Waddell, AZ funeral homes

No Magic Bullet: A Time to Mourn

After funerals at Waddell, AZ funeral homes, mourning the loss of a loved one settles in and takes hold. Although we don’t realize it, and even if we are expecting the death of a loved, our first response to death is shock. It’s the same kind of shock that people in horrible accidents or terrible tragedies go into immediately afterward. It’s the body’s natural response to anything too overwhelming to handle or comprehend in the moment.

We go through the hustle and bustle of the funeral process, there but not there. Instead, there’s a numbness that is protective and gets us through the process without totally falling apart. We will cry. We will feel sad. We will feel the loss. But the edge is taken off of all these things by shock.

The shock goes away and the reality sets in, usually after everyone’s gone and we now have to face the loss of a loved one alone. We suddenly become aware of everything that was theirs, the routines we had with them, the void of their absence, and that is when mourning begins in earnest.

Not all mourning is the same, nor do all people mourn with the same intensity. Some people hide their mourning better than other people do. Regardless, there is a mourning period and it may last a few months or several years. There are a lot of factors that go into the mourning period after the loss of a loved.

Before we discuss those factors, let’s take a look at a couple of places where the magic bullet of one year of mourning may have its origins.

The first is in Jewish culture, where the mourning period for the death of a parent is one year. Modern psychiatry seems to have adopted a form of this by saying normal intense mourning lasts from nine months to one year, and any intense mourning beyond that is complicated grief and should be addressed with grief counseling or therapy.

The second place where the magic bullet of one year of mourning may have some of its roots is the Victorian era (1837-1901). Women who were widowed went through a progressive mourning process that lasted a total of four years. But, for the first year after the death of a spouse, women could not do anything in society. They were essentially confined to their homes during that period. One year after the death of a spouse, women could reenter society (go to parties, plays, etc.), but they still had to wear clothing to indicate they were widowed and in the mourning process.

The problem with the magic bullet, however, is that when it comes to mourning, one size doesn’t fit all. Some spouses never stop grieving the spouse they lost. Some parents never stop grieving the loss of a child. Some children never stop grieving the loss of a parent. All of the people may move on, in some form or fashion, with life and the mourning may be less visible, but it’s a constant companion, triggered by some of the most random things imaginable, bringing the loss back full force for a time.

That’s the nature of mourning. It’s how we’re wired as humans. No one can set a time limit on how long anyone else grieves.

For more grief resources after funerals at Waddell, AZ funeral homes, our compassionate and experienced team at Simply Cremation & Funeral Arrangements can help. You can come to our funeral home at 16952 W. Bell Rd., #303, Surprise, AZ, 85374, or you can contact us today at (623) 975-9393.

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