For a little background: My current training is in the area of grief, and I presently am counseling the hospice bed residents at a local health care center here in my small town.


As an introduction, I would like to "put out" there that we all experience grief. We may not have all experience the death of someone close to us, but we have all experienced loss. Be it a divorce, death, move from a home, job change, change in a friendship or other relationship, miscarriage, or some other big life change, these all accumulate as losses. I was working with a person once who was having difficulty dealing with a failed business, and by the end, we were working on a loss many years prior, that ended up being the real priority in his grief. I have heard the image of onion layers used for many things, and, once again, it can be used for losses accumulating in our lives.

Simply put, grief is the uncomfortable (sad, angry, etc) feeling that comes from the loss of something in our lives. We aren't taught very well to express or deal with these feelings, even to acknowledge them in ourselves. One author I read talked about the "don't cry-it'll be alright" language we get when we are children. We are often told not to cry, or given a new pet as soon as an old one dies, etc. We refocus people rather than give them the validation they need to express their uncomfortable feelings.

For this time, I'd like to focus on that, and have you think about some incident when you were younger (that means before today) when you were given one of those signals, and think about how that felt to you. You may share it here if you wish.

What a great intro and I hope this workshop does very well indeed.

I have been trying very hard to recall such an event when I was told to not cry...and you know what ?...either I've never been in that postion or I just can not recall such an event.

I know there have been times of extreme grief in my life. As a lad of 7 years, I remember my mother telling me that my father had died. It was very sudden. He was young and died of a heart attack.

I remember being allowed to cry, and the interesting thing is, that is all I can remember !..I don't remember prior to my mother telling me and I do not recall anything after the actual event of my being informed. I have always felt if I have missed something valuable because to this day I can not recall anything about my father whatsoever, no special event, no moment of joy, not a thing.

Do you think this is me supressing my memories ?

That is why I posted a while a go a thread about peoples earliest memories. I found the average to be about 2-3 years old. It concerns me that I have virtually no recollection of those years and most certainly nothing about my father.

I am left to wonder how I grieved at the time, and whether I ever really have.

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Snowman1 Men are the same as women, just inside out !Snowman1

and these are mine, mine mine mine ...oh...and wifeys too !

You may be on track with the answer to your own question...whether you really ever have gotten a chance to grieve your father's passing. I wonder if you cannot remember anything about him prior because it was so shocking to you that he passed...it took over your relationship with him. Hopefully, we can do some things that might help you complete that relationship. Thanks for sharing that!

To share one of my own stories, my Grandmother (my favorite) died at our house on a visit when I was 5. My mother was absolutely traumatised by it, and I was in a panic. The ambulance pulled up to our house while I was playing at a friend's and, from that distance, I could not see who they were putting into it. Well, flash forward, and my parents come back and tell me she has passed. I don't remember much more than my mother sobbing. They took her 2 states away for her funeral, and I was not to go...left with family friends for nearly 5 days. I always miss that opportunity now, I don't know what I would have done as a kid.