My long-time friend, Jim Latham, sent this link to me today. The article is entitled "Is There Such a Thing as Good Mourning?" You can read that brief article at:
The article describes "cry bars" in Asia--places now where people can sit and cry for six dollars an hour. For their money they can know that this will be a safe place for their tears of grief (or at least a place where they won't be challenged about their weeping). The author wonders if bars in the U.S. serve much of the same function for bereaved folks.
Why would such places be necessary? I suspect that a number of issues are in play for grieving people here. Paying for time reduces the risk of rejection. This is why some of us go to counselors, after all, rather than sharing with people close to us. If I pay for someone to listen to me, I can be confident that they will follow through on that contract for listening or terminate it without emotional drama.
I can tell the same stories and cry the same tears a dozen times to a coach, counselor, therapist or pastor over without someone sighing and walking away. The coach, counselor, therapist or pastor may encourage me to move on at some point, but that mild rebuke will not sting in the way it would if it comes from a family member or close friend.
As rituals in other cultures give way to the social formlessness of radical individualism Western-style, I suspect that people in those cultures will need ritual replacement therapy. The cry bars probably serve some of that function as well.
In our culture we have engaged funeral homes for much of that ritual replacement therapy now that more and more folks have taken their mourning out of churches and synagogues. Those secular rituals tend to emphasize happiness and celebration, however. More and more they are not safe spaces for people to weep.
Perhaps we will see cry bars catching on in the West as well.
I'm fascinated by one sentence in the article: "Mourning—the deliberate grieving, crying, processing, and sharing of shame, pain, and loss—is the means by which we curiously take on the strength of that which we overcome." So the writer is headed in the proper direction.
This is not about mere expression for the sake of expression. Mourning is not completed by catharsis. The opportunity we have is to make our grief productive--an opportunity to grow and deepen and flourish in the life we still have. Tears of grief can facilitate entry into that process. But those tears are not ends in themselves.
The writer concludes with an ambiguous prescription. "Tears might be the first sign of new life, new possibilities. Mourn Deeply. Grieve on."
I'd like to hear a bit more about that. Mourn well, I would say, and in the fashion that plays to your personal strengths. Grieve toward hope rather than despair, rather than simply grieving to "get the job done." Most of all, find the people and places that allow you to do safe and productive mourning without fear of rejection, recrimination or (worst of all) mere pity.
There are alternatives to cry bars, I hope.
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