Many of the staff were unfamiliar with the work of a chaplain, so part of my job was to define that.  Also, this was in 1965, near the beginning of the Civil Rights Era, and I was especially sensitive to that.  So I eagerly volunteered to work with Ida Mae as her primary therapist and case coordinator.

Four incidents stand out in the memory of our work together.

She told me once that she had thought she could hear her daughter’s voice calling to her.  I asked where she was when she last heard her daughter.  It was by the window in her room at the Institute.  I accompanied her to the spot and asked her to listen very hard.  If she had heard her daughter, I intended to help facilitate a conversation, such as, “What is Alice saying to you?”  “What do you want to say to her?”  And so forth.  But after some moments of intense concentration, she told me she couldn’t hear anything.  Then she added, “She really is dead, isn’t she?”  I think this marked a turning point in the process of grieving.

A week or so later, I took her to the cemetery.  The unmarked graves were in an isolated undeveloped area, surrounded by brush.  As I conducted a formal funeral service, she threw herself on the ground, weeping, as she embraced the earth that held her loved ones.

On another occasion, in my office, she talked at length about how difficult her life had been, and about how important her faith had been to her.  At one point, I told her I wanted to try something.  I pulled a chair over to face the one in which she was sitting.  I told her that I would like for us to create a little drama, like a play or a TV show.  And this drama has two characters, Ida Mae and God.  And they are going to have a conversation with each other.  “Now I would like for you to sit over here, in this other chair, and play the role of God.  Just pretend that you are God, and Ida Mae is sitting there in that other across from you.  Now, what do you want to say to Ida Mae?”

 After a bit of fidgeting and encouragement from me, she looked at the empty chair and said, “Ida Mae, you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself, and get back home to take care of your husband and your other children.”  I nodded, and said, “Okay, now since this is just make-believe, we can experiment a bit.   I would like to give you a line to say to Ida Mae – just to see what it’s like.  I want you to say, “Ida Mae, I’m sorry your life has been so hard.  I want you to know you’re my child and I love you.”

She said the words hesitantly and seemed confused.  So I asked her to say them again.  As she did, she sobbed and said that nobody had ever said anything like that to her.

End of the hour, she shook my hand excitedly and said, “Chaplain Close, I am a PERSON.!  Praise God, I am a PERSON!”  She took a few steps toward the door and came back to take my hand again.  “I am a PERSON!”

As the time came for Ida Mae to leave the Institute, she told me that her grieving had been like being trapped in a cold barren room, with a huge piece of ice blocking the door.  She rubbed on the ice to try to melt it away, but very quickly her hands became so cold she had to back off and let her hands get warm again.  Then she would rub the ice some more.  Finally, she melted a hole big enough for her to crawl out of.

I have used this symbolism of the block of ice many times.  I will sometimes add something like, “No one else can rub the ice for you.  No one else has access to it.  What your friends and loved ones can do is help you get your hands warm again.  They can hold your hands lovingly next to their hearts to help them get warm for the time they must rub the ice again.”