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(Stephen) Hi, I'm Stephen Puddicombe.

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This is another episode
in CFMWS' podcast series

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about grief and bereavement.

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In this episode,

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we see through the eyes
of a military padre.

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Major Ryan Carter is a senior chaplain
of the support group in Ottawa-Gatineau.

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He says dealing with grief is
an enormous challenge in the military.

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(Ryan) I think the biggest challenge
is the human dynamic of grief,

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in the sense that everybody
experiences grief very differently.

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When we enter into a space

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where someone is grieving the loss
of someone they've cared about.

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We've entered into a space
which is very vulnerable.

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We ourselves are vulnerable as chaplains,

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despite being trained to deal
with these sort of situations.

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Everybody enters into
that space differently

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with different reactions,
different responses

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to those expression of emotion.

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I think for chaplains,

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the hardest part, in my experience,
has really been figuring out

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how to enter into that space
with confidence, with care,

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and ensuring that person
is being taken care of

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without letting my own
responses and emotions

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kind of take over the sacredness
of that moment or that space.

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Every chaplain needs a chaplain.

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Because of our job and what we do

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with respect to dealing
with life passages.

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Whether it be the good stuff,

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birth and marriage,
and that kind of stuff,

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but also the not-so-good stuff
that typically elicits sad emotions.

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It could be the loss of a relationship,

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or, of course, in the case of death,

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I need to process that.

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I need to be acknowledging of the fact

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that if I'm not able to be present
with the person completely,

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then I need help myself.

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Part of the process that we do
as chaplains is self-care.

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I think most chaplains have developed
this competency where we're able to say,

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"Okay, in this moment and time,
before I enter into the space,

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am I okay to do it?

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And how could I enter into the space

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without taking it over
with my own emotions

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or my own expressions
of my own experiences?"

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I think that's really critical.

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(Stephen) What would you do about
those people that are in this situation,

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you know they're hurting,
but they keep it bottled up?

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They just can't release to you
or anyone for that matter.

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What do you do for them?

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(Ryan) First of all,
you look at grief as a process.

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It's a journey and it's a human process
that we have to go through.

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At any point in time,

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some people, all of us,
stop at a certain point.

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To process that grief,

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sometimes it's just
a matter of acknowledging

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where we're at in that moment of time.

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I've never been in a situation

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where someone who I've been
in communication with

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or had a chaplain relationship with

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has just outrightly stated to me,

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"I'm sad, I'm vulnerable.

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Help me, Chaplain Carter."

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It's never been that way.

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And part of trust is just understanding.

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We use the word "trust."

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I mean, oftentimes, they--

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With family members,
they may not trust us, right?

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It's very obvious.

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If they associate this occupation
with the death of their loved ones,

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they may not trust you in this moment,

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and that's understandable.

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In the past,

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if they've identified, perhaps,
religious figures or religious people,

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or religious leaders

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as not being trustworthy,

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they may not be comfortable with you.

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We have to acknowledge

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there's a whole bunch of things
happening in the background

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that may prevent that trust relationship

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from being built,

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but I think with time, with individuals,

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and just acknowledging silence,

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and just being with them where they're at,

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eventually, they begin,
in my experience, trust, it comes.

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And really, when I say "trust,"
what I really mean is "safety."

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They feel safe to say, "Okay,
now, I'm actually feeling this way."

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"Now, I feel sad."

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I think that happens with time.

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But the worst thing you can do
is to rush the process.

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The minute you rush it,

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then that sensation of you're in this
for a particular motive,

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or you're doing this
because it's your job,

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or you're busy and in 20 minutes,
you have to go back to your office.

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I mean, all those things are happening,

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and if you rush the process,

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it really, in my experience,
has deterred the trust-building process

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with helping
professionals in general

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but of course, with chaplains.

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(Stephen) As a padre,

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is there a difference depending
on how the person passed,

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like in war, a traffic accident
or worse than that?

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(Ryan) Of course, yeah.

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Part of the grief process
is to search for meaning.

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When someone's not with us,
meaning is kind of lost.

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We're looking for meaning
behind the experience of death.

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Clearly, if someone suddenly
dies for a number of reasons,

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sudden death,

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that human need to understand,

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to understand the moment,
to make sense of it, is stunted.

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And then,

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the process of
sense making is very difficult.

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If you're in the military
and you die in operations,

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however tragic and traumatic that is

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for family members
to hear and to experience,

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it is very different than the situation

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where that death is sudden,

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not related to your occupational choice.

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All those things are happening
in case of sudden death:

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terminal illness,

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even suicide.

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All those things elicit
different responses

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and how I express it,
how I understand it,

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is that "search for meaning."

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It becomes more difficult

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when the death doesn't
make sense to you.

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It just doesn't--
why?

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We were just talking and you left,

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and now you're gone.

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Where as someone who
in the course of their duty,

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they die,

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perhaps that search for meaning
is a little bit different.

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I wouldn't say it's less.

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I wouldn't say it's more difficult
or less difficult,

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but it's just different.

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I think that is a challenge.

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Oftentimes, when I see
family members experience grief--

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even myself, if I've
experienced grief myself,

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the question is "Why?"

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We're always looking for the question
"Why?","What happened?"

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"Why did this moment take place?"

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"Could it have been different?"

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So, depending on the
circumstances of death,

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I think it does change
the dynamic of grief a little,

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but I always caveat.

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It doesn't make it easier.

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It just makes that search for meaning
perhaps a little less ambiguous.

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(Stephen) Is there one case or person
that particularly touched you?

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I'm sure everyone does to some point,

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but is there that one case
that really stands out

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when you think about what you're doing
that you look back on and say, wow?

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(Ryan) Yeah, I mean,
probably there are a number,

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but I remember for me,

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the most difficult challenge,
the most difficult cases,

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of course, the loss of a child, right?

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And expressing that to family members.

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I had always found 
it's such a beautiful--

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what is beautiful to witness,

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that in the face of such sadness,

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the loss of a young person
in their adolescence.

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Military, proud,

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ever since they were really small kids,
they dreamed of it

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and then for a number reasons, they die.

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It's seeing how family and support systems
come into place to help the family grieve.

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It may seem kind of mundane,

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but when I see family get together

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and people coming together
to support community.

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People who don't really know them
really personally come together,

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it really shows the
importance of community

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and support in these things.

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I was amazed
at one point in time when--

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I'm always amazed.

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Again, this is what always amazes me,

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when parents, particularly parents,
come up at a military ceremony

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and speak about their son or daughter.

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I always maintained
that I've never understood

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how someone can do that.

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You're going in front
of an audience of people

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and you're saying that
my son or daughter is dead,

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and these are some good stories
or memories we have about them.

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That strength that's required
is just astonishing to me.

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Because in that moment,
I have no idea

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and I'm witnessing this
as a chaplain.

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I'm looking at this, 
I'm like, "Wow."

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I don't know what I would do
in that circumstance.

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I had a hard time doing the eulogy
for my grandmother.

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She was so dear to me that
when I lost her during COVID,

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I couldn't finish the speech.

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I came to the very end,

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but I had a hard time
finishing this speech.

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So not doing that
for one of my children,

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or it's just even more
intensifies that emotion.

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(Stephen) What would you
like to see change

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in terms of how we deal
with grief in the military?

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(Ryan) There are couple of things
which I think--

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The military because--

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death and grief has always been
part and parcel of our job.

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We do do some things that are good
with respect to like memorials

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and the rituals we have

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and remembering the dead,
the cenotaphs and Remembrance Day.

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Those civic rituals are a great reminder

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about what we do
as an occupation and as a vocation.

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I think broadly speaking, culturally,

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we still have a tendency, 
because, again, military culture--

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In military culture,

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we very much experience
the same sort of cultural trends.

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as mainstream society.

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I find that the we've tended
to individualize grief

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far too much,

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in the sense that we see grief
as individual process,

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like an individual psych-social process,

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which makes it sort of
upon the person to resolve,

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more than it being a responsibility

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upon the community to help heal.

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Why I say this is because,
again, I'm part of the culture

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and I know this myself
that when I have lost somebody,

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instinctively, I don't necessarily
want help from people.

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I don't necessarily want help 
from people.

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I want to just process it myself.

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I need to cry.

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I go in a private place
and get back to work.

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One time, when I experienced that 
when I did that,

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I thought to myself,

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"My goodness, how unnatural is that?"

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"Why am I doing this?"

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I'm encouraging people
to reach out to support systems

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and to receive help from family, friends,

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religious groups, whatever.

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Here, I'm just sitting in a corner
and just wanting to hold it in,

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and that's not natural.

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That's not natural.

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I think that if we understand
grief to be a process,

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which should be experienced in community

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that could be family and military family,

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or relationships.

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If we see it in the context of community,

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then the process is very different, right?

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I think the healing process is much better

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when it's experienced in the context
of family and community.

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So, the more we highlight grief
as an individual experience

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and dealing with it just individually.

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We're not discounting
the individual factors.

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We understand that; people
may need to get individual help.

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We understand that.

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But in my experience,

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I've seen three different ways
of dealing with grief.

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One of them is to say,

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"I have a family, I have a community.

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I want to deal with grief
in the context of community."

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The community is there to help them,

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to support them, to love them,
to care for them,

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and everyone is doing it the same way.

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Everyone is doing it.

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I found those families
to have been cared for.

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At a certain point,
they didn't really need me.

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And then you have other families

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who are experiencing shame at the loss,

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who don't know
how to deal with it,

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who perhaps 
it was a very small family

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or perhaps the family is
in a different part of Canada,

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and they're experiencing
grief individually,

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and they're struggling
to manage the emotions.

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It's very sad to see that.

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It's very sad to see that,
because they need that community.

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The other side of individuals is that...

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they disengage.

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They disengage.

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They're afraid to deal
with the process of grief.

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They're afraid to really
talk about the story.

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They're angry for a number of reasons,

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and those are the most
difficult things to experience.

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I think as a culture,

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we need to be around all
those three categories,

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As a military, we need to really
build that community of care

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for people experiencing grief,

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which at the moment in time,
we're doing,

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we're doing it.

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But I think the more we talk
about grief as a communal experience,

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the more help people will get.

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Rather than saying, "Okay, you have
an individualized problem,

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let's pathologize you in particular way,

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and you move along with that process.

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Here's a book about the stages of grief."

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I don't think that's very helpful.

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(Stephen) Ryan, thank you
for joining us on this podcast.

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(Ryan) It's been an honour and pleasure.

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Thanks so much.

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(Stephen) Major Ryan Carter is
a senior chaplain of the support group

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in Ottawa-Gatineau.

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Thank you for listening
to another of CFMWS' podcasts

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on grief and bereavement.

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If you have any comments or questions,

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please send them to us via the email
provided on the web page.

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See you next time.