Don G. Dinsdale Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)

Good Grief - 3/10/2016

"The strangest thing happened," said my friend, a lovably neurotic, very obsessive businessman in his mid-forties.

"I was watching one of those afternoon TV talk show. This one was about problem kids. A parent comes on. She talks about how out of control her child is. Then a parenting expert comes on. He does tough love with the kids, like a drill sergeant, screaming and getting in their faces. Then he takes the troubled kids for a week and straightens them out.

"So this nine-year-old boy comes on. He's been a monster. K*****g animals in the neighborhood. Driving his mother nuts. The drill sergeant guy gets right up in this kid's face. He's screaming. 'You think you're tough? You're a tough guy?'

"The expert's screaming at the kid. The kid is just standing there. And I'm watching this thinking Maybe this kid is just a bad seed. 'How'd you like me to come home with you for a week? Be in your face like this all the time,' the expert hollered. 'Would you like that?'

"'Yes,' the boy said.

"'What did you say? Yes? You'd like that? Why would you like that?'

"'Because I don't have a dad,'" the kid said. The boy's lip quivered. The expert got silent. The audience went nuts. But that's not the strange thing," my friend said. "Melody, I started crying. Sobbing like a baby. I haven't cried for ten years."

"What do you think that was about?" I asked.

"I realized how much I missed having a dad," he said. "When people asked me, I always said it wasn't important. I didn't know until I saw that show and started crying that you could miss something you never had."

Sometimes we don't know what or whom we're missing.

"How can I stop feeling so blue about being separated from my children?" another friend asked when business had taken him away from home for a month. "You're asking the wrong person," I said, "It has been eleven years since my son died, and I still miss him every day."

Grief. It may strike suddenly, catching our heart by surprise. Or it may pound relentlessly and persistently for years, like ocean waves beating on the shore.

Whether we're conscious of what or whom we're missing, our heart knows. We may never be happy about whom or what we have lost, but it is possible to be happy again.

Grief isn't an a******l condition. It's nature's way of healing our heart.

I Know This To Be True... Don D.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Yeah, grief is normal. Grief delayed is grief amplified and may destroy someone when it finally bursts out. BTW, grown men DO cry - if they know what's good for them.

I'm convinced that a great deal of the anger in this country, is caused by delayed or disguised grief. Blame is often a way to disguise the need to grieve, thus delaying it. I know many cases of PTSD are really caused by delayed grief. Finding out what the patient needs to grieve over is the key to treatment and the most difficult to ascertain. Some combat Veterans need to grieve over the deaths they caused, not because what they did was wrong ( it wasn't ), but because it was a violation of their natures and caused them an injury.

Learning to grieve for our own hurts is a harder lesson to teach, as far too often it is perceived as a sign of weakness. That isn't even remotely true, no matter what the "heroes" in the movies do. Facing our own hurts, acknowledging them, then going through the grieving process over them, takes enormous courage - and is absolutely vital for healing from them. Unrequited grief is deadly - and unnecessary.

Don G. Dinsdale Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)

Good Point...

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lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

As do I, Don..Very touching all of it is...........♡

bahmer

So do I Don D. so do I.

boatbob2

Yes,BUT, some grief NEVER GOES AWAY......