What follows are the words of an anonymous, elderly gentleman in the United States. He was responding to a desperate online plea that simply asked:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy friend just died. I don\u2019t know what to do\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
His words are a heartfelt reflection of what it is to endure loss, to survive grief, and to be human. These words are posted here without alteration:
\n<\/p>\n\u201cAlright, here goes. I\u2019m old. What that means is I\u2019ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I\u2019ve known and loved did not. I\u2019ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can\u2019t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here\u2019s my two cents.<\/p>\n
I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don\u2019t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don\u2019t want it to \u201cnot matter\u201d. I don\u2019t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n
As for grief, you\u2019ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you\u2019re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it\u2019s some physical thing. Maybe it\u2019s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it\u2019s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.<\/p>\n
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don\u2019t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you\u2019ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what\u2019s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything\u2026and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.<\/p>\n
Somewhere down the line, and it\u2019s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O\u2019Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, spluttering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you\u2019ll come out.<\/p>\n
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don\u2019t really want them to. But you learn that you\u2019ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you\u2019ll survive them too. If you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Acknowledgement: reddit.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Dr Elaine L Finkelstein is a registered clinical psychologist and a registered occupational psychologist. She is a chartered psychologist (UK) and an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. Elaine is also the founder of the Transformative End-of-Life Experiences Research Foundation. This blog is not dispensing medical or psychological advice, or prescribing the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, medical or psychological problems. The advice of an independent physician or mental health professional, either directly or indirectly, is required for this. The intent is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event that you use any of the information in this blog for yourself, which is your right, the sharer of this information assumes no responsibility for your actions.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What follows are the words of an anonymous, elderly gentleman in the United States. He was responding to a desperate online plea that simply asked: \u201cMy friend just died. I don\u2019t know what to do\u201d His words are a heartfelt reflection of what it is to endure loss, to survive grief, and to be human. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7005,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions\/7005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainefinkelstein.com\/staging\/5569\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}