Felix Fraga Lesson - Can't We Just Try?

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- Buddha

When I was in social work graduate school, I had the great fortune and plain dumb luck to serve an internship with legendary social worker Felix Fraga. Felix is well known and admired for his decades-long commitment to public service.

By example, he taught me the most basic tenets of good public service:

Be nice.
Be respectful.
Value other people.
Believe in the good in others.
Listen.
Leave your ego out of it.
Work hard.
Keep trying.

Felix would have an idea for a project. He would gather us – his staff – around and tell us his idea. We’d think of all the obstacles. He’d listen, not very patiently, but nicely. Then he’d say “Can’t we just try?” It was impossible to tell him no. Who would say we couldn’t at least try? Such a simple request. And, he’d always be so earnest and sincere. So, we’d try. And, most of the time, we were successful. I watched him use his same gentle, persistent, and impossible-to-refuse style on many, many people. He usually achieved his goals, which were never about him, always about doing something for someone else.

His voice and that phrase are part of my primal social work psyche. He’s in my brain, especially when I feel overwhelmed – Can’t we just try? Can’t we just be part of doing something good? Or being better? Or expecting better?

Yes, we can. And, yes, we’ll keep trying.

Grief Work

“Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength.”
- Ovid

“Grief” – even the word sounds so overwhelming. I make my living dealing with grief. Sometimes people ask how my coworkers and I how we can listen to traumatic stories all the time. I guess the short answer is 1) you get used to it, 2) it isn’t sad all the time, and 3) people do get better and it is pretty cool and really an honor to be part of that.

I know this from my own life: I’ve experienced grief. I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed, to be ashamed, to feel small, stupid, and hopeless. And – I know that it didn’t last forever and while it doesn’t define who I am now, it is absolutely part of who I am now. So, in addition to my training, that’s part of what I draw on to work with my clients.

Yes, this is hard. I’m sorry. I wish I could take away your pain. I can’t. But, I can help you work through it. I can support you and remind you of the things you did right, when you only think everything you have done is wrong. I can’t snap my fingers and give you the easy way out, but I can help support you through the hard way. I can get you in touch with other places or ways to get better. I’m not better than you, or smarter, don't have all the answers, just willing to listen and help.

I also know this about grief: You can’t ignore it for too long. We all put grief away sometimes. When it is just too awful, too painful, too big, we might stuff it in a little box behind our hearts. We might try to drown it with some alcohol, or calm it with medicine. It is still there. Waiting. Growing.

We bury it so deeply that we believe the grief just went away. It doesn’t. It won’t. It will come back at the most inconvenient times. It will seep out and damage our relationships with our closest friends and family. Unacknowledged grief turns into anger, bitterness, and even worse, coldness. We all know these people. Maybe we’ve been these people. He’s the man who is quiet and seemingly in control, but you can feel the anger not radiating from him, but seeping out like cold poison gas. He’s the guy who one day explodes and everyone says, “but he was so quiet.”

So, my point: Grief seems impossible, but it isn’t, as long as we realize that at some point, we must face it. A few years ago, worked with a mother whose 10-year son had recently been murdered by her husband. Before I met with her for the first time, I took a breath and had a moment of panic – WHAT can I say or do? I walked in, knowing the words and actions would come. She looked so lost. I did a little introduction – my name, I’m a social worker, so sorry she was here, so sorry about her situation, wanted to see what I could do to help her through this if that was OK…she just looked at me, really through me.

The only thing she wanted was her son. How all of us wished we could have given him back to her. I also knew that she wasn't ready to tell the story about how he died, but she would have to. The thinking part of her knew that he was dead, but the emotional part was still pretending he was "away." As a clinician, I didn't want to force her to embrace the reality of his death all at once. However, I knew she had to for criminal justice reasons.

Well, I thought, let's start where she is, so I asked her if she had a picture of her son. Of course, she did. He was a beautiful child – a sweet bright face, full of life and hope. I told her he looked very sweet. She smiled and said he is - was. She told me how he was a compassionate, insightful boy who always thought of other people. I asked her to tell me more about him. She did. I told her I was also the mother of boys and understood the special love they have for their mothers. That’s how we started. I encouraged her find the strength to testify in the mother's love she has for her son. She did.

When she was done giving her statement, she practically ran out of the building. I don't blame her since she was forced her to tell a story she wasn't ready to verbalize. I hurried alongside her. She needed to get to the open air, away from her son's death. Once outside, we briefly talked. I told her she did the right thing. She used some healthy and not-so-healthy ways to deal with her grief – as do many of us, especially with profound grief. She got through the hardest parts. She’ll never stop aching for her son and asking a million “what-if” questions, but she is doing OK and even finding joy in her life.

People tell me they want their lives to “go back to the way it was” and “to be normal.” I don’t lie, because I know they need to be prepared. I tell them their lives will forever be changed. But, it won’t always hurt this sharply and be so close to the surface; that they can feel better; that it can take a long, long time; that we can’t fix it, but we’ll help as much as we can.

So, last week, I made one of those contacts. I called the brother of a domestic violence murder victim. He told me he was actually writing his sister’s obituary when I called. He sounded calm, but of course, he’s probably just getting through this fresh painful part right now. I told him my name, I’m a social worker, I was sorry, we wanted to help in whatever way we could and explained a little of what would be happening. It was short, but it was a beginning. I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but just let him know we’re here and we’re ready.

Ovid said to “remember this pain, for someday it will be useful to you.” I suppose that is the basis for empathy. So, we try to do that. We draw on our training, especially on the most basic premise of social work - that we start where our client is. We draw on memories of our own pain, and on the pain of others to try and help people to get to the other side of grief – which is hopefully acceptance and some measure of peace. In the process, we are rewarded with the extreme honor of witnessing people move from pain and hopelessness, to comfort and hope.

Compassion

Om Mani Padme Hum – Buddhist Compassion Mantra

My mother first taught me about compassion. She didn’t say much about it, but she did it, like when she saw an older lady walking on the street and offered her a ride (things were different back then). She winced when she saw prisoners on a chain gang, telling me that it hurt her to see people chained up like that, regardless of why they ended up there. That didn’t stop her from hammering a child predator when she was on a jury, though.

I learned compassion from being brought up Catholic. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it dawned on me when I was in social work graduate school and noticed there sure were a lot of Catholic and Jewish women there. Both religions teach social justice and the duty we all have to each other. Of course, I am NOT saying other religions don’t, it is just really pounded into our heads. Once one of my kids told me that we needed to feed the poor. “OK”, I said. “Where do you think the poor are?” He responded that he didn’t know, but we needed to find them and feed them, good little Catholic boy that he is.

I’ve learned compassion from my clients, especially from them. In my job working with victims and their families, a murder victim’s brother reminded me of it a while back. While on a break during the trial, the brother asked me if the defendant’s family “got somebody like me” to help them. I was stunned - what amazing selfless compassion. His sister was dead, killed by the defendant – and he was concerned because the defendant’s family was also suffering and they needed someone to help guide and support them through the trial.

That simple and beautiful act of compassion by the victim’s brother is truly one of the pinnacle moments I’ll always remember. I would even say it was a “magic moment.” It was one of those times when the world stops spinning for half a second and you realize you just experienced something absolutely remarkable.

I remember witnessing an act of compassion by a prosecutor I admire. The dazed-looking elderly parents of a capital murder defendant wondered into the office seeking information. Who knows how many places they’d been? Their daughter had been charged with murdering her small child. Rather than just dismissing them, this prosecutor brought them into her office and gave them some basic information about the case and told them what to expect as far as the process of how criminal cases proceed. I asked her about it afterwards. She said she felt sorry for them and she was afraid they’d just keep getting bounced around. She was so nice to them and showed them a little practical compassion when they so needed it.

Since we deal with crisis and trauma all the time, sometimes people ask how my co-workers and me how we can do our jobs. I guess I don’t look at it like that. I think of those moments – like with the brother and my co-worker – that make me awed and honored to be a part of all of this.

I’ve learned that compassion isn’t weakness. It isn’t living on the surface, thinking everyone is “nice.” Compassion is hard sometimes because it requires us to look outside ourselves and consider the suffering of others, even if they have done awful things. It requires strength and the ability to face extremely difficult situations. The surprising thing is, ultimately, compassion leads us to contentment, peace, understanding and resolution.