Grieving question

[jamesglewisf]

How long is normal for someone to go on grieving a death? Does who it was that died make a difference? Does it matter if the person who died was your spouse, child, friend, or grandparent? Do you ever get over it?

Now that I am 34, it seems like friends and familiy members are dealing with this more and more often. They often ask me this question because our family has lost a baby and two grandparents in the past couple of years. What do you think?

[jamesglewisf]

Obviously, you never completely get over the loss of a loved one. There is always somewhat of a void inside.

There are triggers that bring everything back to you. We chose to have the song In the Presence of Jehova sang at our daughter Gracie's funeral. Here's the challenge: about three or four times a year it gets sung by our choir at church. Although we still love the song, it is real hard to hear it sung in church. Amy thinks maybe we should start singing it to our younger daughter at bedtime, and maybe that will help in church. I thought that was a brilliant idea.

Earlier this year, our friends lost their baby, and we had to go to our first infant funeral since Gracie's. In spite of the fact that it had been almost three years, that funeral was very hard. You get a little nervous that you are going to fall apart at someone else's funeral. And now there are the songs we heard at their funeral that we hear in church.

It is a strange phenomena. You chose the songs for a funeral because you loved them, but now there is a bittersweet feeling everytime you hear them.

[41mama]

One of our friends died in June and he was 60. There were hundreds of people at the funeral and many of us got up to say how Jon had helped us out in a time of need, and more than one person said he was their best friend. I know his wife is having a hard time still, but for us, we imagine that he's in heaven and God is saying to him "Well done thou good and faithful servant." Even though I feel a sense of regret that he'd just retired a year or so earlier and he had been saving up all the great things he wanted to do, I think he had a full life and I was able to let go pretty quickly. If I lost a child, ... I don't know. I don't think there is a "normal" amount of time to grieve. I might talk to my family doctor if I wasn't eating or sleeping for months at a time, or still couldn't enjoy anything after a year or two, but I don't think I'd ever be the same after such a loss. I've heard 18 months for acute grieving, but I think if we continue to bring our broken places to God, He'll continue to heal us. I guess the healing will be complete in heaven when you see your daughter. Christie

[sleon]

I think grieving is almost a life-long process. All of creation is groaning, right? It's just the conditions we live under--sickness, loss, and death are unalterably part of the reality here on Earth. After a certain point, awful things have happened to all of us. The challenge is to use our pain to the benefit of others--comforting them, helping them, giving, sacrificing our whole selves in the service of other people. But when grief interferes with normal functioning--I don't mean people just having bad days, but when people can't cope and aren't making steps towards healing, then it's gone on too long. This is not to say that for a LONG time it won't be really hard, and healing steps might be really small. But I don't think there's some set formula for how long is normal to grieve. And yes, we will always miss our loved ones who died. Always, always. Grief can be strange--I grieve the fact that I never got to meet my husband's grandfather, who was really his only father figure, because his Papaw died when he was 20! I miss this man that I never even met, because of what an amazing influence he was on my sweetheart! Part of it for me is that, since I became a Christian, my heart is much more open and softer...and so I mourn harder. Even though I know that I will be reunited with Papaw, and my babies, and others in heaven...and they're already all livin' it up, LOL!...still I mourn for those of us who are left missing them.

[TWTCommish]

Sorry to hear of your loss James: I have a younger sister also named Grace...and yes, we call her "Gracie."

I'm a bit worried about things like this...several years ago I had a day-long breakdown where I realized my parents were going to die while I was still alive to see it. I was only 11 at the time, but it hit me very hard and I still remember it. Bothers me just now to think of it...things like this make me lose my composure.

I basically feel like I'm "due." I've had a great-grandparent die, but I didn't know her well enough or long enough for it to have any lasting impact. I'm totally unprepared for anything else though...I have 4 biological grandparents, none of them converted, but some of them considering Christianity...please pray for them. They're all around 60 or 65, and seeing as how I've never lost more than a distant relative, I'm totally unprepared for the feelings I'll have when I love a grandparent.

This may sound dumb, but I also worry about our cat, Hershey (she's a brown Burmese...I love her name, it's so clever). Hershey is about 15, only one year younger than myself - so basically I've grown up with her. She should have died awhile ago, but thankfully whenever she goes to the vet, they always assume she's 7 or 8...so she is in good health.

Anyway, I have no idea how things will be when a grandparent or close family pet dies...is there somekind of standard emotional procedure people tend to go through?

[Debby]

I don't know when I will ever get over grieving for my father, I have days that I want to scream I miss him so much.

[cool chic]

I think everyone greaves at their own pace and way. I am still trying to get over the loss of my two grandmothers. Who died a couple years apart. And what I am finding hard to deal with now is my grandfathers. Seeing them with "Lady" Friends is almost impossible. My one grandfather has a friend that he takes every where with him, including to family functions. She has a strong resemblence to my grandmother and quite often I have to do a double take to make sure it's not my grandmother.

On another hand...I want my daughter to be able to spend as much time with my parents as well as my husbands parents. My parents love being around her and only live a mile away from us, so they see her almost every day. My husbands parents live a few hours away and don't get too involved in her life. I feel sad, and I know that it upsets my husband not to see his parents interact with our daughter the way my parents do. I really want them to get to know our daughter and for our daughter to get to know them...I guess she is lucky if she has one set of grandparents that share thier love with her on a daily basis.

[Debby]

Just wanted to add some more to this....it is so good for me to have a place to get this all off my chest, I have good friends to talk to, but I feel like I have just talked the issue into the ground with them, and am a little afraid they are tired of hearing about it, so I have been keeping it to myself lately. As I mentioned in another post, my father passed away August 24th of this year. It was sudden. I have had a realy rough time with it. He had a stroke. Three weeks later he was gone. It has only been 2 1/2 months. I was having a really hard time at first, to the point where my friends thought maybe I needed some professional help...I was so depressed. I have good days and bad, but it seems like people who have never lost a really close loved one, expect me to just get over it and be okay now. I can't. It's too soon. So I keep it to myself.I don't talk about it much. But I cry alot when I am alone.I don't talk to my husband about it either...he didn't even take the day off work when I called him and told him dad had died. If it wasn't for my brother who lives nearby and my friends, I would have been alone that day. I really miss my dad. I don't know when it is going to get easier.

[Karenluvs6]

my children's grandmother is still grieving for her son. my children's biological father....he has been dead for five years. She is a total mess. It is very sad.
She goes to the cemetary every week, without fail. She celebrates his birthday, father's day, christmas etc...all at the cemetary.
It is natural to grieve for loved ones...hek, I grieve for ppl I don't even know, when I hear about thier death....on the news, in the paper...etc. Sounds strange I know...but it is true. When I hear of parents on the TV news, who lost thier child...I cry...and I tend to think about them for a period of time after. It is human nature.
I think there is such a thing as grieving too much.....although it is very difficult to distinguish how much is too much...but for someone like my children's grandmother, whom I have mentioned above, it is very unhealthy.
The stress alone is killing her. I don't think she'll ever get over his death, and she'll probably never be happy until she can join him in heaven...then she will be at peace for the first time since he has been gone.
I feel for her.....it has changed her so much over the years....she is so distant and lonely. She does have family....a husband and a son. She just lost her mother a few months back also. But nothing has affected her like her son's death. It was devastating for her.

Everyone grieves differently...Some for weeks, some for months....some forever.

[Military Mom]

Karen said it well.

We all grieve differently for different lengths of time.

I think it DOES matter how close you were to the one who died. And how much you cared for them. You don't have to know someone very long to care dearly for them.

Today, I had to find a sympathy card for the wife of a patient with a long term illness whom I have cared for over the past month or so. I haven't known these wonderful people for very long, but I struggled as I searched thru the cards to keep control of myself. Didn't want the poor lady at the register to have to deal with "Crying girl, aisle two... look out, she's leaking on the cards..."

My Granny died over 12 yrs ago, but I continue to mourn her. Tears still well up in my eyes on occasion when I visit her grave. I took my little boy to see her, and wished with all my might that she could have been here to see him and love him as she loved me. I still bend down on my knees and kiss her marker every time, because it's as close as I can get to kissing her again.... miss her, hope she knows.

On a less personal level, having worked in the ER off and on since 1995, I have seen lives come and I have seen many many more go - way before their times and way PAST their times. It ALWAYS hurts - even when someone has clearly suffered, even tho you do not know them. The hardest to deal with is young people my age and little children. The worst thing to see on your way out the door is a lifeless 6 yr old .... trust me, it just is.

An excellent book on this subject is "On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. She pioneered the field of the study of grief. She made it an ok thing to do and does an excellent job of making sense of the whole process. She breaks grief down into stages most of us can recognize as having experienced for ourselves, and can tell us what to expect to feel in years to come.

I feel the important thing (and hardest thing)is to do your best to not get so caught up in the death that you forget to LIVE.

mm

[41mama]

Hi everybody -- I just spoke to the wife of our friend who died in June. She has ovarian cancer and she's on Hospice. She's only in her late 50s. She probably would have gotten sick even if Jon were alive, but it makes you wonder if she'd have made different treatment decisions. Maybe the stress of his death hastened the onset of symptoms too. Who knows. I still can't believe it.
I know what you mean about grieving about children you don't know. Ten days before my dd was born two ten year-old boys in our town were killed in a pipeline explosion. An older boy fell into the creek and drowned before the explosion, overcome by the fumes. I had such a hard time with that. And I don't even know them. The Oklahoma City bombing happened the month before my son was born, and I had a lot of feelings about that too. Christie

[Lisa]

41mama, I think we live in the same place!!! {wavey}

I can't imagine losing a child. I just can't grasp the concept. My husbands brother died when he was 5. My nephew died a few years ago and he was a twin, it was an accident. That was before I met and married my husband though. I remember hearing about it on the news. Our family still grieves for both these boys, my step-son is named after his uncle and he's proud to share his name. :)

An observation my husband has made is that when a couple has been married for a long time, when one passes the other often follows quite soon. When his grandfather passed, his grandmother did also within a year. This happened with both of his grandparents. My grandmother passed, my grandfather almost did too.

How long to grieve? It is different for everyone. My dad is grieveing his divorce - on a daily basis. His whole world is shattered even still, 8 years later. I still grive the loss of my dog 8 years ago. I can't imagine losing my husband or a child.

[Austruck]

I think part of the grieving process is not only how close you were to the person, but how many times you've had to go through it. I haven't had to go through grief very often at all in my 39 years. My brother's friend's brother died when we were all in elementary school. (Our families did a few things together.) He was 7 and died of leukemia. My first funeral--this tiny white casket.

His mother was 8.5 months pregnant with another baby, and her husband had to let her lean on his arm throughout the funeral and in the cemetery, etc. She could barely get through it. It was totally awful. I still remember what I was wearing (this was 1972), and I remember crying my eyes out at the ceremony, mostly out of panic and fear. I don't think I ever realized that death was real before that, despite having lost many pets.

The only other close person I lost was my grandmother in 1985. She was effectively the only grandparent I ever knew, the glue that held our family together with her peaceful graciousness and sweetness. She gave and gave and gave ... and died at age 83 of kidney failure because she had these symptoms but didn't want to bother anyone with them and was frightened to go to a hospital (she'd never been in one except for a broken wrist).

I was her only granddaughter (she had many grandsons). I was named after her. I look somewhat like her in her youth. I'm told I have her same temperament (oh, I can only HOPE this is even HALFway true!). She taught me to crochet. I'm sitting here crying and missing her even now, 15 years later.

Although she may have been saved before this point, she definitely converted on her deathbed, with her young pastor leading her through the steps just before she fell into her final coma. She even managed to delightedly say, "Hallelujah!" just before she slipped away, even though she hadn't been able to talk for days. She's the only other family member of mine that I know is/was saved. The eulogy at her funeral was very evangelistic. It was weird to have this odd mix of joy and hope at a funeral.

My parents are youngish (61), and I only have a brother. We're all fairly healthy at this point, no major health scares, even. I can get myself into a state of near-panic thinking of any one of these people dying. I have NO clue how I'd handle real grief. I'm afraid it will devastate me, if only because of my own deeply buried fear of my own death.

My husband's father died in 1998, a month before we met. (I still wonder if my husband didn't go back to that web site where we met seeking out Christian penpals so soon after his dad's death because of his own sense of loss and personal loneliness.)

Like others here, I find I "miss" his dad -- a man I never got to meet. In every photo I've seen of him, he's smiling, and everyone else around him looks like he has them in stitches. I so badly wish I could have met him.

And, yes, I watch our cat Hershey (yup, I'm TWT's mom) and can't bear to think of life without her either. She's been here longer than three of my four kids, and she's still so young and kittenish, not even any grey whiskers yet.

But don't go by me ... it doesn't take much to get me off on a crying jag, good or bad. {bawling}

[Debby]

I think I have done enough grieving in my 35 years to last me the rest of my life.

I lost my grandpa in 1989, then in 1991 I lost my grandma on my mom's side, then in 1993 I lost my grandma on my father's side...(my other grandpa was gone before I was born)....then in 1997 I lost my mom, then this year I lost my dad. I have had enough.

It is so hard...my dad's been gone three months now, and last Saturday would have been his 83rd birthday....it was a hard day for me.

And the strangest things will bring on the tears and the grieving....just like, my brother and I have been slowly going through dad's house....getting ready for the auction, and one day...I ran onto this cap he used to wear....

It's sort of like a baseball cap, but it's a farmers co-op cap, with a bill, and it says co-op on it, and has a picture on it of a sow nursing several piglets....it's kinda cute...

Anyway...that was his "dressy but not going to church " hat! In other words...for church he had a special hat....one of those funky looking hats with the little feather in in... and this one was the one he always wore to town.....when I would take him shopping or to the doctor...just seeing it made me cry.

I brought it home, I will keep it forever.

[Karenluvs6]

that must be really tough for you Deb.
I mean, soon as you get past the worst part of greiving you have to start all over again.
that is very sad!!

[Debby]

Yes....it has been hard....I'm glad my parents had me, of course, but I wish they would have had me sooner, though I would be older now, which would not be so good, but since they had me when they were in their late 40's I lost them and my grandparents so soon, not so much time to have them in my life. :(