Keep the door to her life open. Edith Hickman
When does
the grieving end? The honest answer is that it never completely ends. There will always be sadness and we will never forget,
nor would we want to forget a life so dear to us; but the devastating emotions of new grief do subside over time. Please visit I'm Grieving as Fast as I Can for my thoughts on closure.
I have read that we know we are healing when we think
about our loved one's life more than the circumstances surrounding the death. Another turning point in grief healing is when
the memories of our loved one bring more comfort than pain. A part of us dies when a loved one dies—the life we shared
is gone. But if we allow ourselves to grieve, we will find one day that our loved one lives on in the life we create after
loss.
From Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman, January 15 entry:
Though the loved one has died, the memory, the sense of the person's presence, has not--nor the possibility, after
a while, of taking continuing joy not only from the reminiscences of the past, but in the extension of the person's spirit
into our ongoing lives.
Into the nebulous, ongoing mystery of life I welcome, as if through an open door, the
continuing spirit of the one I have loved.
For a different perspective on grief, read
The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the
New Science of Loss by Ruth Davis Konigsberg. She writes on page 16, "Our grief culture
maintains that grief is unique, then offers a uniform set of instructions [on how to grieve]." From the back cover: "With
this book, I hope to offer you a means of escape from our habitual ways of thinking about grief."
Konigsberg's work is thought provoking and well researched. Click A Change of Heart for my review of the book.
Go to next page: Shadow Grief
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