EARLY ATTACHMENT, SEPARATION, AND GRIEF
We are born into this world totally dependent. We all need nourishment, warmth, shelter, protection, and love. Attachment and mourning are as primary and instinctual. Studies of attachment and separation expose the undiminished misery of both grieving human beings and grieving animals.
Attachment, Separation, and Grief in Animals
Just like people, many animals become grief-stricken by separation. Pets sometimes grieve themselves to death after their owners have died. Even though the separation may be temporary, some are in such despair that they refuse life-sustaining care. Numerous veterans report that when they left for war, their pets refused water and food and starved themselves to death.
Certain animal communities (elephants, for instance) rally around their dying, never faltering from their side. Observing such a community has carried a lifelong effect for Joe.
When Joe was ten years old, his dad gave him a shotgun. By the time he was twelve, he often ventured into nearby fields and woods alone. When no game was available, he would shoot any creature that moved, just to improve his marksmanship. Joe sorrowfully recalled his last hunting experience.
Nothing was unusual about the day’s expedition—that is, until Joe shot a seagull. As the beautiful white bird fell shrieking toward a nearby pond, dozens and dozens of seagulls rushed to its aid. They circled above their comrade lying mortally wounded at the water’s edge. Their gentle flight was in contrast to their grievous cries. Soon, from every direction, many more seagulls joined overhead, until there seemed to be at least one hundred. High-pitched shrieks of mourning filled the air as they circled around and around in anguished protest.
Never had such an experience befallen Joe before. What have I done…what have I done? he thought. More birds than he had ever seen collected to fly vigil. The community of seagulls never wavered from its grieving flight, even after their comrade lay lifeless. Joe turned away, no longer able to tolerate the haunting sobs and forlorn circling of the graceful birds.
“I regretted what I had done,” he explained, “so I began to run, thinking I would leave the aftermath behind. But I couldn’t. The mourning flock made me realize that this one little seagull’s life had been significant, and that every living thing had meaning and a right to live. I vowed never to harm another animal.”
Although time and distance eventually separated Joe from the reverberating calls, the mourning he witnessed that day lingered in his memory. His experience catapulted him into a lifelong interest in attachment behaviors and loss. He verifies that all living species (human, nonhuman, wild, and domesticated) suffer grief. Grieving loss is as innate as eating when famished.
Early Attachment and Grief in Human Beings
Infants depend on attachment for survival.1 Babies usually attach to their mothers first and cry out in grief when separated from her. Even though their separation may be only temporary, or even imagined, it can be intensely devastating. No behaviors are powered by stronger emotions than grief, and they do not disappear with infancy. Adults carry the same feelings and behaviors they experienced during their first year of life, along with others that develop through the years.
Grief Patterns Develop
Infants are not developed enough to understand their feelings of separation or grief, and, even if they could, they would not have the necessary verbal skills to express how they feel. As a result, they bring all those emotions into their next stage of development.
During the next stage, the second and third years of life, children begin to understand their feelings, and they also begin to develop the ability to express them. At that point, grief responses become more obvious. Unfortunately, few people realize that children hold a genuine need for attachment and that they need to express their sorrow when separated. Most adults respond by saying, “Stop that bawling,” “Big kids don’t cry,” “There’s no reason to cry,” or “Cry, and I’ll give you something to cry about.” The following examples chronicle how grief patterns can develop.
“We didn’t want you kids to raise a big fuss”
Emily and her two sisters were parents of six children, all between the ages of one and four. Early on, the three mothers agreed to share baby-sitting duties. Wanting to avoid their children’s crying episodes when being left behind, they devised a system for leaving them. Emily, for example, made no mention to her children that they would be staying with one of their aunts for a few hours. When they arrived at the aunt’s home, everybody gathered in the living room. Then, when it was time for Emily to leave, one of the adults distracted all the children by taking them into the backyard to play. But every time Emily’s children returned to the room where they had last seen her, they panicked. “Mommy…Mommy…Mommy,” they screamed and cried, beating on the door for her to return. Their feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and grief were dismissed by their aunt’s scolding, “What’s the matter with you? You know she’ll be back.”
Now fully grown, Emily’s children’s deep-seated grief, abandonment, and betrayal resurface with every loss, yet they dismiss their feelings—just as they were taught to do during childhood. One niece, however, probed into her background after her mother died. “What were all of you thinking?” she asked her aunt.
“We just didn’t want you kids to raise a big fuss,” was the response.
After understanding how her feelings had developed, Emily’s niece explained to us, “I prepare my kids. I kiss them good-bye and remind them that I’ll be back in a few hours. They might grieve a little when I leave, but they won’t feel abandoned and lost the way I did.”
“Here comes the funeral procession again”—Dianne’s Story
From the time I was very young, my grandmother stayed with me while my parents worked. On my fifth birthday, my parents, older sister, and I moved from Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Houston, Texas, leaving Grandma behind. Although we visited her often, our departure for the long drive back to Texas always ended the same.
My mother and sister said their good-byes to Grandma inside her house and then hastened to our sedan. That gave Grandma and me time for our private and emotional good-byes. During my last few moments inside, I grasped for every millisecond by absorbing the aroma of her freshly baked buttermilk cake, the drip-drip-drip of her leaky kitchen faucet, the faded floral wallpaper, and Grandma’s tight embrace in which I was lovingly enveloped.
Mother, meanwhile, patiently sat behind the steering wheel, while my sister, perched on two puffy pillows, drummed her painted fingernails against the rear window. After some time, Mother revved the car’s engine, a signal that it was time to leave. As Grandma and I emerged through the creaky screen door, sobbing and clinging together, my sister loudly voiced her complaint, “Oh God. Here comes the funeral procession again.”
Sitting down in the front passenger seat, I hurriedly cranked my window down to eliminate the glass that stood between my grandma and me. As the car rolled forward, I threw one last kiss. Wiping the tears with her dainty hand-stitched apron, Grandma looked as if her heart was breaking; nevertheless, her wrinkled hand moved to her mouth to return my kiss. I craned my head and shoulders around, my eyes ever longing to keep me connected to the grandma I so adored. Finally, a blur of houses stood between us. Grandma was gone again. “Oh, honey, please don’t cry. If you cry, you’ll get sick,” Mother pleaded.
Such a little girl not to be allowed to have her feelings, but that is the way it is for most children. My mind, however, took Mother’s warning one step further. My grandfather had died from an undiagnosed illness; thus, I made up the equation as follows: If I cry, I will get sick, and if I get sick, I will die. Cry = get sick = death. Tears became a survival issue, with only one way to cope—to hold them in, no matter what.
Some thirty years later, after my parents died, I felt as if my heart was drowning in tears. In my memory, I revisited my early losses and my pattern for dealing with them. I investigated crying, its effects on the immune system, and other grief responses. On the one hand, I know that Mother wanted to protect my health, and I will always love her for that. On the other hand, I learned beyond what she knew. I discovered that bottled sorrow is not beneficial to anyone’s well-being and that tears actually eliminate toxins from the body. I now carry numerous conscious choices for reacting to separation instead of the unconscious one.
“I have grieved all my life”
In a home for unwed mothers, a seventeen-year-old gave birth. “Baby girl” became the newborn’s identity. That’s the way illegitimacies were handled back then, on June 28, 1922, in Fort Worth, Texas.
After three days and a long train ride, “Baby girl’s” twenty-year-old adoptive parents arrived. The tiny infant with thick dark hair and a button nose was finally given a loving mother, a wonderful home, and a name: Leona.
“I remember life being so sweet,” Leona said, as she reflected on her early years. “But then my mother got sick and had to have an operation. She died during the surgery. At the age of three, I had been orphaned twice. But we never talked about it,” Leona said with a sigh. “I just grieved and grieved all to myself. It was awful. And it was fresh grief all over again when I started school, graduated, got married, gave birth to each of my children, and became a grandmother. I cried myself to sleep many nights, and not just on special occasions. Now I realize that I have grieved every day of my life.”
As Leona’s story points out, repressed grief can be resurrected, and not only during bereavement. Any longing can initiate the original pain.