Sometimes, when you hear of someone else's loss you wonder how they cope with it. It seems that's just a human thing to do. You wonder how you would behave under similar circumstances. You express silent gratitude that this time it's not your turn to be the grieving one.
As you get older, and you experience loss more frequently, you still wonder, only now you're more and more thoughtful about your own mortality and experiences. Now you're looking at loss retroactively. It's a hard thing to do. On beautiful summer days it seems impossible that your time on this earth is finite. |
Robin Lamb wrote here about a loss in his family that happened long ago. It was only many years after that things started to become clear to him about the impact of this loss on his family.
Here is Robin's follow-up to his original contribution.
A dear friend lost her teenage son in tragic circumstances, and for many weeks she was inconsolable. Friends told her that this was natural, and that in time she would come to terms with her terrible loss. In time, she did as she was told. She choked back on her grief and presented a brave face to the world.
Then one day she had an epiphany of sorts. She was addressing a fairly large group of people when a memory from happier times dashed into the forefront of her mind and she knew that she needed to cry, right there and then. So she did. |
“When I get these memories,” she told me, “it’s like my boy is speaking to me again. What kind of mother would I be if I shut him out now?”
Should mourning be appropriate?
Mum grieved--Dad worked
A few months later, he had a barnstorming argument with my maternal grandparents and we were packing our bags for a move to the other side of the world.
Several years passed, and I never saw my father grieve openly for Caroline. I think he saw it as his role to stay strong so my mum wouldn’t have to so obviously display her grief.
But then the family cat died.
Suddenly and uncharacteristically, all that pent-up sorrow and frustration poured out of him as perhaps it should have many years before.
Open mourning is natural
Although the two examples I have presented here almost certainly don’t speak for all people, I do think many of us hide our true feelings when venting them would be more beneficial. We should never be afraid to cry, no matter what others might think. It’s our grief, and we have every right to own it.