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Pauline Boss grew up in a Swiss
American immigrant family in Wisconsin where, she says, “Homesickness
was an essential part of my family's culture.”
“I could see the sadness
periodically, like when my father would get a letter from Switzerland,
or worse yet, a letter with a black rim around it, which meant
announcement of death in the family,” the family therapist recalls in
her 2016 conversation with Krista, which we’re resurfacing this week. “So, I was always aware that there was
another family somewhere, and that there was some homesickness, except
where was home?”
The in-betweenness of her father’s
homesickness would now be considered a form of “ambiguous loss.” And
this is thanks to Boss’ own scholarship: Through her psychology
research, she coined the term to describe forms of loss that are not
so clean cut — when someone is physically present but psychologically
absent, or when a loved one suddenly goes missing and there was no
opportunity to say goodbye or understand what happened to them. It’s
when, she says, something is “both here and gone.”
The ambiguity of this experience
can be uncomfortable in American culture. "We like to solve problems.
We're not comfortable with unanswered questions,” Boss says. “And
[ambiguous loss] is full of unanswered questions ... And so, that kind
of mystery, I think, gives us a feeling of helplessness that we're
very uncomfortable with as a society."
I found homesickness to be a
helpful metaphor for what we’re experiencing now amidst this pandemic.
It’s not to say that our pre-coronavirus world was perfect, or to
engage in an illusory nostalgia. It is instead to recognize that 2020
has been a year marked by loss, as Krista says, “both ordinary and
profound” — “from deaths that could not be mourned, to the very
structure of our days, to a sudden crash of what felt like solid
careers and plans and dreams.”
Seeing this grief for what it is
may allow for the beginnings of a turn. Not toward “closure” — which
Boss says is a great word for real estate and business deals, not for
human relationships — but instead a new reality that holds both what
was and what is. “It’s paradoxical. The more you want people to get
over [grief], the longer it will take,” Boss says. “You have one foot
in the old and one foot in the new. And one can live that way. That
may be the most honest way to do it.”
This conversation is for those who
have not been able to properly mourn the loss of their loved ones; for
those heartbroken by what this pandemic has uncovered. This episode is
also for those who have found the comforts of another time less
comforting now; for those whose anticipations for the year have peeled
away slowly in segments, like a tangerine; for those who are not even
sure what we’ve lost and what we’re in the midst of
finding.
Yours, Kristin Lin Editor, The On Being Project
P.S. — For more, listen to the
Living the Questions episode we recorded this week, where Krista and Pauline pondered what
it means to be living through this collective moment of ambiguous
loss.
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This
Week at The On Being Project
Our
Latest Episode

On Being with Krista
Tippett Pauline
Boss “Navigating Loss Without
Closure”
The
family therapist who created the field of “ambiguous loss” with
practical wisdom on how to live with what’s lost.
Listen on: Apple
Podcasts Google
Podcasts Spotify Our
Website

Living the
Questions
"It’s
really settling in now, the losses large and small"
A
soothing and sometimes counterintuitive reflection on carrying
ordinary grief in a time of pandemic.
Listen on: Apple
Podcasts Google
Podcasts Spotify Our
Website
From our
friends at L’Arche
We wanted to share this welcome update and series of
reflections from the
L'Arche communities — how they are living through pandemic and social
upheaval, and continuing to process the "earthquake" of the
revelations about their founder (and former On Being guest) Jean
Vanier.
Recommended Reading & Listening

Read | “The
Gift of Presence, The Perils of Advice” by Parker
Palmer
Parker Palmer shares a powerful
story about how a friend showed up for him during the depths of his
depression — and how we all might do so for those who are
hurting.
Listen | “The
Erotic Is an Antidote to Death” with Esther
Perel
The relationship therapist
references Pauline Boss’ work on ambiguous loss in her conversation
about loneliness in relationships.
Read | “How
to Reach Out to Someone Who Is Struggling” by
Omid Safi
A thoughtful piece for those who
are trying to figure out how to be present to those going through a
hard time.
You can find more reading and
listening in our onbeing.org library on mental health.
Events
A conversation on museums and
healing Wednesday, July 29, 2020, 6 p.m.
ET Free livestream
Krista speaks with the Secretary of
the Smithsonian, Lonnie Bunch, about how museums are adapting to a
changing world amid the pandemic, rising xenophobia, and antiracist
uprisings. They’ll ponder how museums can respond to the needs of
communities, promote tolerance, enable empathy, and shape conceptions
of ourselves and others. Learn more.
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