I received a very well meaning e-mail about coping with grief.  In part in read:

“If you find there’s an emotional connection to some loss,” says Dr. Wright, “then maybe you have not really processed it. Maybe it’s still affecting your life in some way.”

Dr. Wright suggests that you need to come to the point at which you can say of each loss, “Yes, that happened to me, but now I’m going on with my life,” compared to “Boy, that happened to me, and it still hurts.”

I sincerely accept the email as very well intended but there are certain well-intended yet over-used, clumsy phrases and snappy little say-so's that really put me off:  Especially when I'm choking back a flood of tears!

Of course I'm "going on with my life"- I'm still breathing (Not?); but to suggest that it shouldn't hurt simply because I'm "going on" (with life) sounds annoyingly patronizing and that hurts my feelings.  Maybe there are better ways to cope or to "process" pain but we cannot, "just forget about it" (tough guy).   

It's analogous to a book and film review I watched last night entitled; "The Giver": In the book, bad memories are excluded from history, even from the conscious mind; people have attempted to cut all unpleasant memories from society (except for a chosen few "keepers") to attain Utopia but, instead it is becomes a darkly dystopian society. 

Since we cannot insulate ourselves in this way, we must somehow learn to live with the past including our tragedies and heartbreaks without living in dread of the future.  We do this with other types of injuries that hurt like hell but they heal and, for the most part, so does our mind.  We might be more careful but, we don't generally live with unreasonable fears of another injury.  We remember how much it hurt but we don't experience the pain over and over again:  It's nothing like the pain of losing someone we dearly loved. 

For me the pain is worse in the early morning.  I awake and I remember that she is gone and I feel that crushing weight on my chest- the heart ache.  One day I awoke, remembering as usual but I didn't feel the grief (at least not immediately).  It frightened me because I felt even emptier than before.  Did I die after all?  Maybe I don't yet know how to replace my grief or what should fill my heart in its place.