Home for the Holidays | Interview in the Long Beach Leader

Interview by Dianne Anderson  (Staff Writer)

Christmas is near.

The rush for gifts and hustle for toys, throw up the tree, hours over a hot stove, a fast six days till the New Year. Then, the moment is gone.

Local pastoral counselor, Dr. Angela Chester, thinks maybe this year, families can slow it down a bit and try to enjoy each other, and let the little things slide.

As often happens, at least some of the headaches around this time of year comes from long standing rivals hurling small insults across the table. She said a lot of it can be avoided if people can stay in a mindset of gratitude.

Her own recent close call, a car accident has left her bedridden for two weeks, gives her time to reflect on all the things that she is personally thankful for, despite extreme back pain.

In general, she said both the nation as a whole, and individuals in the community, are grieving from the latest of 355th mass shooting for this year alone. Stress at the individual level for African American families dealing with the loss of a loved one, either by gangs or wrongful death shootings by police, has a stronghold on the social psyche.    

There is a lot of violence to take in.

“It’s almost like a double whammy. Our nation is having an identity crisis, trying to put a band-aid on a wound that keeps getting ripped open,” she said. Part of coming to grips is understanding the five stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance -- which is a natural process for everyone.

“Whether it happened in San Bernardino, Boston Marathon, the children of Sandy Hook in Connecticut, in Columbine. Everyone is like, is this real, did that happen?” she said. “That’s a form of denial.”

At times, anger becomes, “how dare they do this?” leading to the bargaining stage, and trying to make sense or creating solutions. That often becomes a catalyst for action, such as mothers advocating through Mothers Against Drunk Drivers to stop the senseless loss of children.

Because of the grieving process, some laws are changed.

“Some schools now have more security cameras, metal detectors because kids were coming to school with guns. That idea came out of the bargaining stage of our grief. It was a good idea,” she said.

Through depression, both the community and individuals should do what they’ve been taught for maintaining emotional balance, turn to each other for support, she said. Others will cycle between depression and anger over a period of weeks, or months, depending on the loss.

“But we have to decide that we’re going to do something [in the healing process]. The same way that we can’t stay stuck in our depression, we can’t stay stuck in our anger,” she said.

More than likely, the recent events will be part of this family holiday conversation. But, it could also serve as a reminder to be thankful for family, not just playing lip service around turkey dinner holding hands.

For more information, see http://www.drangelachester.com