My Mother's first husband was killed in the Springhill 'bump' of 1958. For many years I often wondered why there were no mementos from her first marriage and as of late I've started to understand what may have happened. I think that the memories were so painful for her, that she in essence threw out the past, (this is just a theory). My Father died in 1997 and my Mom has been in a nursing home for the last 5 years with alzheimer disease. I have been grieving in one way or another for 8 years. Is it time for me to let go to some extent by putting the pictures away, etc.? How much if any of the past, should a person let go?

Its really a personal thing. Some people like to be surrounded by loved ones who have passed away. My mother passed away 25 years ago and I have one small picture of her on the mantle amongst the rest of the family.

In some parts of Australia, Aborigines will not utter the name of a deceased person for ten years. Even close family and friends who have the same name are given a nick name .... George is very popular.

I agree it's a personal thing. There should come a point when you can accept the past and move on.

How soon that comes is hard to say but 8 years sounds a long time. It's important to appreciate and enjoy the good things in life and the people around you, and look to the future not the past.

Hope that helps.

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Spike
:)

I just lost my Dad and Grandad within a few weeks of each other. I feel differently each day. Some days I want to remember them both, other days are just too painful and I want to be away from all of the past.

All I'm trying to say is that you have to do whatever it takes to get you through it. The only one thing I am trying to do is make sure I don't bottle anything up. If I need to talk about it, then I won't be scared of what other people think.

That's why I logged on to this thread!

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Of all the things I've ever lost, I miss my mind the most!

Hang onto it as much as the individual wants, so long as they aren't impeding the rest of the world in the process.

Or even impeding their own.
It's a very hard balancing act.

My brother was 16 when my mother passed away and he gets drunk and very morose. He got angry at me for not remembering the anniversary of her death. I asked him what about Oct 13? He couldn't answer. I told him that was her birthday. I dont remember when she left,I remember when she lived. It was hard for a longtime but now I chat about her like I would an old friend I haven't seen or a long time. I remember and celebrate her life.

Yes, definitely there are people who will just totally throw the past out because it is just to painful for the person to hold on to. I have done it myself believe me. There is one thing I have always said to myself and that is: If we can't do anything about the things that have already happened, there is no use in holding on to them. If we cannot accurately predict the future, there is no use in worrying about it. We can however actively take part in the present to make the best of each moment.........


Titana

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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius (and a lot of courage) to move in the opposite direction....Albert Einstein.

All good comments. As others have said, it is a personal balance we all should try to reach. For myself, I like to remember those people, but I try to remember the good things, and not wallow in the sadness.

My wife's cousin seems to be an example of how not to do it. Her older son died in a drunk driving accident (he was the drunk driver) about five years ago. She is still completely consumed by her grief. She blames another cousin because that cousin's son was at the same party and tried to stop him from driving, but didn't (I don't really understand blaming the kid, but blaming the kid's mom?). Theis feud has really hurt the entire family. Meanwhile, the cousin's younger son and her husband have been emotionally abandoned by her, as her entire focus seems to be on the son who is gone. It is just a completely unhealthy, sad situation.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

My father died in 1983. I still grieve (though obviously not to the same extent!), and my mother has only been on something like three dates since.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago, my mother was going through her attic and found three copies of a studio picture of my dad that she's pretty sure is older than their marriage. So she sent a copy to me--with no warning. Suddenly, out of the blue, picture of my dad in my mailbox. I was wigged out the rest of the day.

I made a fuss on the 20th anniversary of Dad's death, but my older sister didn't. Each of us kind of worries about how the other deals with it. But I got the mental illness genes and she didn't, which may have something to do with it.

I agree that everybody deals with it differently, but I don't think all ways are equally healthy. I think actively trying to forget is unhealthy. I think that, if you need therapy but won't go, it's unhealthy. I think dwelling exclusively in the past is unhealthy. I'm not sure if my dwelling on it one day a year is unhealthy, but I do know that I'm trying to get help for a lot of the issues it left me with. (I was six.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

You gotta make peace with your own feelings. Grieving is not about the person that died, it's about how the survivors feel about the life they had with them, and how they will deal with life without them.

IMO, it is hardest to make peace with those feelings when things get left incomplete. (I'm big on completion). If there were hard feelings unresolved, or a life ended well before any kind of natural completion (death of a young person - the younger the worse); being OK with the death can be very difficult.

If a person has lived a reasonably full life, I'm very OK with death. I guess we get to define "reasonably full" ourselves because like I said, grieving is about the survivors.

There is only one thing guaranteed when we enter this world - that we will eventually leave this world. Everything in between is optional. Choose carefully.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Banquo, I hear you. One of the reasons I'm on antidepressants right now is that I tend towards obsessive-compulsive behavior. (Hand-hygene is the compulsive part). But on the obsessive side, it's hard for me to resist the temptation to dwell on the past rather than the present: both in some unconscious desire to relive the good (which was very good) and/or change the bad (which was very bad).

I'm the last person to be able to offer you a solution, Banquo. I can say that shortly before going on the medication, were I offered some magical hypothetical charm that would deep-six most of my past, both good and bad, I would have been sorely tempted.

Now? No, it's perfectly okay to grieve, so long as it doesn't prevent you from moving forward. If your grief is stalling your life, though, it's time to seek help.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Or as my best friend put it when I told her about this discussion, you always grieve. Maybe not all the time, and in time it hurts less, but there's always going to be a little twinge at least that the person isn't around anymore. It's when it stops your own life that it becomes a bad thing.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

When my 1st wife died, I took my kids to New Song, a grieving support group. It definitely helped.

Grieving is a personal thing. It can cripple you if you let it take control. I find that when I miss someone, it always helps if I remember something positive about them, even it's a silly thing like their response to stupid jokes that I made or something crazy that made us both laugh until we cried. If I dwell on my sadness at missing them, I am not honoring their memory, I am wallowing in self-pity. Being sad won't bring them back, and remembering happy times makes me feel better and it extends the nice things that they did for me. When I die, if there is a memorial service, I want good blues music, good food, and a light atmosphere. Don't put on a service that I wouldn't LOVE to attend, because that's not honoring my life, it's honoring your loss. I want a service that would remind my friends of all the things that I love and would bring back good memories.

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The ether of general relativity therefore differs from that of classical mechanics or the special theory of relativity respectively, in so far as it is not 'absolute', but is determined in its locally variable properties by ponderable matter.

Albert Einstein, "On the Ether", 1924

My sympathies. My mom died this March. 3 months later my dad sold the family house & moved into a retirement home. So within a few months I lost both my mom and my childhood home.

The grief comes in waves. Sometimes I'm relieved that she passed on quickly & didn't suffer much. Other times I just feel sad that such a big part of my life disappeared into a black hole. There are really no words of comfort for such a thing... except, of course, that all of us go thru it at one time or another, and it's just a natural part of life.

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"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

This may sound strange, but I found reading Pratchett's Reaperman helped a lot with accepting death. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone though.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Really, all funerals are for the living.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Many interesting comments. I find great comfort knowing that the positive experiences I had with friends and family gone by have changed how I behave (even if only in little tiny ways). In turn, I pass that on to others in the form of healthy behaviors and in being a positive influence in their lives. In this way, the virtues of mere mortals never really vanish. Rather, their positive attributes ripple down thru the generations like energy that can never be destroyed, but instead just keeps changing shape as it moves from one person to the next.

I certainly miss the physical presence of my Mom. I am so glad to have gained the maturity to really appreciate, and show that appreciation, for the commitment she had to her children. But I know her spirit lives on in a lot of people she touched, especially her family. She may be physically gone, but her spirit will live on for many generations - even if those living it do not know it.

The last thing she said to me was to please not let her granddaughters (our daughters were 4 and 6 at the time) forget who she was. Now that is recognition of the importance of wisdom passed down thru the ages.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley