Hi everyone. I was home sick today and reading and searching for things online. I came across this article on grief. I thought it was great. This quote was especially meaningful:

"Grief is not a process of forgetting. It is a process of learning to cope while we remember." - Doug Manning

Here's the article

Grief

"Anytime someone you loved died, the world was suddenly smaller and less interesting and you, too, were diminished. They said that these events gave you perspective but that was sentimental. Perspective was what you had before the death, and after it you were so heavy-hearted and blurred of mind that you could not decide the simplest things..."
- Ward Just, The Weather in Berlin

For profound grief it would not be unusual for the healing process to take one and a half to two years. There will forever be a part of your heart that feels the loss. Healing does not erase the pain. Healing means an ability to return to your own life. Grief has an intensity of emotions that everyone must learn to cope with. Movement through the feelings is what keeps each of us mentally healthy. The whole world has stopped for you because of the loss. Slowly, very slowly the world will return to your awareness. Learn to sit beside your experience of loss. There will be ten minutes when you don't think about it, then two ten minute periods in one day and those ten minutes will grow to fifteen or twenty, and then you'll be surprised a whole hour has gone by and you didn't cry. Then you'll find yourself smiling at something, and don't shut down the smile because it feels like a betrayal. The smile is a sign of movement. Movement is too often disregarded by the grieving person because to embrace it becomes twisted into the false idea it would be to dishonor the loss. What emerges is a myth " I can keep them alive by being miserable." Moving on slowly over time is a gift no one should turn their back on.

William Worden in his text on grief counseling offers four stages when someone has suffered a loss. The first is to accept the reality of the loss, the second is to feel the pain and adjust to your life without the other, the third is to emotionally relocate that person and the final part is healing which is when there is more comfort and less pain.

Grief is not well respected as a process in our culture. There are many different ways to grieve and the time frame is very different for each person. Our hearts carry the wounds of grief differently. Pay attention to how you remember them. Find someone to share your memories with and take time to describe the details. Create a ritual of candle lighting or choosing special pictures to hang. I was able to create a panel for the Aids Quilt, which was very healing.

Profound grief can take many forms. The loss of a child is one of the most difficult trials a person can face, and yet for the children who are still alive it can be crucial for a parent to find their footing again.
Not being loved by a parent can be difficult to bear for a lifetime, it can either set the stage for mental illness or resiliency.

The element of surprise usually makes grief harder to deal with. The resonance of 9/11 is in part due to the shock and surprise of what happened. If a parent dies and it is expected that is more manageable. A suicide can be a very complicated grief because suicide is both a surprise and often a very angry act. Guilt can make all grief impossible to cope with. Get help to decontaminate the guilt. Don't walk around with secret damage.

Grief needs to be honored. In America we give people about a week and a half to talk about it. None of us want to face our own mortality so we step away from grief in others. As W.H. Auden said it "Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic." Many times therapists are in the necessary role of being a witness because no one else is honestly available. Feeling alone with grief and not having a partner to share with can make the loss more unbearable. This is why the divorce rate is high after the death of a child. There are many aspects to grief that add to whether or not grief is bearable. It is very important to not offer platitudes about the future to someone grieving. Grief is all about remembering the past, with a giant hole in the present while the future is completely unimaginable.

Truly being able to wail is very helpful to making grief more bearable. The ability to allow deep noises that may not even sound human gives weight and substance to the locked up emotions. Imagine my surprise more than 20 years ago that no one really wails at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Wailing or keening honors the grief within.

"Grief is not a process of forgetting. It is a process of learning to cope while we remember." - Doug Manning

An excellent book for grief would be How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies by Therese Rando Ph.D.

Another book to consider Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us How to Live by Marie de Hennezel

In Pittsburgh we have an organization that does not charge for their services, Good Grief Center.com