It is appropriate to mourn the loss of a loved one in the best way possible as dictated by one’s culture, religion and economic status. What is not appropriate is to bottle up one’s emotions and allowing one’s life to ground to a halt.
English is not my first language. But I know that the language is rich. It has names for everything. Or almost everything. If you lose your wife, they call you a widower. If you lose your husband, they call you a widow. If you lose your parents, they call you an orphan. However, there is no single word for a parent that loses his/her child. Probably it is unthinkable that a child should die before his/her parents. The reported spate or sporadic deaths of some members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) easily comes to mind. Imagine what kind of sermon or expression of sympathy or counseling to give to such parents that would really speak to the depth of the grief they are going through.
Therapists do not have their roles cut out for them in terms of grief counseling. Circumstances are different. Imagine someone who loses her husband and father within a spate of three days. My mother did – and that was way back before I became a therapist. Imagine, a wife who loses her husband, who happens to be the breadwinner, through “sudden” death. Imagine a teenager who loses both parents at the same time, again, through sudden death. One can only imagine the kind of grief those affected are going through, if one is not directly affected.
There is no “correct” way of mourning. A lot of things go into how we mourn the loss of a loved one. This is shaped by culture, religion, circumstance of death, the age of the deceased and nowadays, economic status. There is however, a common denominator: death is loss that is irreplaceable.
The foremost literature on grief and grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler identifies five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The denial stage conveys that this cannot be happening; the anger stage queries why this is happening; the bargaining stage dwells on the thought of what one could have done to reverse the situation; the depressive stage is when one seems to be in a funk and finally, the acceptance stage when the individual accepts the loss. These stages do not have to be chronological: One may go back and forth between the different stages.
Culture and religion play significant roles (more than anything else) in the way we mourn the death of loved ones. This may be from the way the corpse is handled to the mode of dressing and whether to mourn privately or publicly, the longevity of grieving and other rituals. The essence of this is to ultimately put a closure to the loss. In most parts of Yorubaland, for example, it is almost an abomination for parents to organise a celebration of life for their dead child. Whereas in some other parts of Nigeria, every life is celebrated, whether he/she died at an old or young age.
In most parts of the Western world, flowers are bought/sent to the bereaved which almost has no meaning to some other cultures in Nigeria, for example.
For Christians, the Holy Bible urges them not to mourn like unbelievers who have no hope of a life hereafter. Christians, therefore, are required or encouraged to deal with whatever challenges, calamities, deaths that come their way with eternal hope.
Grief and grieving may be a lifelong process, depending on who is affected and especially the circumstances of the death. For some, the trauma of losing a young person, a breadwinner or experiencing multiple deaths in a family within a short period may be too much to handle.
While not discountenancing the physical, emotional and even the spiritual pain of losing a loved one, it is important to not let such a loss lead to an inability to complete daily tasks or even having thoughts about one’s life not worthy of living after suffering a loss. And this is where the therapist comes in. The therapist works with the bereaved person on accepting the reality of the loss; working through the pain and adjusting to life without the deceased.
Talking about a loss involves talking about one’s feelings about the loss: The sad part, what one misses the most and how things have been different. In short, telling one’s story and focusing on the life of, and relationship with that person. The therapist also assists in identifying and addressing coping skills and ways to keep functioning by letting go of the attachment but not the memory. In sum, the therapist takes the bereaved through the identified stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
It is appropriate to mourn the loss of a loved one in the best way possible as dictated by one’s culture, religion and economic status. What is not appropriate is to bottle up one’s emotions and allowing one’s life to ground to a halt. We are all aware that death is inevitable but no one really wants to die. If you find it difficult handling the loss of a loved one, see your therapist and/or your physician.
Jide Omotinugbon, a psychotherapist and medical social worker, writes from Kentucky, USA. He can be reached via jideo18@yahoo.com.
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