Just got an email from a woman I’ve known since I was a kid:  “Finally grieving for my Dad and Henry. Always pushed my emotions away, and stuffed them. Some days I stay home , some days I want to go out with my friends. Being more conservative with my finances.  What do you suggest ?”

Death happens.  And it sucks.  I hate death.  I don’t want wonderful things to end, and all the people in my life are wonderful (some more than others!). 

But still—death does happen and then we have to deal with it.  That’s called mourning: the ways we deal with the death of someone we care about.  And it turns out there are healthy and less-than-healthy ways to do that. 

There’s no prescription.  But we’ve learned a lot over the past thirty years or so, and here are some basic suggestions and guidelines that could make a big difference:

Healthy mourning begins before the person dies.  Of course, people often die completely unexpectedly.  But come on: we know the people in our life will die one day.  Hopefully they will go more or less in order of age, but you never know.  So the question is: If you knew any of the people in your life were going to be dead in the next few weeks,

·        What would you want to say to them? 

·        What would you want to hear them say to you? 

·        What would you want to do with them?  A trip, a conversation, an exploration of memories, anything. 

·        What issues would you like to resolve with them? 

·        What would you need from them before they died: advice, help, information, a declaration of love, an apology…what? 

We know you can’t work all this out immediately with everyone in your life.  But you can start now.  You see, here’s the thing:  one of the worst parts about mourning is unfinished business that can never be completed with that person.  So now is the time to make sure no one you love dies with either of you having unfinished business with the other.  By doing this, you’ll have prevented one of the worst parts of mourning. 

There’s no one right way.  We need to understand that there is no one right way, no one healthy pattern for normal mourning, and don’t let anyone tell you there is.  Some people don’t cry for weeks.  Some don’t ever cry.  Some feel they can’t stop crying.  Some are numb for a long time, and are suddenly surprised at being overwhelmed by grief.  Some find they keep thinking they are over it and suddenly are surprised by new grief. 

And it can take months and months.  I used to think, “Eight weeks and out.”  But I’ve known perfectly healthy people (psychologically) who were still struggling with grief issues a year or two after a death. 

But here’s what isn’t normal:  If you are unable to resume your normal life (even if you still don’t feel normal yet) after two or three months, then you need to talk to a therapist or grief counselor.  Your mourning doesn’t have to have ended by then, but your life should have begin again. 

Accept your feelings.  Healthy grieving can involve a cornucopia of feelings.  We expect sadness, but there is often relief, anger, hatred, guilt, terror, anxiety, loneliness, numbness, sexual arousal, strange obsessions, crazy thoughts…you name it.  Just think about it: when someone has been part of your life and is suddenly gone, every part of you comes into play.  Every part of you touches every other part, and the whole complicated fabric gets involved.  So just say, “It’s OK that I feel this.  It’s just part of my working through what this loss means to me.”

Let yourself cry.  Sometimes we push away the tears.  We’re exhausted.  We want to be numb.  We want to just move on.  But sometimes people suffer from incomplete mourning.  Think of it like this: when that person died, you inherited a gallon of tears.  So far you’ve only cried about a quart.  And that feels like a heck of a lot.  And yet you still feel burdened.  Well, that might be the remaining three quarts of tears.  So let them out.  Take a Friday off from work and spend a long weekend with your scrapbook and several boxes of tissues.  Let it all out.  You and your loved one both deserve these tears, and they will heal you. 

Let yourself stop crying.  But the tears won’t last forever.  When the stone is dropped into the middle of the pond, there are ripples but eventually the ripples subside.  Life takes over.  This part of mourning can be hard.  It can feel like a betrayal the first time you smile or laugh, the first time you realize that a day has gone by without thinking of your loved one, the first time you realize you feel OK. 

And that too is sad, the sadness within a sadness at the thought that as your mourning ends so too that person has in some way finally moved on from your life.  But of course they are still with you.  More deeply than before.  And they will return to your memory and thoughts and feelings many times, and in surprising ways.  But for now a very healthy part of your mind and heart has allowed you to start following the imperative that life moves on, even while our loved ones are still and always a part of us. 

Get support.  And by support, I mean Listening.  It can be enormously helpful to talk to friends, relatives, clergy, even strangers about your loved one.  Whatever it is you have to say: memories, rants, complaints, longing, yearning, anger, despair, panic, the whole gamut.  All you need is someone who accepts and understands and who doesn’t say stupid things or offer stupid advice.  If you turn to someone for support and they don’t turn out to be good at it, it may just mean this isn’t their thing.  Find someone else. 

It’s not that misery loves company.  It’s that company heals misery.  Give that to yourself.  And don’t feel guilty.  Some day you can return the favor to someone else. 

Talk to your loved one.  I know he or she is dead.  I know people might think you’re crazy.  But you’re not crazy.  Look, you still have things to say to the person you’ve lost.  And you have things you’d like to hear too.  So say what you have to say.  Ask forgiveness.  Declare your love.  Give the praise you might have held back.  Scold them for things you might never have let yourself give voice to.  Confess.  And do all this as if your loved one were with you.  Perhaps you might want to talk to their picture.  And after you’ve spoken, allow for silence.  Then or in the hours or days after you might feel your hear or sense a response.  This is not about believing in ghosts or souls or anything.  It’s just a psychological exercise (or maybe more if you see things that way) that has proven healing. 

Celebrate your loved one.  Have a gathering (even if it’s just you and one other person) at which you celebrate the other person and their life.  It’s not that everyone has been a totally wonderful person or had a perfect, happy life.  Some people, some lives are marked by a lot of darkness.  But no life is a waste.  Every life has some kind of gifts.  And that’s what you celebrate.  I know one person who celebrate his dead Uncle George by saying, “Well, he was a mean son of a bitch, but he sure taught me to appreciate nice people, and I guess he could have been a lot meaner.”  Even that is something.  But thank God, for most people we can go a lot further. 

Find the meaning of their life.  It’s part of the celebration and part of the aftermath.  It’s when you find some answer to the question: Why did they live?  How is it that this person’s life had meaning.  What did they do for me or others that gave it meaning?  It may take a while to find an answer to these questions, especially if you had a troubled relationship with them.  But there always is a meaning to everything that happens, especially a whole life (as I show in my book Everything Happens for a Reason) and it will help you mourn if you find meaning in your loved one’s life. 

Reclaim your life.  Every death is a release, at least in part.  Every death frees you up in some way.  This is good.  It’s no knock on your loved one.  It just means that now there is time and energy for something else.  And many people report, gratefully, happily, and somewhat guiltily, that now that the other person is gone, now that they have mourned, they are now able to live in a new way, to start something new, to begin a whole new chapter in their lives.  And this too is something to celebrate.  It means that life is full of gifts.  The person we mourn was one of those gifts.  And now, it turns out, there are others.  And that’s wonderful.

You may not be here yet.  It may take a while.  But if and when it happens, embrace it. 

We have a lot more advice for dealing with life’s stresses and difficulties in our book The Emotional Energy Factor.  You’ll find in it everything you need to recapture the bounce and verve and hope and energy you need and deserve.  It’s based on what real people like you did to maintain their emotional energy in the face of the same difficulties you’re facing now. 

We know that many of you reading this have had to find a way through the labyrinth of grief.  What helped?  What didn’t?  Share your wisdom with others: we’d love to read your comments.  We’re all in this together.

Posted: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Category: Relationships, News & Notes, Emotional Energy, Decision Making
Author: Mira and Charles
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