Mz.Gloria World of Love & Poetry  

Please we can't let ourselves grieve for too long. We all have the strength to overcome. Let the tears come out if necessary! It is important to remember that grieving is a process. We must emotionally work through each of the grief stages effectively, and we must overcome our fear of grief. It is not a sign of weakness to grieve. Grief is one of the most universal human emotions - and one of the most isolating. All the world may love a lover, but few of us know how to honor grief  how to be with a grieving person, or how to handle our own grief. Sometimes grief is overwhelming: how can life possibly go on! Sometimes, though, grief is much less severe. Perhaps life has been so hard that survivors really feel death is a release. Perhaps faith in an afterlife helps. Perhaps the survivor has learned from a prior experience. Grieving is the mark of having been close to another person. The only way to avoid grieving is to avoid having loved.

Each person grieves in her own way, according to her own needs. There is no formula for grief, and no way around it. Like other emotions, grief is simply there, like love, joy, anger, or fear. As with other emotions, we cannot wish grief away, nor can we avoid it. Some of us may try to ignore grief, or pretend it does not exist, but eventually we will feel it. Grief, like death, is hard to discuss. Unlike other emotions that we have grown comfortable expressing or describing, we have no ready words for grief or bereavement. When we’re happy, we can say we are on top of the world, flying high, on cloud nine. We can use clichés for anger, too, and say someone has had it up to here, sees red, or blows his top. Grief has no such expression. But grief has a range of accompanying feelings: anger, loneliness, depression, guilt, relief, sorrow, fear, anxiety. In the midst of grief, we may swing from one emotion to the next, unprepared for the strength of our feelings and uncertain what to make of them.

Grief is a country we all must visit, and it helps to know what it’s like there, how others have survived the journey, the maps they followed, the setbacks, and what they learned along the way. This chapter describes the grief that comes with dying. We talk about the changing nature of grief, and how grief can occur many times in the course of an illness, both before and after the death of someone you love. We offer suggestions on how to live through grief, ways to grieve with and for the dying person, and how to cope during difficult times, such as holidays, birthdays, and other anniversary dates. We describe problems that can occur when grief is overwhelming, and where to turn when you need help

We must give ourselves permission to grieve for as long as necessary. Again, It will take some of us longer than others, so we can't be to hard on ourselves if we have to grieve longer than we think we should. An old saying is, "When you get sick of tired of being sick and tired, you will do what is necessary in order to heal." When we are ready, we will do our grief work. 

Mz.Gloria©