The Courage to Grieve

”And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” -- The Prophet

Love does not die quickly. But during the months of mourning after a death, we must learn to face the reality and the pain of our loss, to say good-bye to our loved one, to restore ourselves, and to reinvest in life once again. For most of us, that is a tall order. Many of us fear that, if allowed in, grief will bowl us over indefinitely. Unfortunately, our misconceptions about grief keep us from developing the courage we need to face it.

In a sense, mourning is a time of new mastery over ourselves and our lives. Recovery comes in the days ahead, when mourning is completed and a new balance is found. But before we recover, we have many experiences that trigger our grief anew. Finishing or completing grief comes when we are able to let go of our feelings of grief, and our intense connection with the deceased. Although love never dies, the pain of loss eventually lessens.

When President Kennedy was assassinated, we saw images of his life, the circumstances of his death, and his funeral over and over again for several days. We talked with each other about the loss of our president. We read about his life. Repetition and remembrance is the essential process of grieving; repeating the images of -- and feelings about -- our lost loved one until the mourning process is completed.

That we can grieve and recover often seems an amazing feat, yet human resilience is amazing. Just as a forest can burn to the ground and eventually grow back, or a town can be devastated by a flood and rebuild, so each of us can be overcome by our grief, have the enormity of our loss overwhelm us, and still recover and restore our lives.

Grief is a wound that needs attention in order to heal. To complete the grieving process means to face our feelings openly and honestly, to express or release our feelings fully, and to tolerate and accept our painful feelings for however long it takes for the wound to heal.

Therefore, it takes courage to grieve. It takes courage to feel our pain and to face the unfamiliar. It takes courage to grieve in a society that values restraint over the open expression of emotions.

But the truth is that grief does dissolve with the passage of time and the willingness to journey into pain, sorrow and anger in order to heal and recover. In the final analysis, the only grief that does not end is grief that has not been fully faced.

From The Courage to Grieve by Judy Tatelbaum. HarperCollins Publishers. Used by permission.