This is so hard to explain and is a very personal view.
To try to answer my own question today, February 21st the first anniversary of my own mother passing on, is probably one of the hardest things I have ever tried to write.
In my view grief is a mechanism in our brain by which we remember some or people very close to us. I cannot and am not going to try analysing the scientific reasoning or even the chemical reactions happening in our brains at this sort of time. I think what we do as humans is to compartmentalise every one we know and remember everything about them that way. Let’s put it this way you are carried by your mother for nine months and brought up by her and in many ways trained and conditioned by her at least until you are eighteen. Even then your mother and also your father is a continuing influence on and in your life. I will always remember my own mother and the fact that she was a very happy and busy person. She was a very intelligent woman and so much fun to be with.
So what is grief well every one will grieve in different ways, yes the initial reaction is to cry and even sob some for many days but each of us is different and we grieve in different ways. I remember I cried for several hours on and off for a few days and even to this day I know I often have a tear in my eye when I think of my mother. I think that grief is a very human way of remembering some one very close to you. Why do we grieve I have no idea but all I can say is that we do and there is noting we can do to stop it.
So when the experts say the grieving process takes this course and the other course NOT TRUE. You grieve how you want to grieve. Yes the initial reaction is to burst into tears and in some cases sob uncontrollably other will possibly go into a sort of trance or hypnotic state. I know I cried and for a man of over fifty in some spheres it is un cool to admit you cried. But I did and am not ashamed to admit in openly. After a while I often used to go off into a world of my own and sometimes I did not know I was doing it. All I was doing was thinking about my mother and remembering some event or something she said or did. How you grieve is really I think down to how you are as a person. Everyone wants remembers a loved one in different ways and that is very true of individual family members.
Why do we grieve short answer I do not know. I suppose it is our way of remembering the person who has passed on in our own special way. That I suppose could be a non medical explanation. We grieve because we want to remember the person as they were and not as we last saw them. I remember saying to my wife a short while after my mother passed on “that was not my mother in the bed”. Again I knew she was going but I saw her as I wanted to not as she was. Maybe that was my way of saying I do not want her to pass on but I now she will be more comfortable and at peace if she does. I think I also knew she was in pain and some of me was asking for the pain to be taken away. I knew in my logical mind that it was my mother but my subconscious was saying it is not. So why and what is the mechanism of grieving.
Quick answer I have no idea. Personally it is my own way of remembering some one who carried me for nine months helped to nurture and mould me into the person I am along with a lot of help from my father. The grieving process is I suppose constantly remembering a loved one or close friend, remembering all the good they have done. Remembering how they affected family and friends and what they contributed to the world and family and friends unit. We grieve because there is something built into us as humans to want to remember the person who has passed on.
So what am I trying to say. Well there is definitely no set and prescribed way to grieve. Humans being a set of unique individuals will and do grieve in their own individual ways. How do we grieve in a number of different ways by crying or shutting off for a few minutes every now and then? I am very aware that as I work during the day and every day since my mother passed on I have thought of her even if it was for only a few seconds. Now if I am grieving in my own way I have no idea how my father is grieving because they were together for over sixty years.
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