Acceptance

After reading "Unbreak My Heart" in Ann Munday's Musing http://annmundaymusing.blogspot.com/2010/06/unbreak-my-heart.html?, about the Five Stages of Grieving, I started thinking about these stages; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and what they really mean to me. The first four stages seem to be automatic, a natural process and easily recognizable. The final stage is the most ambiguous as well as the most difficult to arrive at.

I have had many friends who have suffered the loss of a loved one, through their stories, ones that I have heard, and my own experience, I realized that Acceptance is the most difficult of these stages and for some totally unattainable. That's why there are so many songs sung, so many poems and books and blogs written, so many movies produced. We need to adjust to the loss, make it a part of our life. If we don't go through the last stage all the other stages keep coming back. it's like being on a treadmill unable to get off.

So what do we do, we try meditation, we read what Buddah and the Dalai Lama have to say, we try new interests, we surround ourselves with family and friends. We try everything possible, but to no avail. We still miss our losses, they will always stay with us. We have to find a way to incorporate them into our lives. These experiences make us richer, more understanding and compassionate people. I grew to understand that Acceptance is not stopping the pain, it's merely learning to live with the pain and the loss.

So how do we deal with the loss of a loved one, the loss of our home, the loss of our careers, the loss of our finances and the pain that comes along with it. Of course we all have our different ways of dealing with them. John Lennon conveyed it well - that 'Whatever Gets You Through The Night', 'is all right',meaning that we must do whatever works for us to get us through our pain, and from my mother's generation a similar directive from Eduardo di filippo, Italian playwright and philosopher, who ends one of his plays with "Ha da passa' 'a nuttata," which translated is, you got to get through the nights.


For example, my Zia Mara, lost her daughter through leukemia over 30 years ago, when Ines was still in her teens. Every night from the day of her death to this day, she writes beautiful letters to Ines, telling her all that is happening in her life and in the world, she tells her how much she and everyone loves her. My aunt saves these letters and she is convinced that through these letters she is communicating with Ines. This is how my zia deals with the loss of her daughter. Is this acceptance?

Growing up I have had several friends who lost their mothers at a young age and yet all of them felt that their mothers were right there protecting them. Still, these women today, in their sixties, are missing their mothers. Yes, they have had happy lives, have succeeded in their careers and had wonderful families of their own. Yes, they all spent many many years in therapy. So, is this Acceptance?

As I have learned through my life experience, our loved ones will never be forgotten, we have a special place reserved inside of us for the special people who have touched us. Our life is still beautiful, but there will always be that empty space that no one can fill; that space reserved for that special person. This to me is Acceptance.