Letting Go of Grief
May 15, 2009 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Grief
We often talk of letting go and sometimes I just wonder what we are letting go of?
I mean we want to hold on to..
- The love
- The memories
- Maybe even some hope…
So what do want to let go of…I suppose it would be
- The pain
- The regrets
- The hope that somehow it is a bad dream
- The fear of being alone
There is something ironic in the fact that death ends one life, and yet opens a new life for that grief ‘virus’ that left untreated will take hold and affect your health. I think in coping with bereavement we need to be clear about what we are saving to help us through our pain, and what we are letting go of to also help us through the pain.
Hi Anna, I have to say that the only thing I want to hold on to from the past is Don and, since I can’t have him in a corporal sense, I want him to live in my heart in such a way that I feel I am sharing my days with him. From breakfast rituals which were fun and just ours to sharing a joke – quietly in my heart- that I know we would have shared. On and on to all of our routines where he can be tucked into my heart as my secret badge of courage and love. It expands my life with his reflected thoughts and I knew so many of them so well.
In this way our suffering can inform us with the extra dimensions and reflections of our loved ones always. It beats just talking to him out loud as I do so much of the time any way!
Cindy – I love the phrase secret badge of courage and love…..what a wonderful way of looking at it. I know what you mean about the ‘only thing’ I suppose it is whether we hold on to the person or the memories?