JANUARY 28
Feeling better...I also felt a sense of betrayal of my husband,
even though I rationally knew that sustained grief could be
morbid. Because grief may become a substitute for the dead
one, giving up our grief can be the greatest challenge of
mourning.
—MARY JANE MOFFATThis may be puzzling to us at first. Surely we know the dif-
ference between our grieving and the one for whom we
grieve.
But it is easier than we know to confuse the two. The one
we love is gone—there is no retrieving that person by
thinking about him or her all the time.
But grieving? That is our whole agenda for a while. To
that we can give endless attention. We look for the one we
have lost by looking through the film of our ever-present
grief. We get used to it and it is hard to move away. But we
must; otherwise we will be stuck there at our loved one’s
death, unable to relish the life that person lived.
Many years after the death of her father, a young woman
said, “Finally, I am able to remember my father’s life, not
just his death.”
I look forward to the day when images of my loved one’s life are
no longer associated with the event of my loved one’s death.