Putting into words the meaning or feeling of bereavement feels like a betrayal of that feeling. That inner struggle; letting it go feels like letting the person go, and leaving what remains unsettled unsettled. Grief and logic don’t flow. The thing is, what is “thinking back” and what is “grief” from bereavement? Grief is sorrowful but not entirely. Grief and loss go very well together. One might be sorrowful because of the loss of someone, and they are experiencing grief even thought they might have a positive outlook on life. Grief is probably more about hanging on the “loss” than anything else. The more we want to “hang on” to that loss, the one we feel we should continue doing so.
Not to confuse grief and loss with guilt. That negative feeling that we have done wrong and did not correct it, or have not done enough, etc., when things could be better when the loved one was still slive.
To stop the process of grieving can sound like we begin to release ourselves from such burden, such guilt. But having such guilt does no one any good. Think again, to continue in guilt does not change anything, it might make you much more depressed. That would be like a self-inflicting wound, there was no perpetrator; we wanted to feel the guilt to experience guilt. At the end it was me, me me.
Coming away from bereavement is tough. There is no process to follow. There is no deliberate means to recall the person, but we keep recalling the person in our memory. Over time, this process becomes weakened, and the intensity more sparsed. The fabric of reality has begun to change. The many formulae with which we conceived reality has changed. The loved one is still here but represents the best there is in our lives. It acts as a pivot that could steer us on the right path. Two is better than one.
