By Nanette Jacobs, TCF Marin County & San Francisco, CA Chapters
~reprinted from St. Paul, MN Newsletter

I just returned from the TCF National Conference in Salt Lake City. This was my 4th conference. I remember a speaker at a past conference refer to TCF as “the club with the highest dues”, and it has stuck in my mind ever since.

Did you ever say to yourself, “I wish I never had to know any of these people?” or “I don’t want to be here at this meeting.”?  I know I have said it myself many times, especially when I tell someone about TCF and they say that they never knew there was such a group. I would say something like, “Well, I wouldn’t have known either, and I wish I didn’t have to know.”  Yep, this is the club that no one wants to join. Yet, when I was at the conference I have to admit that it was nice to see so many others there. Others may think that it is “depressing” that we would choose to go to a conference with 1,000 other bereaved parents, but we don’t go to “wallow” in our grief, but to learn more about our grief so that we become better equipped to deal with it. As you’ve heard over and over again, there is no denying your grief…it will find you no matter what, so why not be empowered?

One of the most interesting and affirming workshops I attended was a workshop titled, “Shadow Grief.” Ronald J. Knapp in his book Beyond Endurance (out of print) defines shadow grief as this: “Shadow grief is a form of ‘chronic’ grief, and can be a burden that parents, mothers especially, sometimes must bear for most of their lives. Shadow grief does not manifest itself overtly; it does not debilitate; no effort is required to cope with it. On the surface, most observers would say that the ‘grief work’ has been accomplished. But this is not the case. Shadow grief reveals itself more in the form of an emotional ‘dullness’, where the person is unable to respond fully and completely to outer stimulation and where normal activity is moderately inhibited. It is characterized as a dull ache in the background of one’s feelings that remains fairly constant and that, under certain circumstances and on certain occasions, comes bubbling to the surface, sometimes in the form of tears, sometimes not, but always accompanied by a feeling of sadness and a mild sense of anxiety.”

BINGO! Isn’t it easier to deal with it when we acknowledge that it exists? Yes, I know that all of you are very much aware of this “shadow grief”, but didn’t know how to describe it. Mr. Knapp did it beautifully. We think that something is wrong with us and others think that we are “stuck” or not getting “over it”, but what I learned in this workshop is the fact that no matter how long ago our child or sibling died, there will always be “shadow grief” and more importantly, it’s normal!! Even though this was my 4th conference after five years without my daughter, I still learned something new about me and my grieving process, and it was comforting and eye-opening.

So, consider going to a future conference no matter how long it has been. You will be guaranteed to learn something new about this lifelong condition that we live with that is so neatly called “loss”, yet is anything but neat.