Grief, The Price for Love

It was a brief conversation I had with a friend as we discussed our common experience.  I had lost my dad a short two years ago and she had lost her mother in the past year.  The discussion was a few sentences of shared feelings, of how we each hadn’t realized how connected to our parent we had been and of how there was a lack of acceptance in our community for our mourning.  And then the conversation moved on, but the words had  intrigued me and I reflected on them for several days. There seems to be an unspoken taboo in our society about showing grief or mourning the loss of a loved one unless it is done quietly, behind closed doors where you aren’t seen.  In general, grief for any loss or transition is not tolerated beyond the first brief time frame of a few days by our society.  We are told to ‘get over it’ , ‘move on’ , ‘they are in a better place’ , ‘everything happens for the best’  or a multitude of other platitudes in an effort to move us beyond this place of sadness.  While I truly believe these things are said in good will, I also believe they are stated because the person speaking them is uncomfortable being in this place of grief with us.  I get it, it is not an easy or fun place to be and I have also witnessed someone being stuck in this place, but overall my experience has been that we hurry through it.  We push the pain away, deny the tears and are afraid to acknowledge the impact or changes in our life as we go about our day to day activities as if nothing is different.  Read more “Grief, The Price for Love” →