A Funeral
Inspirational Quotes
People often say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves. |
| Losses for Adults |
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While the death of any loved one results in many of the same reactions, often certain relationships also have their own unique characteristics. DEATH OF PARENTS Statistics show that the most common type of loss for adults is the death of their parents and grandparents. Often, there are two major impacts arising from the death of parents. The first is the loss of the relationship itself. Before the final parent dies, we are children; afterwards, we are orphans. To some extent, our role and our self-identity change. The second major impact is the loss of a generational “buffer” that separates us from our mortality. Mourning: Loss of a Parent describes these impacts in detail. DEATH OF A SPOUSE/PARTNER If the death of parents and grandparents represent the loss of our connections to generations past, the death of a spouse/partner represents the loss of a major connection we have with the present and foreseeable future. The love and the bonds we have for our spouse/partner give us an almost mystical completion of ourselves. When death visits and disrupts those bonds, we can feel like not only did our spouse/partner die, but a part of us died as well. In my experience, I have found that there are two major groups of secondary losses that occur with the death of a spouse/partner: those that revolve around the relative roles of the two individuals in their relationship and those that revolve around the identity of the bereaved. The two blogs Mourning: Loss of a Spouse/Partner Part 1 (Roles) and Mourning: Loss of a Spouse/Partner Part 2 (Identity) discuss these in detail. DEATH OF A CHILD If the death of parents and grandparents represents the death of our connections to the past and the death of our spouse/partner represents that to the present and our foreseeable future, then the death of a child represents the death of a connection to the future. Virtually everyone who has incurred this loss agrees that there is no other loss as painful as that of a child. When a child dies, parents can feel as if the laws of nature have been overruled, their future is forever changed and uncertain, they have failed in the role as parents, and they have lost the most important source and recipient of their love that they will ever know. These dilemmas often felt by parents are described in my blog Mourning: Loss of a Child (Dilemmas). The most common reaction parents have to the death of their child is guilt. Guilt is a feeling that arises when we believe that we have violated some responsibility, higher principle, or belief. Guilt carries with it a lowered self-esteem, heightened self-blame, and a feeling that we should do something to absolve ourselves of the wrong we committed. While guilt can be well founded and realistic, usually involving the death of a child it is more of a reaction to feelings of helplessness and responsibility. In my blog Mourning: Loss of a Child (Guilt) I describe six sources of guilt that parents might experience after the death of their child. The death of a child can affect three groups of relationships that the parents have: with each other, with their other children, if they have any, and with the rest of the world. My blog Mourning: Loss of a Child (Relationships) describes how these three groups can be impacted by the death. PERINATAL LOSS Perinatal losses, described in Mourning: Perinatal Losses, carry with them not only many of the same ramifications as the death of any child, but also a couple of ones unique to this type of loss. The first is finding others who will acknowledge the parents' baby as a person, worthy of mourning; the second is determining if and when to try to have another child.  |
