Grief, Identity, and Security
Redefining Grief
When my dad died two years ago just shy of a 50-year marriage to my stepmom, it was devastating for her. Many of us have experienced the grief that comes with losing someone we love, never able to see them again face to face, to hug them, to talk to them. But as I was pondering grief and identity, I started to wonder if there was more to it than the expected grief we associate with losing a loved one. Of course there is a void, a loss of that person in your life and of being left behind, but could there be a correlation between grief and identity that is overlooked?
Perhaps the root of grief is the loss of self that happens when we lose people and things. When someone dies, we don’t just lose them; we also lose a part of ourselves, our own identity as their beloved. We lose the sense of seeing ourselves reflected back in their loving eye. Who are we without that reflection of love defining us? Whose beloved will we be? In the case of losing a spouse we go from being a “we” to an “I.” How does that affect our sense of who we are in the world?
Security in Knowing Ourselves
As children of divorce, we often find ourselves searching for our lost identities. One of the biggest losses for children of divorce–along with identity–is a loss of security. When our world gets turned upside down, when everything we believed to be true—the love of our parents for each other and for us, the idea that family is forever—is disproved, then we feel insecure, off balance, and scared, like I was at five years old, crawling into my mom’s bed every night. If the most foundational part of our lives, our families, can be destroyed so easily, then what else can be taken from us?
I see a correlation between identity and security. Could it be that our need for security is actually fueling this endless search for identity? Our families offered us physical security but also the security of knowing who we were—a member of the family, a beloved. Perhaps we believe that to definitively know who we are will somehow bring us more comfort—the safety and security we lost as a child.
However, we forget that as human beings our identities are constantly changing to some degree with every new season of our lives. We are always shedding more and more of our false selves and becoming more the children that God made us to be. Our identities on this earth are not finite—we have many throughout our lifetimes. Maybe the lost and definitive identity we are seeking as children of divorce never existed. There is no finality in knowing who we are except with our heavenly Father.
This thought brings me solace, a way to move out of my victim mentality, and a sense of security. I don’t have to keep searching for my lost identity to feel secure. At the same time, when I lose a part of me that seemed to shape my identity, I can recognize that as grief and mourn appropriately.
Death is Not Our Only Grief: “Small” Losses
People with “small” losses tend to deny themselves time or space to grieve, thinking they have no right when other people suffer so much more. Anything less than a death is not even considered grief, or worthy of grieving, to most people. My church just put out a survey for grief support groups and the only check boxes for those interested in support had to do with death. Shifting my definition and understanding of grief has been a powerful tool in healing.
I believe that anything that forces us to change our current identity is worthy of our time, reflection, and grief. Even things we choose, like moving to a new city, can bring a sense of loss of the place we left and identified with as a citizen, a friend, a book club member, or part of a faith community. Losing a pet is a huge loss for many people even though we would like to trivialize it because it seems “silly” to grieve over an animal. It’s not just the pet who brought us so much joy and the loss of them in our lives, it’s the loss of our identity as caretaker and pet owner, the loss of their unconditional love. Grief, even in something as small as this, is good to recognize. Our soul demands to be heard—recognizing and accepting our grief gives it a voice and allows us to heal.
Divorce is a Big Loss
And then there are the big losses like death and divorce. Divorce is one of the biggest losses we will ever encounter and is just as devastating and grief-worthy as death. It’s not a death in the family, it’s a death of the family. Children of divorce need to grieve and need to be given the permission and support to do so. Mostly they need to give themselves permission. As a child of divorce, whether you wished for your parents to split or not, you are entitled to and may need to grieve the loss of a whole family, of your ideal family, of hope for your family circumstances to get better, of your innocence, of your identity as a member of that family, and all the other losses and changes that come with divorce.
Grieving our lost identities in childhood and in our everyday lives can help us heal. At the same time if we recognize our need for security in our obsessive search for self, and realize that God is the only true source of security and steadfast love, then we will know who we are. We can stop searching for an identity to bring us the security we are looking for. Grief can help us in that it frees us from attachment to our earthly identity which is not our primary one. We are children of a loving Father who will not leave us, who will always love us, and whose beloved sons and daughters we will always be, no matter what other changes we experience in our lives.
About the Author
Sandy grew up in Southern California where she spent her time camping, surfing and horseback riding. She earned a B.A. in journalism from Cal State, Long Beach, and has written for Black Belt and Boys’ Life magazines and various community newspapers. She has been married for twenty years and now lives in Minnesota with her husband Mark. She has a blended family with two stepsons, one who earned his Masters in Theology, another who is a talented musician, and one son in seminary.
Sandy rediscovered her Catholic faith upon moving to Minnesota nine years ago, and in the last two years has begun the healing process from her parents' divorce. She has been retired since 2019. She is also a Life-Giving Wounds online retreat leader.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
“How does [losing someone or something] affect our sense of who we are in the world?“
Do you see a correlation between identity and security in your own experience?
How has your identity (sense of self) changed over the years?
Have you allowed yourself to grieve the loss of your family (as a family unit)?