User:Lyleberman/When Grief Calls Forth the Healing

When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twins (2014) is a book by  Mary Rockefeller Morgan. The memoir covers the loss of her twin brother, Michael Rockefeller, who, in 1961, disappeared off the jungle coast of  New Guinea. Morgan recounts the subsequent difficulty in negotiating relationships because of unresolved grief associated with twin loss and identity. The journey led her to the use of imagery in healing grief, to becoming a psychotherapist specializing in bereavement and to the exploration of the American societal response to and avoidance of grief.

The book was originally published in 2012 in hardcover by Vantage Point under the title Beginning with the End. Open Road Media is the paperback and ebook publisher.

Overview
In the winter of 1961, Mary Rockefeller Morgan was twenty-three-years-old. She had a new job, a new husband, and a privileged life as a member of the Rockefeller family, specifically the daughter of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor of the State of New York. But tragedy changed the family forever when Mary’s twin brother, Michael Rockefeller, disappeared off the remote coast of New Guinea while collecting Oceanic art for a New York City museum. It was a worldwide front-page news event with repercussions it would take decades to heal: Michael was never found.

The memoir tells the painful, hope-giving story of twin loss and healing. Morgan takes the reader on her journey out of the terrible isolation of becoming a lone twin into healing community and into partnership with her own natural healing process. By coming into relationship to herself, to others and to nature, she is able to heal her grief and claim a new relationship to her twin brother.

This story of twin bereavement has universal meaning, for it becomes a magnifying glass for the grieving issues in any deeply bonded relationship. Twin loss highlights and brings understanding to some of the most important healing and grieving issues that all people will face in their lives when they lose someone they deeply relate to and love. Morgan provides insight into the subject of bereavement. Through her personal and professional experiences as a psychotherapist, Morgan discusses her work with those dealing with losing a twin in the the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster and the healing benefits of imagery developed from the work of Carl Jung. And she reveals our culture’s deep fear of not only death, but of grief itself.

When Grief Calls Forth the Healing opens with a play between the family's futile search for Michael in New Guinea and recounting exquisite childhood memories that unpack the fascinating bonded relationship of twins--the secret names, the effortless exchange of being with someone who knows you in a way that no one else ever could or will. Losing anyone close is like losing a part of ourselves. Losing a twin is like losing an entire identity. What followed was Mary Morgan’s 27-year repression of her grief and an unconscious denial of the death of her twin, which haunted her relationships and controlled her life. While the memoir sheds light on the isolation and anguish of personal loss, Morgan’s story is finally hopeful, as it uncovers a universal “natural healing imperative,” supported through personal connection and community. Mary Rockefeller Morgan became a psychotherapist who specializes in twin loss and in bereavement counseling and has helped many deal with loss, including those who lost twins in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Contents
The book is structured into four parts:


 * I.	The Search, which covers the news of Michael being missing and the shock of coming to terms with the loss while in New Guinea
 * II.	The Denial, which shows how unexplored grief colored all of the author’s subsequent relationships and led to deep personal crisis
 * III.	The Healing, which covers the discovery of meditative methods, including the use of imagery and a solo vision quest
 * IV.	Moving Forward, which covers becoming a therapist specializing in twin loss and bereavement of the loss of loved ones

Quotes
"The sea change began in November 1961. I remember the moment before. A window in the corner of my parents’ living room drew my attention. A windblown branch from an azalea bush scratched its surface making a discordant sound. My father stands out clearly, his figure powerful and solid next to the soft, down-pillowed sofa. By the window, my two brothers and I are clustered around my mom, wary, and watching him. It was barely two months since Father had separated from our mother. And just days before, he’d called a press conference, choosing to publicly expose his affair and his decision to remarry. Father held a yellow cablegram in his hand. Mike, my twin brother, was missing off the coast of New Guinea. Missing.... The ‘s’ sound. Like a thin knife, it slipped deep inside me. No resistance, just a sharp, knowing pain and then shimmering silence."

-Adapted from Chapter One

"To most people, grieving deep personal loss feels life threatening. In order to meet and assuage that fear, we must go into that deep place inside that is trying to deal with letting go of the temporal life that has already left us. We must slowly acknowledge with all of our body/mind that our loved one has died. When we do this, we face and grieve the loss of our loved one, but also the significant loss of a part of ourselves. This is the part that has been so deeply connected to the life that we have loved. Here is where the deepest fear lies, for in death, that connection is broken, and therefore, that part of us must die. It can feel like the death of the whole self, like you are actually dying. You are not. It is a great misunderstanding. Life is filled with places in ourselves and ways of being that have to end as we grow and change (i.e. we must leave our childhood home in order to fully engage in an adult life). Without the understanding and support of our natural healing process, this huge double loss can feel so life threatening that we repress the healing process and stay in perpetual feelings of pain and loss."

–Mary Rockefeller Morgan, adapted from the website

Reception
Originally published in hardcover under the title Beginning with the End, People Magazine called it “An arresting and deeply moving memoir.” Two-time National Book Award winner  Peter Matthiessen said it was, “A brave, candid, moving and very well-written memoir of Mary Rockefeller Morgan’s life struggle with “twin loss” after the tragic disappearance fifty years ago off the New Guinea coast of her twin brother Michael.”

Other doctors and therapists have written about the book as well:

Rachel Remen, MD, bestselling author of Kitchen Table Wisdom: “Mary R. Morgan is a gifted psychotherapist, a courageous explorer of the unconscious and a master story teller. She takes us with her as fellow travelers as she discovers the power to heal that is our common birthright as human beings. By sharing her personal journey as well as her experience as a therapist to many others, she helps us trust the natural process of healing which ultimately frees us from grief and carries us safely home. When Grief Calls Forth the Healing is an exquisitely written book about the Mystery of twinship. Be prepared for this book to make you less afraid of loss and of life.”

Dr. Nancy L. Segal, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton, Author, Someone Else’s Twin: “When Grief Calls Forth the Healing is a moving, heart-breaking and ultimately gratifying account of one woman’s overwhelming loss, struggle and resolution tied to the mysterious disappearance of her twin brother. The loss of a twin has been largely overlooked by the psychological and medical community, but this captivating narrative gives the subject the care and attention it so rightly deserves.”

Darcie D. Sims, Ph.D., CHT, CT, GMS, Director of The American Grief Academy: “Mary R. Morgan’s book is a Gift of the Soul, not only for the twinless twins of the world, but for all of us who search for the answer to the universal question of “Who Am I?” Read it. Admire her and then begin your own search.”

Joan Woodward, Psychotherapist and Founder of The Lone Twin Network, UK, Author, The Lone Twin: Understanding Twin Bereavement and Loss “In this very moving memoir, Mary R. Morgan shares the deep loss she felt at the disappearance of her twin and the story of her unique healing journey. This book will be equally valuable to lone twins and psychotherapists.”

Ann Belford Ulanov, M.Div., Ph.D., Author, The Unshuttered Heart: Opening to Aliveness “For anyone who has loved another deeply and lost them to death, this book is a boon. For any of us who is a twin and lost their beloved sibling to death, this book is a necessity. With discretion and taste, the reader is taken into Morgan’s life story and the hard-won miracle of letting the beloved twin go into his own freedom, and the surviving twin move into the completeness of her own life. This book reaches deep into the psyche and illuminates the soul.”

Morgan has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, numerous local  NPR affiliates and in a second article in  People Magazine speaking about the life of Michael Rockefeller and healing from deep personal loss.