Thoughts on life and grief

Thoughts on honoring life comes from my commitment to alter the conversations we currently traffic in regarding death. My experience is we actually do want to talk about death but we want someone else to begin the conversation. Someone we think perhaps knows something we don't. Someone who has experience and I am that someone, I guess. With over fifty years of dealing, sorting, and making sense of, I must be an expert.

My father became sick when I was three and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he stayed until his death when I was five. His death has defined my life, even though I spent years saying it would not! I am sure it has had a major role is how I view myself in the world. I have always had a background conversation about not being whole, something missing. I have spent years exploring what that was and until recently could never seem to see the cause. What I have seen is that my family lived as though we were not whole. My mother, 29 when her husband died, never seemed to find the wholeness again. She was never able to provide that wholeness to the family. She was also not able to be open about her grief, leaving her two children to sort out theirs alone.

Grief as a private matter is not well attended and by that I mean we have a tendency to judge and evaluate how we and others grieve. Too much, not enough, what is wrong with her/him, why can't they get a grip. I have a family member who has allowed grief to define their life and another who never, outwardly expresses any grief. My experience is that neither is healthy.