Journey of Hearts

The answer to this question is highly variable, depending on many factors including the type of loss, extraordinary circumstances surrounding the loss.  It also depends on an individuals coping skills and number of prior losses, and how those were handled.

Tragedies can be much more difficult to recover from quickly of at all depending on the nature of the tradgedy e.g unnecessary or accidental death, rape, loss through natural disasters, death during war-time, unnecessary acts of violence. These types of losses are the ones that lend themselves to counseling and seeking rofessional help to deal with the loss. Depending on the nature of the loss, it may be something that a person may never recover from, but one must learn how to incorporate the loss, learn what one can and move on.

Part of what needs to remember about grief and mourning, is that the same event experienced by many different people can affect individuals very differently. This is especially important within families, because certain members may be in different stages of the grieving process, go through the phases more quickly than others or stay stuck in certain phases for years e.g. Anger, or Depression.

One needs to be mindful when dealing with others, that they will probably not be in the same stage as you are. Understanding the stages of grief and the grieving process can help deal with the hard feelings and the arguments that may arise from two individuals trying to communicate when in different stages, e.g. one in an anger phase.

Ending of Grief and the Ability to Begin Anew

As stated by Dr. Kubler-Ross, mourning can go on for years and years. It is a false assumption that the grieving will end after only a year. Much depends on the underlying nature of the loss.
The grieving process usually ends when "people realize that they can live again," they can begin to focus their energy on living, rather than guilt and pain and hurt. Only then can people start with the healing process.

Things begin to return to normal, "piece by piece," but the recovery process of finding one self is slow, according to Toby Talbot,. It is like recovering from a sickness, recovering of oneself.
The suddenly one day instead of waking with dread, in the words of Jon Hasser:

He'd begun to wake up in the morning
with something besides dread in his heart.

Not exactally happiness,
not eagerness for a new day,
but a kind of urge to be eager,
A longing to be happy.
 

Jon Hasser

The hope of those contributing to this website is to provide worthwhile resources to help others during the grieving process, integrate the loss and attain a long-term healing. Recovery occurs when you have healed enough to be able to tell your story, to share your experiences or coping techniques, with others who are going through their own grief process. This continues the healing cycle.

Once you have reached a place of being able to share the story, we invite you to pass on your stories, poems, quotes so that others might heal.

E-mail can be sent to e-mail@ kirstimd.com