Our eyes lock onto familiar names in the list of obituaries. A friend calls to say someone we know is no longer with us. The president leads a memorial as our country passes a half-million Covid-19 deaths. We tighten the grip on our own sanity as we wonder at the maskless faces of loved ones in groups on facebook.
Loss and grief challenge our coping resources. We often think of loss as separation from a person through death. Of course loss occurs in other ways, but in this post I am talking about loss through death. Grieving is our response to loss. Grieving is practical. It includes gatherings and rituals. But healthy grieving is more than practical.
Grieving involves the whole person–emotional, mental, spiritual, social and physical. Let’s take a brief look at the emotional level of grieving. Crying is one way to express sorrow in time of loss. Some of us are uncomfortable with flowing tears, especially our own. But crying can be a healthy release, flowing away some of the emotional debris of the pain of loss.
At the first meeting of a support group, Rosa (not her real name) was only three months past her husband’s death. During her voluntary out loud prayer, Rosa began crying. She continued to both cry and pray, simultaneously. While receiving the group’s care, Rosa allowed the stored up pain of loss to freely flow. She courageously gave herself permission to grieve.
“Permission to grieve” sounds sort of strange, doesn’t it? Grieving is natural, normal, healthy, and necessary. Why should we have to have permission? Our culture somehow convinces us that open expression of the emotion of grief is a sign of weakness and unacceptable. Maybe as more of us join Rosa in accepting our tears, crying will gain acceptance as a healthy way to express the emotion of grief.
Permission to grieve could be a real gift to both ourselves and others.
Words and People 