This topic is one I am familiar with. Having lost my husband eleven years ago, having been there for others, during their losses. I understand the pain you feel and how living after the loss of a loved one’s life is hard… harder than some think.
Some people just ignore the feelings, and fill themselves with anything, and everything they can to distract from facing the pain. Some of us try to stay strong through the mixed emotions, until we have small break downs, usually in private away from others. Then some just break down deeply, and hard it seems like recovery would take a miracle, and we sometimes wonder will they follow their loved one?
First off there is no wrong way to mourn the loss of a loved one. But you must mourn, and face the feelings at sometime, even if we mourn as we go. We must also keep living and that can be hard for some of us to even think of.
Mourn as we go is a term taught to me by a good friend. One of my best friends actually, I called her Dee and she passed away this past month July 16th 2012. We started calling each other sisters, everyone else did, it didn’t matter that we looked nothing a-like or we talked differently. We both were big women and instantly people saw us as family. While we may not have been blood relatives we were Soul Sisters. We shared so much about our lives and feelings, we agreed to disagree on a lot of stuff but we still talked about it and made our jokes and crazy remarks. We laughed a lot and told lots of stories, we were both widows, and I was there for her during her loss. That brought back many feelings for me, and we were able to relate well since I understood what she was going through. Neither one of us thought we would marry again, so we had a little agreement. We would hang out and have adventures, be fat, drink and be merry. Live life as fully as we could and have a good time all the way. I would make sure she didn’t turn into the crazy cat lady, and she would make sure I didn’t turn into the smelly pee lady.
Mourn as you go was something we spoke about. I was totally devastated when my husband died, it was a shock. Dee’s hubby was very sick and his death was one that was coming, but still we all thought there was going to be more time. In the end we all knew his suffering came to an end, so it was a bitter sweet mourning. Thankful that his suffering ended, but yet sad all the same, and that they (as a couple) didn’t get to have that grow old together feeling. Many things felt like life cheated the family out of a great man, husband and father. But still everyone knew he was better off in the next realm. It was hard and mourning as she went, and teaching her children to mourn as they went was helpful in many ways.
For some reason people tend to rush the mourning process as if losing a loved one is not a full change in life. You have a whole part of you missing when you lose that person. Sometimes there are positive things when someone passes (if they were sick, hurting others, if they were not at rest, mentally stressed or strained to the point of disruption) but always the feeling of loss is negative and hurtful. Those mixed feelings are hard to deal with, a lot of people don’t understand that death is something that sometimes needs to happen, and you can feel many different ways about the death of a particular person, yet still have a hole in your heart for them. Mourn as you go is the art of releasing emotions as they come, even taking the time to mourn and release in positive ways. Laughing and smiling sharing stories, crying and leaning on another (allowing yourself to feel vulnerable and protected), thinking about the good times, the bad, and the sad, feeling lonely and hurt, yet still celebrating the time you had with them.
Mourning is not an exact science and there is no time limit on it either. Some people tend to believe that after a certain time period you should be over it already. They have no idea how to mourn.
First off losing a loved one is a permanent situation. Once you lose you cannot get it back, there is no replacement that will heal that missing part of you. I personally use this example to explain losing someone you love. If you lose a hand, arm, leg, your sight, hearing, sense of smell etc. Life will never be the same, you keep living but you live differently. You adapt to the loss of your senses or to the loss of a body part. You don’t do things exactly the same anymore but you keep going. That is what losing someone you love is like, you adapt to life without them, life will not be the same and you will always remember life before the loss, you just keep living and adapt.
Every loss will be different and your feelings and emotions will develop differently. That doesn’t mean the loss of one person is worse than another, it is different and you deal with it differently. But you must deal, and you must mourn, and you must go on. We shouldn’t be ashamed of mourning; it is part of moving forward after loss. We should see it almost as a celebration, to love someone so much that they affect our lives deeply. We must see some joy in that pain, because we have to have been very happy to be so sad. It is all up to the individual on how you mourn but I have found mourning as I go to help me in many ways. Not being ashamed of my emotions and living and mourning in the moment has brought out my humanity and allowed me to share myself with others during a hard time in my life.
I stopped asking why, I stopped thinking what if, I realized I was blessed to have such a special friend who became my sister and had to go on to the other life, the best life after this one. I will mourn as I go and never forget how much she meant to me. Why would I want to forget?
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