When I was a kid I believed a monster lived under my bed. I would run and jump onto the mattress from as far away as possible so it couldn’t grab me. No way would I sit on the edge with my ankles dangling in front of that black empty space beneath the mattress.

Eventually, I was convinced there was no monster. I grew up into a reasonably confident person, able to do things like quit my steady job for the insecurity and freedom of a career as a self-employed freelance writer. Later I moved to New York City without a job or knowing anyone who lived in the city. I was sure I could find work and a place to live and build a life a thousand miles away — and perhaps further in cultural terms — from my native Texas suburban existence.

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“Nah, that’s not going to happen,” was my usual reaction to any scary possibility, whether it was the likelihood of getting mugged on the subway or the odds that a loved one who was late for dinner was lying somewhere in a ditch. I was lucky, I thought. I wrote a song several years ago called “All My Stories End The Same,” about how at the conclusion of whatever scrape I’d fumbled myself into, I always walked away without serious injury or arrest record or indelible scar.

That changed when my only son Brady died of suicide at age 16 on Oct. 2, 2016. A monster reached out, grabbed him by the ankle, dragged him under and killed him. It got me too, and pulled me down into the dust and darkness. It let me live, but it won’t let me out.

A New And Unkind World

It turns out I was right to begin with. There are monsters under the bed, and in the closet and everywhere, just out of sight. And if they come after me or someone I love, they can hit so fast and with such force that there may be nothing I can do. Now I worry that another one is going to pop out and get one of my daughters or another loved one.

I don’t know what else to do besides worry. The inescapable lesson appears to be that if my luck is bad enough it doesn’t matter how hard I work or how smart or tough I am, or think I am. I control very little and perhaps nothing except my own actions. And I sure can’t count on good things happening on their own. It also seems crystal-clear that, as bad as things are now, they could get worse. (I still have two living daughters. ‘Nuff said.)

The inescapable lesson appears to be that if my luck is bad enough it doesn’t matter how hard I work or how smart or tough I am, or think I am.

I’m not sure what to do with this knowledge. Everything seems meaningless, pointless and ultimately hopeless. A psychologist might say that my problem is that my assumptions about how the world works — that there are no monsters under the bed — have been shattered.

Once I believed in a world where, to some extent at least, justice prevailed and I had some control over outcomes. Now it’s been revealed to me in profoundly personal and crushingly dramatic fashion that awful things can happen to wonderful people like Brady. And there is nothing I can do to change that. It seems that far more than good intentions and sincere efforts, random chance controls what happens to those I love and to me.

The Assumptive World

Psychologists have been talking for a long time about the importance of our assumptions about a basically just world where good efforts produce good outcomes. Back in 1980 a psychologist named Melvin Lerner wrote a book chapter titled, “The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion.” This is from the synopsis:

The “belief in a just world” refers to those more or less articulated assumptions which underlie the way people orient themselves to their environment. These assumptions have a functional component which is tied to the image of a manageable and predictable world. These are central to the ability to engage in long-term goal-directed activity. In order to plan, work for, and obtain things they want, and avoid those which are frightening or painful, people must assume that there are manageable procedures which are effective in producing the desired end states (Erikson, 1950; Merton, 1957).

I can relate. If my beloved son can die suddenly and violently — and by his own hand — when I knew he was at risk and did everything I thought was right to try to save him, then I clearly have little or no real influence over events. And if the world really is such a horrible place, and there’s  not much I can do about it, then what am I doing? What is the point? Why even try? Why go on?

If the world really is such a horrible place, and there’s  not much I can do about it, then what am I doing? What is the point? Why even try? Why go on?

So far since Brady died I’ve kept living for two reasons. First, I have ruled suicide out. The second reason is sheer inertia. I’m doing what I’ve always done, going through the motions, even though at bottom it all seems pointless. That’s what getting the rug jerked out from under an assumptive world can do.

Can Finding Meaning Help?

I’ve wrote in a previous post on Making Sense of Senseless Tragedy about how finding meaning in a loss is perhaps the most-studied and most-recommended way grieving people can reduce the depth and duration of their suffering. For instance, a 1991 study looked at the impact of bereavement on the assumptive worlds of college students who had recently lost a parent.

“Assumptions about meaning emerged as an important variable, both in distinguishing between the bereaved and control samples and also in accounting for differences in the grief responses of the bereaved,” the researchers wrote. “Compared with matched controls, the bereaved subjects were significantly less likely to believe in a meaningful world. Further, within the bereaved sample, the greater the subjects’ ability to find meaning (i.e., make sense of the loss), the less intense their grief.”

As recently as 2017, the eminent grief researcher Robert Neimeyer wrote in a published study “an inability to make sense of the loss strongly predicts intense and complicated grief, whereas greater meaning making about the loss over time is associated with alleviation of this same symptomatology (Holland, Currier, Coleman, & Neimeyer, 2010).”

Note that Neimeyer refers to a 2010 study he himself participated in. This is one of his many research efforts supporting meaning’s importance. As editor of the prominent research journal Death Studies, Neimeyer has by himself done a lot to keep meaning-making as a focus of grief research. What I’m trying to say, without casting any aspersions on Neimeyer (as if anybody cares what I think), is that it would be remarkable if he did not conclude that meaning making is important. So maybe a minuscule grain of salt is in order.

A 2010 study reviewed existing research and observed that many bereaved people never search for or find meaning and still adjust pretty well.

Of course, Neimeyer is just one of many scholars who have identified meaning as important. But not every researcher or bit of research fully supports that view. A 2010 study reviewed existing research and observed that many bereaved people never search for or find meaning and still adjust pretty well.

Researchers also noted that many and sometimes most people in these studies reported finding zero meaning in the loss, even after a year. They also found that even after identifying some meaning, bereaved people tended to keep searching for meaning. What could that signify? Maybe that meaning is just one of many factors.

The Meaning Bottom Line

While the scientists duke it out in the scholarly journals, to my mind it seems likely that finding meaning in a loss can significantly help survivors cope. At the very least, it seems hard to see how deep feelings of meaninglessness could be a good thing. I’ve struggled with those feelings ever since Brady died. And, from communicating with many other grieving survivors, I’d say a lot of people are like me.

After considerable study and thought the main sense I’ve made of Brady’s death is that it relieved his suffering. Also that it was the result of a mental illness process and was due to random chance. I can’t say that I have completely integrated his death with my view of the world.

I have greater appreciation for the fact that tragedy isn’t just something that happens to other people. It can strike the people I love. And I’ve had to accept that all I can control is how hard I try. I can’t control actual outcomes.

Where does this leave me? That is still evolving. I hope to eventually get to a place where I truly accept that death is an inevitable consequence of life that no one is immune to. I hope that I’ll still be able to love the living without too much fear that they’ll be taken from this world.

I hope I’ll be able to pursue my dreams and do what seems to be the right thing, even though I know something horrible may result no matter how laudable my intentions. Meanwhile I’ll keep jumping onto the bed from as far away as I can get. I don’t know what else to do to avoid the monsters I now know have infested my old assumptive world.

I’ll keep jumping onto the bed from as far away as I can get. I don’t know what else to do to avoid the monsters I now know have infested my old assumptive world.

As always, I’m not trying to tell any bereaved person what to do or what not to do. I’m trying to expose hurting people to research findings that may shine a light on things they could try.

Thanks for reading, commenting, liking, sharing, reposting and following. I hope you can find some meaning or, one way or another, get some relief from your grief today.