GRIEF AND LOSS
Nothing is more difficult in life than losing someone you love.
Grief is the process of adjusting to the loss of a loved one.
People grieve in different ways, and for different lengths of time. The important thing is to acknowledge your feelings, but not to paralyze yourself with them.
Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.”
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~ Osho, Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now
Grief Support Group
Location
Help for Hospice
1240 College View Dr
Riverton, WY 82501
Time
Monday-Friday from 1:30-3:00
Meet in the Sun room
Free and open to the public
Contact
307-856-1206
Unresolved Grief
After losing someone you love, it is important to say what you weren't able to say to them before they passed on to help the grieving process.
Do you wish you could say I love you again? I'm sorry? I wish there was something I could have done? Say it, out loud or in writing.
Consider ways to express those thoughts in a meaningful way. Write your thoughts on a ballon and release them? Bring flowers to the grave and read your letter? Unexpressed ideas can hold back the healing process.
Grieving Grandma's Way
Read this story about what a 90 year old woman learned over many years about how to grieve:
From: http://psychcentral.com/lib/grief-grandmas-way/
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By the time she got into her 90s, my grandmother was a wise woman indeed. She was wise about life. She was also wise about death. As the youngest of eight, she had outlived all her siblings, their spouses, and not a few of their
children. She outlived friends and acquaintances as well as people whose period in history she shared.
Every night for 10 years, her statement to me when heading off to bed was, “See you in the morning, God willing.”
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“Grandma,” I’d reply. “You don’t have to think that way.”
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“Posh. It’s only the truth,” she’d say and give me a kiss. So much for any concerns about not making it to another day.
To Grandma, a minister’s daughter whose life spanned almost the whole of the 20th century, death was simply another stage of life. To her, God really did have a mansion with many rooms and one of them was waiting, with the
covers turned down on the bed and a mint on the pillow, just for her. Her faith was such that she trusted absolutely that God’s timing was better than hers. She looked forward to seeing her family and friends again and couldn’t
imagine what all the fuss about death was for.
I remember her often for lots of reasons. But I especially remember those conversations about the end of life as I’ve now reached the age when I’m losing friends to cancer, to sudden heart attacks, to stroke, to advancing age.
“Once you get to 60,” Grandma said, “you just never know who’s next.” Blunt, yes. And, again, true. Who lives and who dies often seems random to me. People who were fitness buffs and always on some new diet or exercise program have dropped in their tracks. Friends who are still smoking and eating too much red meat are chugging along. Oh sure, we should all take good care of ourselves but, for at least some people, making healthier choices makes for a better quality of life, not necessarily a longer one.
“So how do you handle having lost so many, many people?” I once asked Grandma.
“Oh, I think about them all before I go to sleep at night.”
“Isn’t that a little morbid?” asked my then 40-year-old self.
“Oh no, dear. I think about all the good times we shared and what made that person special and how much we learned together.” (I told you she was wise.)
“So how many people do you think about that way?” I asked.
“I think it’s about 400 now,” said Gran. “But I usually fall asleep before I get to the end of the list.”
“400!” I was dumbfounded. Imagine knowing, loving, and losing 400 closest friends. “Well, I am over 90,” she exclaimed. This was a woman who was active in her church, her community, the Eastern Star, and the Scouts for most of her 90-plus years. She was a professor’s wife when being so was an honored profession. She was a member of the local hospital’s volunteer auxiliary and active on church committees. As a kid, walks through town with her made me crazy. We couldn’t go a block without someone wanting to exchange some information or just chat. I’d impatiently hang around on the edges of conversations, not realizing that I was taking in what it means to be a citizen of a town and how to care.
Once, when she was only 90, I came upon her weeping quietly. I knew she had recently lost a woman with whom she had had a 68-year friendship.
“Oh Gran,” I remember saying. “It must hurt so much to lose her too.”
“Oh yes,”she said. “Can we talk?” So we talked. We talked about her friend. We talked about how they had been in step through every life stage: as
young mothers, as involved community members, as witnesses to the next generation and the next and the next. She talked about mischief they had played on husbands and worries they’d had about their kids. And she talked
about what it was like to be one of the last of a tight group of women who had lived a life together.
“Talking about her gives me a chance to remember everyone else too.” She went on to explain that every new grief is a chance to revisit old ones; to again affirm the importance of those people in her life and the times and love they shared.
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“I’m through for now. Let’s go for a walk.”
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