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ISSN 0840-982X

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 4

• Table of contents
• Editorial: Looking forward with hope – Thom Garfat

Editorial: Looking forward with hope 3
Thom Garfat

Looking forward with hope

I’m not good with separations. Never have been. Never will be. Don’t want to be. I don’t want to be because that would imply practice, and practice would mean having to experience more losses, and I have already had enough of them in my life. So forget it. There are some things I would rather just not get good at, regardless of what it says about how I am limited as a person.

I know what separation means. Shock, denial, sadness, bargaining, anger, pain, confusion ... all of that – and when I look back over that list, denial is the only one that even looks reasonable to me. Okay, so hope for the future should also be in there but my experience is I tend to get stuck more with the other experiences. So, like I said, forget it.

If I was a young person living in your program, you would not be getting me to leave very soon – that is, if you could have got me to move in at all. ‘Better the devil you know, that the devil you don’t’ – that old expression serves me well. As for the kinds of separation that one has no control over, like those made by the decision (or death) of other, well, I don’t even want to consider them. Denial is just a nicer place to be. And that’s all there is to it.

Why am I talking about this in an editorial? Because this is the first issue of this journal I have put together without my old buddy, friend, mentor and guide, Fewster. Gerry Fewster to some, Fewster to me. Terms of endearment and all that. Indicators of intimacy in relationship. Statements of caring and feeling cared for.

I know. I am acting as if he left the face of the planet. Moved to another universe. And he didn’t. He just decided not to be the co-editor any more. See how I am over-reacting. No wonder I don’t like separations.

Now, I know he is not ‘gone’, and I know our relationship has not ended, but there is loss nonetheless. Loss of an aspect of our relationship. A change in that relationship. A moving on to a relationship with some different (however small the difference) characteristics. After all (I know) it is not like our involvement around the journal (our baby) was the defining characteristic of our relationship. Hardly, not even, but it was important. And it was an excuse, an excuse which kept us in contact. A common task, a shared love.

Now (theoretically, at least) I am a mature adult. I know about these things. I understand process. And I know this is not the end of the world. But it is a changing of relationship. And that always means loss. Moving on means letting go. And letting go, means grief, and all the characteristics associated with it. No need to go through the list again – I know it well.

If I was a young person you were working with, I obviously wouldn’t be interested in your nice, well-defined ‘plan for change’. Nope. Not me. I prefer things to stay the same, thank you very much. No wonder so many young people don’t want to participate in our well laid plans. We all do what we do because it suits us, it meets our needs. We are who, and how, we are for the same reasons. And we never know if what is coming next will meet those same needs with the same degree of satisfaction. So many young people simply don’t want to change. And me, I say ‘who can blame them?’ We forget sometimes that change, however small it may seem from the outside, is bigger inside.

And as we move through life, we accumulate experiences of loss (okay, call it change if you insist) and as we do, we realize that some are easier than others, and some actually bring more satisfying experiences of self and the world. And some – don’t. Young people and families know this too.

I know it is all natural and normal. Just ask any parents who have watched their child change. The joy of watching them grow comes also with the loss of who they were. That’s life. Doesn’t mean we have to like it.

Every change is a risk. Every change has the potential for greater satisfaction, or less. For joy, or pain. Sometimes we move on to a finer place. And sometimes we don’t. ‘Them’s the risks’, as they say. Young people and families know this too.

Now, it would probably be easier if every time there was a loss, we were able to just stay focused on this immediate experience. But what seems to happen, often, is that the immediate experience triggers a re-living of other, older experiences; especially if we have not dealt with them well. Like right now, as I think about this changing relationship with Fewster (and, of course, deny it), I am remembering other losses: changes, separations, deaths. And sometimes it gets confusing to sort out just what I am grieving. Am I grieving this change? Or the loss of my parents? Or growing older? I mean, I am thinking about them all well enough to be able to identify them here and now, so they are there.

But I am also realizing that, in a strange way, they are there with warmth. A warmth of soft memories; a warmth of times when I felt good; a warmth of fine lived experiences of self or self in relation with other. Maybe that’s where hope comes from. Having an experience and being able to reflect on similar experiences which, in the end, were okay. Finding the best in ‘what was’? Perhaps.

I am also remembering all those young people and families I have met who have experienced more, and worse, separations than I have. And I am reflecting on how often those other separations are ignored because they are not the ‘immediate reason’ for our involvement. Like the young person with a multiple-placement history. Or the family with earlier, tragic losses. Or, whatever ... I am sure you get the point. It must be horrible to be able only to look back in pain and not to find the warmth that was there.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not offering one of those ‘all changes are for the better’ philosophies here. But I am suggesting that if we lose something or someone important to us, we might want to spend some time remembering the good things – those for which we might be grateful. And if we do that, then when the memories come, they might be a little bit warmer. And we might want to reflect on how we made it through, so we can have hope.

And we might want to help young people and their families do the same. So, next time a young person is admitted in to your program, or the next time you are celebrating change with a family, you might want to remember that there may be some other work to do. And maybe some fine memories to re-capture.

So, listen Fewster ... I am still in denial, but damn I had a good time. And I am looking forward to our future relationships (yup, that’s a plural).

Thom

Rosemere