Expressing our grief when we have had major loses is absolutely essential, and those who try to repress their grief will not be successful in the long run.  The body needs to be able to deal with such a loss.  But, at some point, we must all put losses behind us and get on with our lives.  Some of us find this hard to do and carry our burden of grief for the rest of our lives.  This is not fair to either, ourselves, or those around us.  We all have other people who care about us, whether it be family members or just friends and neighbors.  Those people will be there for us during our lowest period, providing support at a time when our grief is so great that we have difficulty functioning.  But those people do not want to hear about our loss for the next twenty years.  They want to see us get on with our lives once we have fully expressed our grief.  They want to share with us in our joys as well as during times of loss.

Losing a loved one is just about the worst thing that can happen to us.  Death is hard, and there is no way to make it easy.  At the time, it may seem almost like the end of the world for us, and we may feel that we can never be happy again now that our loved one is gone.  But, as time passes, and we go through the various stages of grief, we gradually begin to realize that we still have a lot of things to live for.  And, if we work at it, we can all find happiness again.     

Death is an inevitable part of life that we must all learn to accept.  We don't have to like it, but we do have to accept it. Some of us spend much of our lives worrying about our own death, or that of loved ones, when there may be no reason to expect untimely death.  We seem to think that if we worry about it enough, our worrying will somehow prevent it from happening.  This is just superstition and, if we get too caught up in it, we can ruin the rest of our lives.

When death comes we cannot do anything about it but accept it.  But we can concentrate on getting the most out of life.  When we have to face the death of a loved one, we know that it will be very painful.  And we know that we will have to mourn the loss for a period of time.  But we also know that a time will come when we can put the grief behind us, and go forward once again with our lives.  When our grief is fully expressed we need to stop the mourning.  If we don't we are being unfair to both ourselves and our friends and family.  Think about it.                                            

Copyright 2014 Allen W. Smith

TB-117—Posted 07/07/2014

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