16.3 Affirmation of Life

Grief and mourning are part of living. Humans need relationships with many others in order to survive and thrive, but every person who reaches adulthood experiences the death of someone they know. Grief can turn into depression or can become a reason to live life more deeply.

Grief

Grief is the powerful sorrow that an individual feels at the death of another. It is a highly personal emotion, an anguish that overtakes daily life.

Normal GriefThe first thing to understand about grief is that it is a normal human emotion, even when it leads to unusual actions and thoughts. Grief is manifest in uncontrollable crying, sleeplessness, and irrational and delusional thoughts—the “magical thinking” Joan Didion described after her husband’s death:

Loneliness, denial, anger, and sorrow come in rapid waves after a loved one’s death, and the normal human needs—to sleep, to eat—temporarily give way. Grief usually hits hardest in the first week after death and then lingers—with much dependent on mourning, soon to be discussed.

Complicated GriefSometimes grief takes a form that is not typical (Qualls & Kasl-Godley, 2010; van der Houwen et al., 2010). About 10 percent of all mourners experience what is known as complicated grief, a type of grief that impedes the person’s future life (Neimeyer & Currier, 2009).

I saw this type of grief in my father. After my mother died, my brother and I tried to get him involved in activities that he could not participate in when our mother was alive and bedridden, to no avail. He became indifferent, and his self-care diminished. He died five months after my mother. Although his death was unexpected, it is not uncommon for widows and widowers to die within a year of losing their spouse if they have been married for a long time.

Protecting the Survivors On the 20th anniversary of the killing rampage by a lone gunman of 14 women at Montreal’s École polytechnique engineering school, a bouquet of 14 white roses is placed by the commemorative plaque. Thirteen other people were also wounded.

PAUL CHIAASSON/CP IMAGES

Another type of grief is called absent grief, when a bereaved person does not seem to grieve. This may be a first reaction, as some people cannot face the reality of the death at first, but if it continues, absent grief can trigger physical or psychological symptoms—for instance, trouble breathing or walking, sudden panic attacks, or depression. If such disabilities appear for no reason, the underlying cause might be grief that was never expressed.

Absent grief may be more common in modern society than it was earlier. People who live and work where others may not know about their personal lives lack a sense of community or recognized customs to help them grieve. Indeed, for workers at large corporations or students in universities, grief becomes “an unwelcome intrusion (or violent intercession) into the normal efficient running of everyday life” (M. Anderson, 2001). This leads to isolation—exactly the opposite of what bereaved people need.

Modern life also increases the incidence of disenfranchised grief, wherein the bereaved are not allowed to mourn publicly because of cultural customs or social restrictions. For instance, typically, only a current spouse or close blood relative decides on funeral arrangements, disposal of the body, and other matters. This may result in “gagged grief and beleaguered bereavement” for others who feel a powerful emotion but cannot express it (L. Green & Grant, 2008). The deceased’s unmarried lover, a divorced spouse, young children, and close friends at work may be excluded (perhaps by the relatives, either deliberately or through ignorance) from saying goodbye to the dying person, viewing the corpse, or participating in the aftermath of death. Parents may grieve the loss of a fetus or newborn, but others may dismiss their sorrow, saying, “You never knew that child; you can have another”

Another possible complication is incomplete grief. Murders and suicides often trigger police investigations and press reports, which interfere with the grief process. An autopsy undercuts grieving, particularly if it delays or threatens cultural or religious practices associated with the afterlife of the deceased. In addition, the inability to recover a body, as happens for soldiers who are missing in action or victims of a major flood or fire, may not allow grief to be expressed and then to dissipate.

Sometimes events interrupt the responses of the community, for example, when a person dies on a major holiday, immediately after another death or disaster, or during wartime. In these cases, it is harder for the survivors to grieve because their social network is preoccupied with the larger event. For example, one widow whose husband died of cancer on September 10, 2001, complained, “People who attended the funeral talked only about the terrorist attack of September 11, and my husband wasn’t given the respect he deserved” (quoted in Schachter, 2003). Although she expressed concern for her husband, it is apparent that she herself needed sympathy.

Mourning

Grief splinters people into jumbled pieces, making them vulnerable. Mourning reassembles them, making them whole again and able to rejoin the larger community. To be more specific, mourning is the public and ritualistic expression of bereavement, the ceremonies and behaviours that a religion or culture prescribes to honour the dead. Some mourning rituals were described earlier in the chapter. Here we focus on the purposes of mourning.

How Mourning HelpsMourning customs are designed to move grief from loss toward reaffirmation (Harlow, 2005). Eulogies that emphasize the dead person’s good qualities, and family and friends who attend wakes, funerals, or memorial services to honour the dead and comfort the survivors, are part of the reaffirmation process. If the deceased was a public figure, mourners may include thousands, even millions. They express their sorrow to one another, weep as they watch funerals on television, and pledge to affirm the best of the deceased.

Saying Goodbye At this Roman Catholic burial in Mbongolwane, South Africa, friends and neighbours gather to honour the dead person and to comfort his or her family members.

© DAVID LARSEN/AFRICANPICTURES.NET/THE IMAGE WORKS

One function of mourning is to allow expression of grief publicly and thus limit acute personal grief. Examples include the Jewish custom of sitting shiva at home for a week, the three days of active sorrow among some Muslim groups, or 10 days of ceremonies beginning at the next full moon following a death in Hinduism. Memories often return on the anniversary of a death, so many cultures include annual rituals such as visiting a grave or lighting a candle.

For many people who are unaffiliated with a religious institution, funeral services or observances have been replaced with social gatherings or celebrations of life that have less traditional structures. Whatever one’s custom or ideology, it remains important that people are able to mourn publicly and openly in the company of family, friends, or community. A deficit of mourning may undercut survivors’ ability to respond to their loss in a healthful way.

Seeking MeaningAs you may remember, denial and anger appear first on Kübler-Ross’s list of reactions to death; ideally, people eventually move on to acceptance. The need to find meaning in death may be crucial to the reaffirmation that follows grief. In some cases, this search starts with preserving memories: Displaying photographs and personal effects and telling anecdotes about the dead person are central to many memorial services.

Memorial Praying beside the ghost bike at the spot where an 18-wheeler killed cyclist Kathryn Rickson may help these two family members grieve and then recover. Grief is much less likely to destroy the survivors when markers or rituals are observed.

ALEX MILAN TRACY/DEMOTIX/CORBIS

Mourners may also be helped by strangers who have experienced a similar loss, especially when friends are unlikely to understand. This explains why groups have been organized for parents of murdered children, mothers whose adolescents were killed by drunk drivers, families and friends of people who committed suicide, children and teens who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling, or close friend, and so on.

Mourners sometimes want the broader community to know about a death. Obituaries are found in every major newspaper and on funeral homes’ websites, and spontaneous memorials (graffiti, murals, stuffed animals, flowers) appear in public spaces, such as a spot on a roadside where a fatal crash occurred. This practice was once rare and discouraged, but no longer. Authorities realize that public commemoration aids grief and mourning, building community: Public markers of bouquets and so on are dismantled only when flowers fade and complaints are lodged after time has passed (Dickinson & Hoffmann, 2010).

Organizations devoted to causes such as fighting cancer and banning handguns find their most dedicated supporters among people who have lost a loved one to that particular circumstance. Often when someone dies, the close family designates a charity that is somehow connected to the deceased, inviting other mourners to make contributions.

In certain circumstances, to make a death meaningful, mourning may lead to public protest. For instance, when a truck killed a 9-year-old in Germany, neighbours and strangers blocked the street for days until new safeguards were installed. When a pregnant cyclist was killed by a turning truck in Toronto, other cyclists erected a “ghost bike,” organized a memorial “ghost ride,” and signed a petition urging the federal government to make truck side guards mandatory (CBC News, 2011b; Rulfs, 2011).

The impulse to seek meaning is not always constructive. A common impulse after death is for the survivors to assess blame—for medical measures not taken, laws not enforced, unhealthy habits not changed. The bereaved sometimes blame the dead person, sometimes themselves, and sometimes others. A desire for revenge or redress also sometimes arises, even leading to long-standing family feuds or legal disputes.

In general, the normal grief reaction is intense and irrational at first, but it gradually eases as time, social support, and traditions help with the initial outpouring of emotion and then with the search for meaning and reaffirmation. The individual may engage in grief work, experiencing and expressing strong emotions and then moving toward wholeness, which includes recognizing the larger story of human life and death.

Diversity of Reactions

Bereaved people depend on the customs and attitudes of their community, as well as on their social network, to guide them through their irrational thoughts and grief. Particulars depend on the specific culture. For example, mourners who keep the dead person’s possessions, talk to the deceased, and frequently review memories are notably less well-adjusted 18 months after the death if they live in the United States but are better adjusted if they live in China. This country difference may be reflective of how Chinese social supports work. Grieving Chinese are supported and encouraged to outwardly show signs of grief and continued bonding with the deceased in the early months of bereavement. This social network and grieving process may then be a buffer for long-term distress among Chinese individuals (Lalande & Bonanno, 2006).

Legacy of Earlier LossChildhood experiences also affect bereavement. A child who lost her parents might be more distraught decades later when someone else dies. Attachment history may also be important (Hansson & Stroebe, 2007). Older adults who were securely attached may be more likely to experience normal grief; those whose attachment was insecure-avoidant may have absent grief; and those who were insecure-resistant may become stuck, unable to find meaning in death and thus unable to reaffirm their own lives.

Reaffirmation does not mean forgetting the dead person; many continuing bonds are evident years after death (Stroebe et al., 2010). Although in Western nations having hallucinations of the dead person (seeing ghosts, hearing voices) is a sign of complicated grief, continuing bonds such as thinking about memories and seeing the dead person as a role model are linked to greater personal growth (Field & Filanosky, 2009). Often survivors write letters to the deceased person, or talk to them, or consider events—a sunrise, a butterfly, a rainstorm—as messages of comfort from the dead person.

Bereavement theory once held that mourners should grieve, then move on and realize that the dead person is gone forever. It was thought that if this did not happen, pathological grief could result, with the person either not grieving enough (absent grief) or grieving too long (incomplete grief). Current research finds a much wider variety of reactions.

Practical ApplicationsThe research suggests that when someone is grieving, it is common to experience powerful, complicated, and unexpected emotions. To help the griever, a friend should listen and sympathize, never implying that the person is too grief-stricken or not grief-stricken enough.

A bereaved person might or might not want to visit the grave, light a candle, cherish a memento, pray, or sob. He or she may want to be alone or may want company. Those who have been taught to bear grief stoically may be doubly distressed if a friend advises them to cry but they cannot. Conversely, those whose cultures expect loud wailing may resent it if they are urged to hush.

Even absent grief—in which the bereaved person refuses to do any of these things—might be appropriate. So might be the opposite reaction, when people want to talk again and again about their loss, gathering sympathy, ascribing blame, and finding meaning.

It may help to express emotions through a variety of actions—by joining a bereavement group; protesting some policy; planting a garden; walking, running, or biking to raise money for a cause. Remember the 7-year-old boy whose grandparents, uncle, and dog (Twick) died? He wrote a memorial poem for Twick, which his parents framed and hung in the living room. That comforted him, and he agreed to return to school (K. R. Kaufman & Kaufman, 2006).

No matter what rituals are followed or what pattern is evident, the result may give the living a deeper appreciation of themselves and others. In fact, a theme frequently sounded by those who work with the dying and the bereaved is that death leads to a greater appreciation of life, especially of the value of intimate, caring relationships.

George Vaillant is a psychiatrist who studied a group of men from the time they were Harvard students through old age. He writes about funerals, “With tears of remembrance running down our cheeks.…Remembered love lives triumphantly today” (Vaillant, 2008).

It is fitting to end this Epilogue, and this book, with a reminder of the creative work of living. As first described in Chapter 1, the study of human development is a science, with topics to be researched, understood, and explained. But the process of living is an art as well as a science, with strands of love and sorrow woven into each person’s unique tapestry. Death, when it leads to hope; dying, when it is accepted; and grief, when it fosters affirmation—all add meaning to birth, growth, development, and love.