Never Too Late
There are many situations of loss in which the necessary mourning does not occur. This can happen when a child is excluded from information and rituals about a death because it is believed the child will not understand, remember, nor be affected by the loss. Adults may believe there is no harm in the child being left out of the activities associated with the death and mourning. They may, in fact, believe that they are protecting the child from harm.
A parent with young children to care for after the death of his or her spouse may not feel able to mourn because of the needs and demands of now being a single parent. It may be that we have responded to societal pressures and expectations and just “bucked-up” and failed to attend to the grief. Whether a result of one of the situations above, fearing the pain of grief, traumatic circumstances associated with the loss, or some other reason, mourning can be put off and grief left unattended for many years.
It is not uncommon for survivors to suffer some or many of a wide range of symptoms when mourning does not occur. This suffering is often in the form of depression, unhappiness, loss of meaning and purpose, fearfulness, anger, and feeling alienated. Unsatisfying relationships, feeling worthless, alcohol and substance abuse, psychological and social problems, complaints about physical health, and collateral losses often accompany this suffering. When mourning does not take place, and secondary symptoms such as these occur, the connection to the original loss and grief is often lost.
You, and others, may not realize there is a relationship between the death of someone significant to you in your past and the secondary symptoms that you now suffer from. It may seem like, and feel like, the grief has passed and it is too long ago and too late to mourn. You may question the relevancy and efficacy of mourning after many years. In fact, mourning is effective even if it is delayed. It may be different and perhaps more complicated because of the lapse of time and secondary symptoms that have arisen, but it still has the power to alleviate suffering.
It is often helpful, if not necessary, to enlist professional help when mourning has been avoided for some reason. The process remains the same. We must identify who and what has been lost, and admit that we have been affected by the loss. We must acknowledge that the person who died and their death are important, and that grief is a legitimate reaction to experience even after all the years that may have passed. We must find our way back to the pain of our grief, and find meaningful expressions for it.
With our grief we honor the value of our connection to others, and our personal experience of losing these connections. By mourning we derive the benefit inherent in recognizing this value, and facilitate the healthy progression of grief. It is never too late to mourn!