I once read a book by Judy Tatelbaum called The Courage to Grieve, which I found very helpful. It taught me what saying goodbye really meant. For a long time I was afraid to say goodbye to my child. Somehow I equated this to forgetting him. As Tatelbaum says, saying goodbye simply means emotionally accepting my child’s death, and moving on. It means finding a place for the dead in our emotional life. This takes time. Indeed the maxim that people often use, that time heals, is true. But we must allow it to heal, and in a later post I will look at what happens when we do not allow it to heal. Of course I now accept that it is impossible to accept the death of a child. We integrate it as best we can.
What I would like to look at in the next few posts is do we all grieve the same way. This is a very important question. By assuming that we all grieve in the same way, we can sometimes cause offence and pain to the bereaved by offering well meant but ill-considered remarks. I used be extremely angry when people said to me ‘you have an angel in Heaven’. I didn’t want an angel in Heaven. I wanted my child on earth. People were projecting their own feelings onto me.
Tags: bereavement, grief