Info from my loss and grief class
My friend Riete requested that I post some information from the psychology class I am taking in loss and grief. This will just be some general stuff. If you have specific questions, please ask me. I will do my best to answer you in a timely fashion.
The loss and grief we study is mostly the death of someone we love. Our emotional reactions are in direct proportion the the investment we have in the relationship to the one who dies. Loss in the class is not just limited to death. It can be the loss of a person that is still living, such as an alzheimer's patient. We lose that person because the personality is changed by the disease. Loss can also be a divorce, or the ending of a relationship, and even a lost set of keys. It all causes the same emotions to greater and lesser degrees.
The typical reactions to loss and grief are:
1. disbelief
2. anger
3. bargaining
4. finally accepting the loss.
It is that simple, we have to go through all of the emotions and then to accept our losses. People who hide their feelings or try to distract themselves really never move past the beginning stages and as a consequence, never really deal with the issues of loss. You must feel the pain of grief to begin the process toward health. Dealing with grief is a process of acceptance and integrating the loss into your life. Grief is never really completely healed, like a physical injury, there is always some scarring.
I learned much with Snooky's death. We have gotten a lot of antiques that belonged to Snooky and made them a part of our home. We are now the proud owners of her extremely long table. We have also taken over as the family meeting place and will have Christmas dinners at the table just like Snooky did. In taking over her duties, we integrate the loss and move forward. Gretchen has taken a lot of comfort from seeing that it is now our turn to be what Snooky was for our nephew and her cousin's young kids. We are the custodians of tradition and family history, and that will live on in our younger generation. We are offically old farts now.