Diaspora Grief

I’ve spent so much of my time writing for a new writing project that I feel worded out. I purposely try and keep some words and energy for this site but today I find I’m struggling to know what to write yet feeling the need to still process through this medium.

Part of it is the difficulty of all that is going on in the world, and the pace with which things change. It was several weeks ago that the world woke up to news that the United States and Israel had bombed Iran. This set off a flurry of social media reactions, and everyone – including me – had an opinion. Since that time, violence has spread from Iran to Lebanon and all places around. I will not burden you with a political commentary. I have neither the brain, education, or patience for that. I have heard through friends in Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq a kaleidoscope or reactions that Western news doesn’t pick up. My friends are primarily women with children and so the concern is heavy with uncertainty and worry for their children’s safety.

With all of this I have been thinking a lot about diaspora grief. I first began thinking about it as I was working on another writing project. I have often thought about cross-cultural grief and the peculiar way third culture kids respond to the grief of moving from one culture to another. While there are some similarities with diaspora grief, there are some important differences.

Diaspora grief is defined as “a complex and layered experience of displacement, one that extends across ancestral generations. It’s not just the loss of a homeland, but also the slow erosion of culture, language, and belonging. It is shaped by:

• The loss of a life that could have been (a life, a version of oneself, a future that was never possible)

• Displacement (forced or voluntary)

• Cultural erasure and assimilation (loss of language, traditions, and identity)

• The inability to return home (the exile of entire generations) [Source: The Grief We Don’t Name: Diasporic Grief — noor therapy + wellness]

Diaspora populations are forever divided by borders and oceans. While there are times when entire extended families immigrate, more often it is one part of the family that make their way to another place, while the rest remain in the homeland. It’s a type of exile for the one who moves, even when it’s chosen. There is always someone you miss. Always something going on a world away that claims part of your attention and your heart.

I often talk in my culturally responsive healthcare workshops about the frontpage news coming through our clinic doors through the lives of immigrant patients. The same is true for schools, businesses, and places of worship. When the headline news reports that your city is being bombed and you know that your family is in a bomb shelter a half a world away, you carry the weight of worry and fear into everything you do and every place you go.

This brings us to current events. In a nation made up of immigrants there is always someone around us who is hurting over what is happening a world away. My Iranian friends try desperately to get news from Iran. Sometimes they get the long-awaited text or phone call. Other times it’s silence and they are left with a gnawing sense of doom in their stomachs and throats. Our Lebanese friend is able to contact his family. “It’s okay,” Elie says when we ask him how they are doing. “They are not near the bombing.” Lebanon is approximately half the size of New Jersey. Explosions can be heard from miles away. This alone is a testament to resilience and perspective. If it’s not in your front yard, you are safe.

My Iranian Kurdish friends – Behnaz and Elnaz together with their parents – got asylum in Northern Ireland a few years ago and their residence permits came through this past summer. The rest of the family, including a sister with a child, are in Tehran. I have been in frequent contact with them and as I asked how they were, I received this reply, “Maryjan, it’s hard to explain. I feel happiness, pain, hope, and worry all at once.” The message ends with a broken heart emoji. That right there is diaspora grief.

From the opposite side, I hear from an Israeli friend. “I am grateful for a day with only a few sirens…I am grateful for sweet children who manage to keep smiling, laughing, enjoying themselves, and functioning even in a time of war. I am grateful for our safe room that protects us. I am grateful that the kids enjoy sleeping there…I am grateful for the holiday of Purim, and how powerful it feels this year.” She ends with words about her powerlessness in the situation: “I am powerless over my exhaustion. I am powerless over not knowing how long we will be in this situation.” Her family is around her and for that she is grateful. Other Israelis in the Boston area are not so fortunate.

So many perspectives. So much loss and so much grief. Our modern Western minds want to put things in clear categories, want to assign blame, figure who is right and who is wrong and loudly proclaim what we decide. In the meantime, real people in our communities are trying to figure out how to cope with all this. Their internal world is worry and chaos even as the outer world shows promises of springtime and hope. A post I recently read called it a “context mismatch.” That seems to sum it up well.

So, what does all this mean? Perhaps it is a call to those of us on the outside to be a bit kinder and more careful, to take a step away from opinionating, and a step closer to asking people how they are doing, to asking about their families and being willing to hear their stories.

I get that perhaps most people are feeling unsettled and on edge but now is not the time to pull inward. It’s the time to stretch out a hand and heart to those whose families are far away in the center of conflict; to bear witness to those in the depths of diaspora grief.

The beginning of Psalm 91 offers us a picture of steadfast security with the words “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” I pray this for all those who are facing the trauma of war and diaspora grief for families a world away. May they feel this comfort and security and may we walk with them along the way.