Grieving Over the Loss of a Parent
One thing that most people crave is a sense of stability, to know that their world has some constants that allow them to make sense of the world and themselves. That sense of constancy may come from the house we live in, the routines we adhere to, or the people we have around us. Few relationships frame our existence quite the same way as that between a parent and child, which is why the loss of a parent and the grieving that follows is so significant. A child often comes into the world with parents around them, and these are the first people that the child knows. Their family forms the first relationships they have, and those relationships shape them in profound ways as they grow older and form relationships with other people. The loss of a parent likely marks the end of one’s longest-standing relationships, and the grief from that loss will mark a person for the rest of their life, and it can be complicated in various ways. How our grief works. You may have heard about the 5 stages of grief before. It’s something that Elizabeth Kübler Ross wrote about in her book “On Death and Dying”. In that book, she noted that while everyone can grieve differently, there are some commonalities in how grief works for different people. Grief can be divided into five stages that describe certain feelings experienced during grief. Kübler Ross’ observations came from years of working with terminally ill people. The five stages of grief are as follows: Denial. One can pretend that the loss they’ve experienced isn’t real. It may simply be too overwhelming to process and acknowledge at that moment. Anger. Feelings of anger can mask other emotions that you may be carrying at that moment. The anger may [...]
