‘We All Go Through The Loss Of A Loved One’: Interview With Author Dr. Ken Druck
In the wake of his daughter’s death “I learned to live with unknowingness.”
Those were the words of Ken Druck, a clinical psychiatrist who has his doctorate in that discipline. Druck said he’s had as much training in grief and loss as the average graduate school student.
“The most important thing in my life were my two daughters,” said Druck.
In 1996, his eldest daughter, a promising student who had already been pegged as one of American’s future leaders, told him that she had the opportunity to travel around the world on a study abroad program. He recorded every call home, until the final one from India, where she told him she was about to see the Taj Mahal, “the world’s greatest symbol of eternal love.”
Jenna Druck was killed, with three other young women, in a bus accident on the road to the Taj Mahal.
“My life as I knew it also ended in 1996,” said Druck, now a well-known writer, speaker, and consultant.
The Jenna Druck Center, which he founded in the wake of her death, has helped families experiencing the loss of a child. It also provided a leadership training program for young women, one that, says Druck, has now expanded worldwide.
Over the years, he said, “I slowly became kind of a grief guru,” called to help families in hundreds of tragedies, including 9/11, and the shootings at Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Las Vegas, as well as train medical professionals in what he calls “grief literacy.”
His latest book, “How We Go On” (2023), offers insights on how to move forward in the face of loss, challenges and adversities.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans: Dr Druck, how did the loss of your daughter change your spirituality?
Dr. Ken Druck: Faith was something that had been an elective credit for much of my adult life. It was a flirtation, an inquiry that didn’t have a particular urgency to it. Now, suddenly what happens after we die became the curriculum. I wanted to know where my daughter was. It remains a mystery. I have had to learn to live with unknowingness. I have twin five-year-old grandsons and I try to teach them that part of being a person is that at times you just don’t know with one hundred percent certainty. Do I have faith? Yes, as I told one of my grandsons, when he asked me whether heaven was real after their dog had died, I hope there is some way that I will be reunited with my daughter, and I think your mommy feels the same way. We both hold it in faith.
Evans: Have you found that being a public figure has led to encounters with others in which you see yourself?
Druck: Whether it’s by phone, or email, an invitation to an event, my involvement in what’s happening in this country, the things I write about, the interviews I give .. I encounter people every day. Almost always, the issue of faith, of prayer, of hope, of unknowingness, of how all of this works, of what guiding principles run or rule our lives [comes up]. After 9/11, I led countless support groups for family members who had watched somebody they loved be incinerated or die in the terrorist attacks in some brutal form. One night, we had 1,000 people crowded in a small church. One woman was sitting next to another. She said, “well, thank God, God was watching my son.” The woman sitting next to her stood up and said “Was my son chopped liver? Yeah, God chose your son to live and to kill my son. Is that the way it really works?” So, in the middle of grief and loss come some of the most profound questions about our beliefs, our deepest understanding of what we don’t know with 100 percent certain, and the clearest understandings of what we have a right to believe.
In another meeting, we had a day long workshop. At the end, a husband poked his head in the room with all of the family members to pick up his wife. Someone said “we wish you had been with us today.” He looked around the room and said, “I know how this f——- works. Misery loves company.” And a woman in the back of the room stood up and said: “No sir, hope loves company.”
“Hope loves company” became our slogan at all of the centers after 9/11. On the windows, it would say, “Hope loves company: remembering Jenna Druck.” Essentially, they adopted the “families helping families” program that I created at my daughter’s foundation.
I also created a document called “The Eight Honorings,” guidelines for how we can honor those we have lost.
One example: Cultivating a spiritual relationship with our loved one who has died. We give ourselves permission to express and receive the love that never dies. I can wake up this morning that tell my daughter I love and miss her with all of my heart. I can imagine and feel the warmth of her love. Another is to take the high road in my dealings with other people, rather than becoming bitter or indifferent to people pain or callous and resentful or jealous.
Evans: What else have you learned along the way?
Druck: We’re all wired differently, and we can’t expect everyone to be like us. The dos and don’ts of grief support can be found on my website. I [also] tell people that life is a lease program. We all die. We all go through the loss of a loved one. None of us get through this alone.
Don’t judge yourself. As long as no one is getting hurt, including ourselves, give yourself permission to grieve, to speak about our sorrow, to get loving support. Go to church, to the natural world, to places that are sacred, quite enough for you to hear your own heartbeat — for you to summon newfound courage, strength, understanding and hope. If you have your foot on your throat, and you are disallowing those things, take it off. Put your hand on your heart, and show yourself kindness, support, patience, encouragement, forgiveness and honesty. Say yes to what you need to, and to say no when you need to say no.
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.