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The words ‘plane crash’ always sets off a powerful chain reaction in me.
I start reliving the experience of being 12 years old and hearing on the 6 o’clock news that the plane my mother and grandmother were on, crashed in a cornfield in Iowa during a thunder storm.
Each time there is a new plane crash, I have the same visceral reaction — my stomach knots up.
I guess that explains my especially strong gut reaction to when Donald J.Trump immediately insinuated the recent Washington DC mid-air collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines passenger plane killing 67 must have been caused because the pilots and/or controllers involved were under qualified because they were hired under Lyndon Johnson’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Act of 1966.
shift the blame
The DEI Act was passed to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability.
When Trump was asked how, without evidence, he could determine that diversity hiring was the cause of the crash, he responded: "Because I have common sense." Wow, what a sarcastic answer!
I felt so badly that the surviving relatives of the 67 people who perished had to listen to such insensitive politicizing.
I could easily put myself in their shoes, expecting and wanting and needing sympathy and condolences, or at least some amount of understanding. Instead we all heard the made-up accusations.
There have been other times, when I had this same gut-reaction: I hate it when someone , lacking compassion tells me to ”get over it.’ What a big difference between that dismissive comment and offering support and the empowering choice of moving forward.
Moving forward was so difficult for me for many decades. It seemed there was always one or another anniversary reaction: These triggers seem to come from out of the blue, related to seasons or holidays or smells or sounds or certain music or art.
I became really depressed as I was Turning 40, the age my mother was when she died.
And to my surprise I found myself struggling again the next year when I turned 41. It reminded me I had reached the age my mother never had a chance to experience.
Another big-time anniversary response was when my daughter and later my grand daughter turned 12 years old.
You may find yourself wondering “Where are these sudden powerful feelings coming from?
We may be re-experiencing a traumatic event from the past. And these kinds of anniversary reactions are often related to a death or other loss.
And for me they pop up larger-than-life when I hear about another plane crash.
“There Is to be No Grieving”
In our family we were not encouraged to grieve.
No, I said that wrong. In our family we were not allowed to grieve.
Incomplete grieving delays healing and for many decades I lived with this tender, unhealed wound.
I felt different from friends and professional colleagues. It has always been awkward to explain that my mother and grandmother died in a plane crash. People didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t cry about it.
It took years for me to be able to write about the effects of the plane crash on my life. Once in a while I would take a deep breath and blog about it and finally in October 2012 I actually wrote out what I had been holding back all these years.
It touched a nerve with so many people. I received many notes describing similar experiences about how inadequately their families were dealing with death and their own incomplete grieving:
Here's the Link:
https://www.tipsfromthequeenofrejection.com/2012/10/there-is-to-be-no-grieving-there-is-to-be-no-grieving-describes-how-incomplete-grieving-haspowerful-long-term-effects.html
Wanting also to share with you my brother Lee Raskin’s thoughts he posted on FB in response to the Black Hawk helicopter and commercial plane collision over the Potomac River:
"I share sincere thoughts and condolences to the families who have suddenly and tragically lost love ones in last evening’s mid-air plane collision over the Potomac at DCA.I personally know the horrific and shocking reality that results from such a tragedy. I too lost family —my mother and grandmother — in a commercial air crash 70 years ago.
For me…and my sister, Layni…the agony and pain reoccurs after every air crash. Today is no exception.
For all those who have perished in this air disaster ... may their memory always be a blessing.
Lee Raskin
biographer, historian, author, veteran and storyteller."
I’m hoping that you might recognize some of these descriptions as familiar to what you, too, may be experiencing.
© Elayne Savage
I’d love to hear from you . . .
Until next month,
Elayne
The publication of my story about delayed grieving originally appeared in Elizabeth Wagele's The Enneagram of Death–Helpful Insights by the 9 Types of People on Grief, Fear and Death.
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