A Grief Expert Replies:

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your note, and thank you for trusting us with your innermost thoughts and feelings.

If you’ve read any of the other answers we’ve given to questions coming in on the Tributes site, you’ll recognize that one of the most common questions we get revolves around the amount of painful emotions people still have a substantial time after the death of someone important to them.

But if you haven’t read any of our responses, let us start by telling you that of the six major myths we outline in all of our books and lectures, perhaps the most pernicious myth of all is that “Grief Just Takes Time,” or, “Time Heals All Wounds.”

Time can’t heal an emotional wound any more than time can fix a flat tire. In either case, repair or healing, or emotional completion, as we call it, is the result of actions taken within time, and not as the result of the passage of hours, days, weeks, months or years.

One of the compounding elements—and this would be almost predictable to us—is that as you struggle in the absence of your partner, and at chronicling dates along the way, like 6 months,1 year, etc., the people around you start saying or implying that you should be over it by now, as in, “…everyone else thinks I should be further along than I am.” That is just another variation on “Time Heals,” or Time Should Have Healed” you. It’s also possible that you, yourself, have put that onus on you because you were socialized in the same world we all were in which the myth of time is prevalent.

Becoming emotionally complete, as the in the aftermath of the death of someone tremendously important to you, is achieved by taking a series of small and correct actions that lead to recovery or completion. Go to the library or bookstore and get a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook. Read it and start taking the actions it outlines. As you do that, you'll immediately begin to feel a shift. You'll recapture some of your lost energy, and you'll begin to want to participate in life again.

Among the probable results of taking those actions is that you'll have fond memories not turn painful; you'll be able to remember him as you knew him throughout the past 16 years and not be stuck on the ending of his life; and you'll be able to have a life of meaning and value even though he is no longer here. We know that those goals are what you would like, and we trust that since you’ve written asking for help, you’ll be eager to take actions that will help that happen.

If you get stuck of have any questions as you start the work the work in the book, feel free to email us or give us a call.

From our hearts to yours,

Russell And John