The Park family had just received the by now too familiar news: “You have been re-assigned to Country X.”
What? They’d only lived in Country Y for a year! They were barely starting to understand how this culture operated. New friendships had begun forming. Their two children were finally feeling more settled in school. How could this be?
And yet, they knew the drill. It was an honor to receive this coveted assignment…an important step up in the parents’ career paths. Both were being offered new assignments in this next place that seemed impossible to refuse.
The children, son Ken and daughter Isabelle, groaned when they heard the news.
“We can’t move again! The soccer coach just invited me to play on the team next year. I’ve always wanted to play soccer for a real school team.” said Ken.
“And I just got picked for the lead part in next spring’s play. This is my dream come true! We can’t go now!” Isabelle chimed in. “Besides, I don’t want to leave my new friends.”
But the decision had already been made—by their organization, by their parents.
“Don’t worry.” Mom replied. “I’m sure there you will make new friends. You always do. I’m sure you can find another soccer team to play on and every school has a spring play. You’ll be fine.”
What choice did they really have? The parents understood it was hard for the kids, but this was their chance of a lifetime to get ahead, to make a difference in the world as well as their careers. The children had been in this moving situation before. Three times in the last five years, in fact. They knew that in many ways their mom was right. There would be new friends, new discoveries, new opportunities. It seemed better to focus on the life ahead then the leaving.
And so, the packing boxes came. Treasures were put inside. Other artifacts discarded. The family finally locked the door of their home. One final trip to the airport and Country Y with all it represented was erased with the closing of that airplane door. Eight hours later they landed in Country X.
When the airplane doors opened, Ken remarked, “It’s a good thing there are universal picture signs as I can’t even read the alphabet on the signs here. How else would we know where to find our luggage?”
After they worked their way through customs, persuading the stern-faced immigration officers that they were here for noble purposes (like their jobs!) and had no contraband in their suitcases, the whole family felt relieved to see someone holding a placard with “Park family” written on it as they emerged into the open area. Finally! Although they couldn’t read other signs in the airport, this person looked like a lifeline for them, and they were happy to take it!
After arriving at the house that would be their temporary home, the driver helped the Parks take their suitcases up the steps, opened the door with the key he then handed them, and left. Ken and Isabelle found the bedrooms they preferred, took familiar objects from their suitcases that they had carried from each of the places they had lived before and tried to feel at home.
Over the next days, however, life wasn’t quite so bright. Everyone’s tempers were short. Ken and Isabelle were frequently picking fights with each other. They seemed withdrawn and refused to meet new friends, preferring to stay online with those they knew from before.
Mr. and Mrs. Park scolded Ken and Isabelle for their behavior, but the truth is they found life at work less wonderful than they expected. Learning new routines and working with new staff soon had them longing for the familiar patterns of the last assignment. Shopping in a new language and stores seemed like so much extra work. Why had they made this move? Was the potential for advancement worth the price it was costing them all? What could they do about it now?
Fortunately, for them, they had earlier attended a workshop on relocation. As they struggled in these first days, they remembered what they had been taught: That in this transition period between leaving one world and settling in to the next place, there would be a time they would likely be surprised by some ‘hidden losses’…things they have not realized they would miss.
Since they understood it was important to mourn for those things, even if the good was also coming, one night they gathered, and each member of the family said what they missed most about the life they had just left. As they shared, others affirmed that they could understand, and they reminisced together. Then they also suggested each person say one thing they were looking forward to in this new place. In looking at the paradox of both the losses and the gains, each had permission to be honest about where they were in the process and deal with the losses as they were happening rather than stuffing the grief away and having to look at it years later.
Every globally nomadic individual family knows the familiar feelings of a transition experience as we move from one place to another, whether or not we have stopped to define it.
What does a healthy transition look like?
To begin this discussion, we need to distinguish between “change” and “transition”. Change is that moment we realize externally something is shifting, that how things are will no longer be in the future. Transition is the internal process we go through as we navigate those changes.
Years ago, Dave Pollock defined five stages of the transition process:
- Involved—Life is “normal”, we feel settled. Time orientation in the present.
- Leaving—We learn change is coming, we begin to “pull away”. Time orientation is future.
- Transit—In between stage. Left but not fully arrived. Paradoxical time. Mourning for past, anticipating the new.
- Entry—Ready to move towards the future; still some ambivalence. Time orientation becoming present.
- Re-involvement—Life is again “normal”, we feel settled once more. Time orientation is present.
- Life is again “normal”, we feel settled once more. Time orientation is present.
Globally mobile families who understand this process also know why saying proper and healthy goodby in the leaving stage is important for moving on into the transit and following stages.
As with the Park family, when we experience an international move, we begin in a place where we feel involved. We are the ones “in the know”. We are comfortable in the community and have a sense of belonging. It is an internally restful place to be.
When the news comes of a change ahead, we move into the leaving stage. Our thoughts begin to focus on how life will be in the new place. Often, we feel mixed emotions – sadness to leave yet excitement for what is to come. Hopefully, this is the time when we say proper goodbyes to people, places, possessions and, if needed, pets, in our current environment, as Dave Pollock urged us to do. We will still have residual and unexpected losses to face in the transit stage, but they will be more manageable because we said the goodbyes well.
Then the day comes when we physically leave this place where we have previously felt settled. We may arrive in the new place that same day or take some time to get there. Either way, that is when we begin what is called the transit stage. We have left the old but whether our bodies are or are not in the new place, our emotions and minds haven’t quite made it yet. We feel “in-between worlds”.
The truth about loss
No matter how good the goodbyes were in the former place, this transit period is perhaps the hardest of all. Why? Because this is the time when the reality of what we have lost starts to hit us
The truth is that with any transition there is always loss, no matter how much good will be gained through it. Loss always creates grief, whether we consciously know it or not. And grief will be expressed in one way or another. Denial, anger, or sadness are the most common ways.
The problem for most of us, however, is that because there is often so much good to focus on, we try to ignore the losses and grief. We try to think about all the good and hope the sadness, depression, or quick anger will fade away with time.
The problem is, if we don’t face what we have lost—no matter how much we have gained—those symptoms will continue to rear their ugly heads in unexpected ways and places. And the next move adds more unresolved grief to the secret closet inside our hearts where we have tried to store these things.
Of course, we assume the door is tightly locked so we and others can’t see inside that space, but in time it gets harder and harder as the closet becomes full to overflowing. It is easy to add different behaviors to try to patch up the cracks where some of feelings might want to ooze out…internet addiction, texting, drinking, gossiping, gambling, online games, busyness, and so on. But underneath those coping mechanism, there is still a gnawing feeling of sadness or anger.
So what is important for those who do frequent cross-cultural relocations to understand?
- It is normal to miss something or someone you love when you don’t have it anymore. That is what grief is.
- Grief is not a negative. We try to avoid feeling it because in the moment it is not a pleasant emotion, but the truth also is that the more we have loved something, the more grief we will feel. Oddly, grief is an affirmation of the good!
- The problem for cross-cultural sojourners is not that they feel grief. That is normal even if the next place is a dream job or location. The problem is that, unlike an obvious loss everyone can see, such as a relative dying, our losses during transition are often hidden. We ourselves do not recognize the loss or minimize them.
But if grief is normal for losses – any losses – why is it that in our globally nomadic world many people struggle with unresolved grief? The aftermath of losses we have never dealt with in a healthy way?
One of the biggest reasons for unresolved grief is simply a lack of awareness of what we, or our children, have experienced. The losses of international mobility are often ‘hidden losses’ – things we miss that we hadn’t particularly thought of before. They are not the obvious losses such as death, or even saying good-bye to friends we love. Instead, they are far more invisible losses…such as the smell of fresh mowed grass if we move to a desert place or the fun of bargaining in a marketplace when now prices are fixed.
A world dies with an airplane ride…but no one physically died. How can we have a funeral? We forget that losing our sense of status or place in a community is a real loss of identity, at least for that while. We have enjoyed a particular lifestyle, often related to the place we are living.
Perhaps we lived near a beach and could often spend a day enjoying the warmth and waves. Suddenly we move to a place that is mountainous and cold and we never learned how to ski before. Sometimes the loss can be as nebulous as a dream. We imagined what we were going to accomplish in our former place and this move stops that from happening. Or we dreamed of how life would be in the new place, and now we see that will not be happening.
Another reason the grief can be unresolved is because we do not have, or give others, permission to address the losses. When a child says how much they miss their former classmates, too often parents try to cheer them up by pointing out all the new friends they will soon be making. Or the reason for the move…duty, service, financial gain…is listed and the individual feels like, “How can I compete with that?” But understanding a reason for the loss does not take care of our need to mourn. It means too often we just stuff it.
Time is another factor. In long ago days, people moved between continents by ship. Now that same trip is only a few hours in the making. Before there is time to process the first goodbye, we are thrust into the chaos of the new hellos and all we have left to learn. Healthy mourning takes time. It is fine to give some space for it all
In the end, what happens when we don’t understand our losses, or try to talk ourselves or others past the sad feelings, or have no time, is ultimately we have a lack of comfort. Comfort is when we know someone else understands and cares. It isn’t about fixing the loss but walking with someone through their sadness with empathy and support. There is time for encouragement later, but first we need to be comforted.
In a real funeral, we first express our sympathy and spend time with those in grief before we try to make plans for the future, and so it is with the losses of physical transition. We will get through them, but we need awareness, permission, time and comfort to do so in a healthy way.
So how do we do grieve losses in a healthy way?
“Listen to life.” When you find yourself reacting in depression, or bursts of anger out of proportion to the event, during or after a move, find a quiet place, a pen and paper and ask yourself, “What did I lose in this move?” There are the obvious things like house or relationships, but ask what it might be in that thing that is more hidden. Perhaps in terms of relationship it can be something as simple as, “No-one in this new place knows my history. There is no one to whom I can say, “Do you remember when…?”, and they remember. I have to retell my story from scratch every time.” Or for those with adult children, “No one in this new place knows my children”.
Once we have identified the hidden losses that may be behind our sadness or anger, since they are both stages of grief, we can honor that loss as real – even if others “have it so much worse”. That may be true, but this is my loss and I need to acknowledge that for myself and those around me.
Don’t rush yourself or others through the process. Grief can come in surprising ways and times, even weeks and months later. When it comes, tears may be appropriate. Other expressions of honoring that loss, such as writing a letter back to someone or looking at albums of the place or people, can be helpful in this period, but don’t feel shame or blame if you find yourself missing the past for a bit longer than you expected. That can be normal, and you will get through it.
Then, we need to be individuals and a community that offers comfort to one another. Chronic cycles of separation and loss are hard even when we are “used to” them and knowing someone else understands is often the first step to healing.
After this process, consider if there are ways to do, in perhaps a different way, the things you are missing. For example, if during COVID time your children didn’t get to go back to school after spring break to say goodbye, is there a way through Zoom, or going back once travel restrictions are lifted, to finish that process? Is there a way to adapt your dream to fulfill it even in a slightly permutated form?
And when you feel totally lost and don’t know how to move on to achieve that dream or goal, ask yourself what is the one “next thing” you can do, even if you can’t do everything. This will help you not to feel like a victim and that there is still hope for good to come…and it will come!
WBGFN is deeply grateful to Ruth Van Reken for this article, prepared specifically for our members
