#8 How does grieving heal us?

Jul 17, 2026

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The last scene of the 2026 Spielberg movie “Declaration Day” contains the answer. Hear the voice of grieving. Rather than condemn, empathize. Feel it in your belly after too much battle, your heart as you absorb the love of those around you, your shoulders aching after standing too strong to make it through another day. Healthcare providers, don’t just stomp off to your office. You’re hurting. Where should you turn?

Patients and families, please recognize the power you have to help your caregivers recover from your illness. This is the gratitude you’re offering in return for whatever they’ve done for you. You may ask, “So what? We’ve got the problem, they’re paid to fix it.” Medicine may look like a one-way street. But their ability to do their best to help you will expand amazingly if you can call us out on what we need to heal ourselves.

Many years ago I had the good fortune of joining the renal transplant program at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. At that time we had a board with the photo of every patient we’d transplanted. Patients and staff would study it on their way into clinic: “Oh, yes, he’s my transplant sibling (received from the same donor).” “Remember the jokes she’d make after she got her kidney?”

The question came up, what if that patient had died? Should we remove their picture as too discouraging? Current patients, families and most of the staff agreed: Absolutely not! They may be gone, but for us they never will be gone.

That devotion, too, HIPPA (see the previous post in this series) has killed off. It doesn’t justify our being unindicted co-conspirators against grieving.

And one step more: notice when you’re feeling the need to reach within yourself for…something. Somewhere in there we embody the archetype of the Eternal Mother, who yearns to soothe her sons and daughters’ pain. We each carry an inner Eternal Father, who can ground us, link us to our ancestors and to the adults our children will become. Standing by the dying, there is no need to judge ourselves or others for failing to say or do the right things. Silent presence may serve better than words. Often, what’s most needed is not speaking, but listening. In the words of Norman Maclean in “A River Runs through it,”

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are words, and some of the words are theirs.“

“I am haunted by waters.”

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Forty-seven years of practice in nephrology, critical care and ethics consultation, working with countless cherished colleagues, have convinced me that we are all rising or sinking together on a boat in peril. I thought that the archetype of the “Wounded Healer” was just old Greek stuff. This half century in medicine, plus writing these books, have convinced me I was wrong. Yes, we may have come to our professions by a desire to help others, make a living, be respected. Or was it perhaps a “Calling”? What was it within us that was calling to be healed by this work? At the 55^th year reunion of my Northwestern University medical class I asked several medical students, “Yes, but what in you called you to this work?” Their looks seemed to respond, “Please pass the butter.”

At the end of a long day do you find yourself worried that “What you gave was not what was needed, and what was needed you didn’t have to give” (Norman Maclean, “A River Runs through It”)? And needed by whom? The “patient,” the family, the community? Yourself, your family when you come home depleted?

I’ve come to believe the facades between caregivers and patients are beyond artificial: these barriers of identities, roles and presumptions block true healing for all participants. The always compassionate nurse, the bustling therapist, the perfect physician and the ill-informed, dependent patient are all death to being soothed and heard. We are trapped behind the safety of our lab coats, unemotional, untouched, sterilized of our true feelings. How we long to sit on the bedside, show our despair and joy, share what in our lives led to the guidance we’re offering our “patients”.

Most of these stories come from my and other healthcare providers’ involvement with patients and families. Listen for that voice that called out from within us, perhaps even when we were children? Consider “Foreword, why this book?”, “A doc becomes a patient – the missed diagnosis”, “A week with the dark guys”, “A thousand blossoms”, “Where hearts meet”, “Dear John – the evolution of a diagnosis”, “Do I care?”, “Spirituality? Seattle 2003”, and “When God fails”. The last is for those times when we wonder, are we doing God’s work, or the Devil’s?

I thank you all for your courage to labor long in the depths of human experience.

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated at my blog. There I hope we can initiate a conversation that will carry on.

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Are you a friend or family member of someone dealing with an illness? Does your heart ache, trying to figure out what they need, how to enjoy your time with them as you did before they got all tied up in being a “patient”? What should you say? Where should you sit? How much time is appropriate?

As you deal with the medical providers, are you made to feel like a crucial member of the healthcare team? Or are you shut out by visiting hours, isolation precautions and everybody too busy to give you anything but medical-ese gobbledygook? Do you fear, as Norman Maclean expressed in “A River Runs through It,” that “What you gave was not what was needed, and what was needed you didn’t have to give”?

When your loved one goes home, they’ll get discharge instructions. What instructions will you get? What will you be offered to ease your pain?

Readers will notice that I often put the word patient in quotation marks. This is to remind myself and all of us that a “patient” is a person—not a case—and should be afforded the same courtesy, kindness, and consideration as any other human being. The same applies to family and friends. You are a big part off your loved one’s life, and living through the illness with them.

Part of my message is that the division between doctor (or any other medical professional) and patient is as artificial as a lab coat and a set of scrubs. All can be barriers to successful treatment. Even more, healthcare workers come to this busy-ness of illness with our own set of wounds. We come, unbeknownst, to find our own healing. You become our healers. Ask us what in our life experiences lead to our recommendations. Are we hurting? How can we go through this crisis as colleagues, not opponents?

Though you’re present in every story in this book, consider especially “Intro: comes the storm”, “A child will lead”, “Grieving: things not worth saying that we need to say”, “Chapter 3: a time to fight”, “A crossing”, “Where hearts meet”, “He took care of me”, “Wrapped in Love”, and my Dad’s final joke, “Death of a Salesman”.

When your loved one goes home, they’ll get discharge instructions. What instructions will you get? What will you be offered to ease your pain?

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated at my blog, where I hope to initiate a conversation with you.

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Are you currently a “patient”? Are you struggling with fitting that designation into living the life you planned to enjoy? I often put the word patient in quotation marks. This is to remind myself and all of us that as a “patient” you are first and foremost a person—not a case—and should be afforded the same courtesy, kindness, and value as any other human being.

You are the center of all 54 stories in “Healing Together.” Some may give you insight into how others have managed various stages of their illness, from first symptom to decisions around the last of life. Many of the stories emphasize the struggles facing your family and friends, and others may give you some insight into what’s motivating your healthcare providers. See especially “Intro: comes the storm”, “Heartbeats”, “A child will lead”, “The Blessing: A Cancer Support Group after 9/11”, “Chapter 3: a time to fight”, “Where hearts meet”, “To despair and back,” “Wrapped in Love”, and “Denise and Jerry: a fine life on dialysis.”

Fifty-five years of practice in nephrology, critical care and ethics consultation have convinced me that we are all rising or sinking together on a boat in peril. I hope this book will empower you and guide you to find your way through a hard time.

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated to initiate a conversation at my blog, by clicking the button below.

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