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... Mom, would you say that people were helpful or hindering to your recovery after Janet died?”
“Well, both, Annie. After Janet died, people who loved us were very kind, but many who meant well, made serious mistakes. Some people thought they could help us by hurrying our grief, but that just heightened our frustration. Others with good intentions made comments that deepened our sense of loss. All we really needed to hear was, ‘I’m sad for your loss.’ It felt terrible to hear people say we were ‘lucky’ she was so young. When you lose a child, the word ‘lucky’ makes you see red. One day, fury burning inside me really fired up. I discovered that one of my brothers had thought to 'help me' by destroying Janet’s photos. And to this day, I’ll never understand what possessed Dad to watch Janet’s autopsy, but he’d felt compelled to do that, so he did.”
Mom pauses, and for a few seconds we swing pensively back and forth before she continues, “Each of us grieves and heals in different ways. The way each person needs to heal isn’t easy for others to understand. In fact, it’s not easy to understand ourselves. All I have left of Janet, today, is one small, creased, black and white photo that my brother overlooked. And here we sit, Annie, you and I, talking about Janet, more than fifty years after she died—and even now, from time to time, I take that creased photo out of my dresser drawer and look at it, because something inside my heart needs to see her face. Every few years, I find myself wondering what kind of life Janet would have chosen had she had the chance to grow up.”
Listening to the impact of inconsolable loss, flowing freely from within Mom's psyche, catches me off guard ... as in ... perhaps certain losses are too great to expect a person to fully recover—just as when a damaged nerve remains painfullyq inflamed, because nerve damage is not reversible ... at least not yet ... though one day, when stem cell research is widely accepted, medical advances may offer a person with nerve damage relief ... Gosh! Wouldn't it be great if an advance like that occurs in our lifetime? As you can see, hope springs eternal when thoughts process through positively focused channels of the mind...
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