Talking about grief

The NY Times reviews a book "The Other Side of Sadness"

A professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, Dr. Bonanno has now interviewed hundreds of bereaved people, following some for years before and after the fact, looking for patterns.

His conclusion: the bereaved are far more resilient than anyone — including Freud, and the bereaved themselves — would ever have imagined.

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In contrast to the grim slog of Freudian grief work, the natural sadness that actually follows a death is not a thick soup of tears and depression. People can be sad at times, fine at other times. The level of fluctuation is “nothing short of spectacular”; the prevalence of joy is “striking.”

Over all, we are hard-wired to move on, helped by innate mechanisms that may seem maladaptive or abnormal but are actually quite common and effective.

Perhaps the saying by Neitzche applies; "What does not destroy me, makes me strong".

I remember thinking to myself some months after my husband died, when I was coming out of the fog; "He is dead, but I am still here. I still have a life ahead of me to be lived, and wallowing in grief will not allow me to get on with my life".

Furthermore, because of his death at the age of 52, it made me realize we might not get as much time on earth as we imagine. So, if you want to accomplish something, don't put it off.

I think losing someone you are very close to, changes you. It forces one into change, which is not generally welcome, but requires a person to adapt. Make new friends, do different things. It pushes one out of the accustom routine, and generally fosters some evaluation of the life being lived, and, the life already lived.

We cannot change the past, but only hope to learn from it.