Posted Mon February 12 2007 07:05 PM Hide Post what is a normal time for Mourning? I lost my mom when I was 13 years old.
do you think 25 years is to long to mourn? someone believe that I should not mourn any more.some claim if people mourns that long means that person is only looking for a pitty party!
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Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Mon February 12 2007 05:58 PM MOURNING
written By Gabriel Moran
Just as there are Astages@ that a person goes through in dying, there are parallel or analogous stages that a mourner goes through. Actually, stages of mourning are the better documented of the two processes. What the dying person experiences will forever have a mysterious aspect. The caregiver can only with limited success get inside the dying person=s experience. In contrast, we know from millennia of human experience what mourning is. Almost all human beings by the time they reach adulthood have some experience of mourning. And religious traditions embody a wisdom regarding in what ways and for how long we should mourn.
People=s attitude to dying and to what follows dying is heavily dependent on their experience of mourning. In some ways that is obvious but I think it is not usually reflected upon in relation to religious belief. A person=s hope in resurrection (or some other formulation of afterlife) is sometimes dismissed as egocentric and selfish. But such hope more often reflects the experience of mourning the death of a loved one. Although it is difficult to imagine that the person lives on in some body-less existence, it is more difficult to believe that the person has simply ceased to be.
Modern secular thought usually dismisses such beliefs as superstitious projections. Modern science has brought welcome enlightenment on many matters, but on what lies beyond death science can neither prove nor disprove anything. We are essentially in the same position as people were centuries or millennia ago. All beliefs come back to experience in the widest and deepest meaning of that term: the Afunded experience of the human race@ is the best guide we have. The process of bereavement, practiced the world over, is a solid part of that experience.
In my book, Showing How: The Act of Teaching. I include the languages of mourning and comforting as two of the therapeutic languages used in teaching. Unless we learn both to mourn for someone we love and to comfort someone who is in mourning, we are likely to be blocked from learning how to deal with other important things in life.
Mourning and other therapeutic languages require ritual forms. If there are no rituals, emotions are either repressed or else they emerge in disorderly and dangerous ways. The modern era has not dealt kindly with any rituals, but this is especially the case with those rituals that surround death. We still have funerals that are carried out with attention to ritual detail. But a process of bereavement lasting days, weeks and months afterwards has been more difficult to sustain. It is widely assumed that within a very short time after the funeral Ayou should get over it,@ Aput that behind you,@ and Apull yourself together.@
Each of the religious traditions recognizes the need to take time; Aevery cell of the body has to be informed of what has been lost@(Proust). Such time needs markers which gradually become less frequent from the first day to the first year=s anniversary. The conventional wisdom in today=s textbooks and popular psychology is that each person is different so that to have any stipulations about a bereavement process is to limit individual freedom. Rituals do need some flexibility of application but the solution to mechanical rigidity is not to abandon the ritual. An abandonment of ritual does nothing to enhance personal freedom.
Each culture has its own distinctive patterns of mourning, but some themes cut across most cultures. For example, weeping and crying aloud are the common reaction to being grief-stricken. Most religions caution against excessive manifestations of grief. The Talmud says Ado not mourn overmuch,@ even while Jewish tradition lays out a detailed pattern for mourning. The Tibetan Book of the Dead condemns wailing as excessive; it is especially concerned with the practice of sacrificing an animal as part of mourning. The instruction warns against taking out your sorrow about a human death by putting an animal to death. Ruth Benedict cites a more extreme example of this tendency: the chief of the Kwakiutl tribe mourned the death of his sister by killing several warriors in a neighboring tribe. We moderns do not react in such direct fashion but surely much of the violence in the world comes from unrelieved grief. We lack religious rituals that allow expressions of grief without an embarrassing loss of control and without violence toward oneself or others.
I said above that the stages of mourning are better established than are stages of dying. People often die suddenly and, whatever may flash before their minds in a split second, it is difficult to imagine that they experience the stages of dying that Kubler-Ross described. In contrast, people do not have sudden bereavement, even though the process of bereavement can begin with a sudden and almost unbearable shock. That initial shock is inevitably followed by months of grief. Those who think that they have avoided grief are likely to discover a few years later the need to do Agrief work;@ otherwise they come down with bodily diseases whose connection to grief has been documented in the last half century.
The stages of grief, like stages of dying, are threefold: a no to death which is a yes to life, followed by a yes to death which is a no to life, followed by a yes to life which encompasses death. As with the dying person, the mourner can go back and forth several times in the first two stages before finding a resolution in the third. Thus, there can be five, seven or nine stages.
The first stage - a no to death - is a denial which is to be expected even when the loved person is very old or has been sick for a long time. The shock caused by a death can be much greater in situations when the death was completely unexpected. Probably the worst case is the sudden death of one=s child. In his autobiography, Mark Twain described the death of his twenty-four-year-old daughter Sally: AThe intellect is stunned by the shock and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their full import is mercifully wanting. The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss - that is all. It will take mind and memory months and possibly years to gather the details and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss.@
The bereavement period following the funeral is intended to allow the words slowly to sink into the mind and heart. During this time, one says no to life, withdrawing from much of one=s usual involvements. But while it is important to be left alone when one wishes, a community should remain on the periphery to provide a listening ear or a conversational partner when they are wanted. Being wanted and being asked for do not always correspond here; the mourner may not voice the need for company. The offering of companionship to the mourner has to be made in an unobtrusive way. When the deceased is a child, communication between the parents is crucial; nothing strains a marriage like the death of a son or a daughter. Time does not heal all wounds unless it is accompanied by reflection, communication and understanding.
Harold Kushner, commenting on the Book of Job, says that Job=s friends did two things right: they showed up and they listened - for several days. They went wrong only when Job asked Awhy,@ which they took to mean that they should supply an explanation. There are many right things that one can say to a grieving person but there are a few things that are wrong (for example, AGod took your mommy because he loves her@). Trying to explain to someone why the death of a beloved person is really for the best is not usually a good idea.
Finally, the mourner comes to a place where life gradually wins out over depression and despair. One does not return to the same old things; instead, one finds a new life with a dimension that had been missing. One becomes capable of giving comfort to other mourners. Sometimes it is the memorial service after a year that helps to draw a line ending the period of no to life, yes to death.
If the person was very close, then life will continue to carry an element of sorrow that may never be assuaged. With the old, the death of one spouse is sometimes quickly followed by the death of the other, suggesting that the bond to the dead is stronger than the bond with the living. But even in this case, the yes may be to a new life that includes reunion through death with the loved one. Love is stronger than death and despite death=s seeming victories, the process of bereavement is the reminder that death is followed by life.
Posts: 1750 | Location (City, State): My House, Florida | Registered: Fri June 09 2006
Posted Tue February 13 2007 08:47 AM Hide Post Lor thanks for your imput~ but mourning for a parent is way different then mourning for a pet.
Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them . But you always know they are there What do you think about that !!!!
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Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Tue February 13 2007 09:01 AM Hide Post well Lor you did not get the meaning of this Topic
I ask when would be the time to not mourn or to stop mourning? again thank you for your imput.
quote:
Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Tue February 13 2007 10:14 AM Hide Post I mourn on the day of holidays /my mother birthday and the dated that she was killed. So might think that a person should not mourn as long as I have but then again who are they to state the lengh of time a person should Grieve!I don't grive publicly. I do express why my mood had change when I am Grieving so that a person understands the mood change. but real human beings don't act like it is a crime or make you for shameful for Grieving if you do Grieve out in the open.Never once did I use my Mothers Death for pity. so Jo you need to stop saying that to me.when I show deep the tattoo and explained why I got it. I never once ask that Bitch to pity me or to feel bad for my lost. I just shared with her and a few others why I have this tattoo. if you think what oceansong is doing is right by trying to make a big freaking deal out of me wanting to honor my mother then it is you that has a bigger issue then you claim I do. hell yeah I miss my mother.I doubt the feeling will lessen with time.I can say this I am glad that none of you are my neighbors. even if you were. I would not bother you. I hope when you loose a person and you Grieve people wont tell you to suck it up life goes on .
Posts: 1750 | Location (City, State): My House, Florida | Registered: Fri June 09 2006
Posted Tue February 13 2007 11:20 AM Hide Post Sorry Paw I mourn for a pet that has died but I mourn for them a different way then I would a parent! I am sure you understand that. at least I hope you do.
quote:
Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Tue February 13 2007 12:33 PM Hide Post it seems you are the on that needs to seek psychiatric counseling As I explained "I mourn on the day of holidays /my mother birthday and the dated that she was killed." because that is the hardest times for me. but then again I'm a feeling human being. unlike YOU. quote: Originally posted by OceanSong: Anyone that mourns for 25 years over the death of a loved one needs to seek psychiatric counseling.
Posts: 1750 | Location (City, State): My House, Florida | Registered: Fri June 09 2006
Posted Tue February 13 2007 12:50 PM Hide Post Well the only thing that was wrong with me and I fix that issue was being a friend to the likes of you.
quote: Originally posted by OceanSong: LMAO Don't give yourself up so easy mental case. It's all too obvious who made up the medication story now. You're about as bright as a burned out bulb.
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Jo Jo Good Pluba
Posted Tue February 13 2007 04:14 PM Hide Post quote: Originally posted by TonyBigBear: Jo can I call you that? My wife did not ask for pity.If you don't care for the topic why are you posting on them? I understand you are only going by what PD has told you, so I will post my original thoughts on this subject. PD is the one who continues to bring this issue up.
quote: Originally posted by Jo Jo: PD/PW or whatever you call yourself today, you totally have missed the point that several have tried to point out to you. Grieving and mourning are all things that everyone has or will go through in their lifetime. (And believe me, I know from personal experience how much it can hurt.) Although, no matter how long someone chooses to mourn is not the issue, but rather how you choose to live with your grief. Most will grieve in public for a few years, but then as time goes on, while most still have a lot of hurt, they choose to go on with life. Its ok to remember our loved ones who pass. Its fine that you chose to memorialize your mother in your tattoo (although I have no idea what type of tattoo you have). But to use the loss of your mother for pity sake is what gets very old. Its been 23 years, remember her death, but for God's sake do not spend your whole life inflicting sorrow and pain on others. I am sure your mother would have wanted more from you in your life than so much anger and self pity. Life is short and it is what we make of it. Go out and let the world see what you can be without the negativity. I am sure you have a lot to offer and when you let yourself, you have a very kind heart. I am in no way telling you to forget about your mom or telling you that you can not miss her, I am simply trying to show you what others have perceived from your actions. Please try to read this with an open mind and enjoy life.
Posts: 1750 | Location (City, State): My House, Florida | Registered: Fri June 09 2006
Posted Feb 13, 8:54 PM Hide Post SRT have I bothered you ? nope I have not. if I had sorry please don't reply to this topic again. You People are a trip. you try your damnest to tell people here what they can say,post or feel. but if someone did that to you I am sure the claws would come out. I am not trying to be mean. why is this topic so hard for you to just let it go?I will say this only one more time!
I only feel bad or mourn for my mom is on certain days. (Holidays/her Birthday/Date when she died) I see nothing wrong with that at all.
quote:
Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Feb 14, 10:26 AM Hide Post The manner of mourning differed according to the degree of the loss and distress connected with it. The Gentile captive mourned for her parents by remaining within the house, weeping, cutting off her hair, and paring her nails, abundant hair and long nails being considered marks of feminine beauty; whereas among men, during mourning, the hair and nails were allowed to grow. Mourning was also marked by throwing dust on the head (Josh. vii. 6), by wearing sackcloth, sitting in ashes, lacerating the flesh, and tearing out the hair of the head and face (Jer. xvi. 6). Such self-mutilation, however, was forbidden by Moses (Lev. xxi. 5; Deut. xiv. 1). Other forms of mourning are indicated in Ezek. xxiv. 17, as (1) crying, (2) removing the head-dress, (3) removing the shoes, (4) covering the lips as a guard of silence, (5) eating "the bread of mourners" (Hos. ix. 4).
quote:
Passion Wolf Grand Pluba
Posted Feb 14, 10:43 AM Hide Post Please stop ruining my topic jo! that is what you are doing, I have reported you. it is you that need that link . Not I.
