Welcome again to The Grieving Room, a weekly series initiated by Dem in the Heart of Texas and others with the intent to offer a "get it off your chest" diary and discussion environment set in the arena of our favorite online political community.
 | Channelling Dem in the Heart of Texas: "...this is a weekly diary series for people in mourning; it is intended to be a safe place to unburden and to share sympathy for those who are traveling the sad road of loss." |
My turn again tonight and I haven’t much left after the past week’s events, but I’ll give it a go. This is my quick 30 minute diary entry, so apologies to all for my writing quality tonight.
Grief is a weird thing, isn’t it? It affects all of us differently and at different times and through a different sequence of steps in whatever process our grief decides to take. I use those words with a purpose, because I believe that grief takes you – you have little control over the course of events. Even when you think you are not grieving, your mind and spirit and body may react to normal things in abnormal ways. Even the most self-aware of us often don’t recognize our reactions as grief-generated.
The grief process has been documented, disputed, and redesigned over the years by many estimable folks. Perhaps the most commonly familiar steps in the process of grief are those discussed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in "On Death and Dying", as DITHOT cites in her first installment and lists in the poll of her diary, and which I recycle here.
One of the most interesting effects of grief is that it can be generated from many things – not just the death of a loved one, family, friend or dog. Grief can arise from the loss of anything, or it can be a residual regret of what you have left undone, or what you have purposefully, or incidentally, or unknowingly, left behind in your life.
Grief can wash over you as you look in the mirror; you see the person looking back at you and you suddenly realize that the person reflected does not have the face of the man or woman you are inside; the face does not match the mind and tongue
churning out the words and thoughts of the much younger person you still think of yourself as.
Grief can be losing contact with someone you once had so much in common with. What you do with that grief may give you the impetus to start forward again and forge new friendships based on who you are today, or it may recall you back to a time when the attachments you formed seemed permanent, and you may seek to re-establish old and forgotten bonds to refresh the being you once were.
Grief may be looking at your child and realizing the ideas and dreams you had for them when they were young are never going to come true. Grief is knowledge in this case, and a kind of self-realization, and really, that can’t be all bad. If you can take what you now have and find value in it; if you can accept your child for who they are and uncover the value of your heretofore undiscovered child and not grieve over the loss of what you wanted them to be – which was your dream to begin with and not theirs, after all - your grief can bring growth to you.
Grief may be moving to a new city, a new state, maybe a new country, and mourning the loss of what you had and where you once were. It’s hard to move on from this grief sometimes. Look at the land around you and see that the same sky covers your head; the same sun and moon still shine and glow. It’s not so different a world. Grief brings appreciation of where you were and a path to transition to where you are now. Grief is change-managing.
Grief may be what we feel when we lose something we always thought we’d have – something we’ve taken for granted for far too long. Indeed – something like our country. I think I’ve been in mourning for my country for six years now. Is this a complicated grief and is it possible to heal this country? There are days I wonder if repairing the damage to our democracy, if it’s possible, can get us all back to a manner of trust in government and any kind of belief that we can find a leader who will do the right thing with the power granted. Grief can also be open-ended and enduring, at least when it comes to an ongoing situation that doesn’t seem to change, be it political, emotional or situational.
There are so many other kinds of grief – small griefs, large griefs. Paralyzing grief. Over-weaning grief. Complicated grief, a new psychological phrase for grief you just can’t get over. As if there are proper periods of time to mourn, and so they say there are, at least for grief over the death of another human being.
Years ago, decades, a hundred years or more, or less, Americans and other Western societies draped black curtains over doors and portals, indicating the death of a loved one or family member. Periods of mourning were at least a year. Appropriate colors for the mourners to wear for a year consisted of blacks and grays, muted for the period of mourning. Laughter was discouraged, parties forbidden; social events frowned upon unless they were necessary to attend as community functions in small communities.
Now most of us in modern society unconsciously expect that those who grieve over the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a marriage or relationship, or the loss of a cherished home or job, should move on quickly to the next thing. Let the dying one go, abandon the loss for another possession, another gain, take a vacation and get over it. Of course, most of us mouth platitudes that indicate that we understand that there is a period of mourning the aggrieved one should go through.
But how do we all calibrate the length of grieving, given the fast pace of our lives? And how do we believe that others truly understand, and will not grow impatient with our seeming lack of the ability to return to "normal"? How do we extend the right and the grace to grieve to others when they need it?
In my mind, all forms of grief are complicated and meaningful. Grief implies that you had at least more than a moment of passing care, a bit more tolerance, perhaps a previously unplumbed wealth of deep emotion and feeling for what was lost, who was lost. Wrap your hands and your heart around your grief and don’t reject it. If you have a way into grief, you can find a way out of grief. And you can find value in the grace of caring and memory.
Grief polishes your heart.
Previous Installments of the series:
Apr 30, 2007 – The Grieving Room - a Monday night series
Apr 23, 2007 - The Grieving Room – Paso Doble
Apr 16, 2007 - The Grieving Room - a weekly support diary
