2006/03/02
Sad Songs, Breaking Up, Bread, Getting Different
I’ve noticed that lately sad songs are connecting with me. It makes me cry when I hear songs on the radio about loss of love. Songs like Bread’s “Everything I Own” or the Guess Who singing “These Eyes.” These songs are about wishing for the return of the loved one. About how hard it is to go through the day and the night when one is missing someone so much. And they feel like the voice of my heart singing to me.
So you’re thinking right now – so what. It’s no surprise that sad songs make a grieving person cry. But I realized all of these songs are not about losing a loved one through death. They are all about losing a love through separating, breaking up. That really got me thinking. If what I’m feeling now is so similar to the feelings one gets when one breaks up with a love, then people who are in separation must feel as I do. We sometimes call it, “love is dying” when a couple breaks up. And it must feel like something (or someone) is dying.
The difference is a widow like me has a status. People expect me to grieve. Friends comfort me. They give me space when I need it. I am babied to a certain extent at least in the short term. I am allowed to take time off work to help with the mourning. No one expects me to carry on as if nothing has happened. But when did you ever hear of anyone taking time off work to grieve a separation or divorce? When do people give a person going through a separation the comfort they need as much as a survivor? Almost never. I am changed. I am able to better understand the pain of others. Perhaps that is one thing I am learning through grieving.
One of the books I am reading is A Guide for the Bereaved Survivor. Getting back to the comment by Gail’s friend that she should be “over it by now” five years after her husband’s death, there is an interesting and appropriate sentence.
“Long-term bereaved people want you to know that you will never “get over” the death. You “get different.”
So I reflect on this: “different” from what? You could say different from how I was before he died. But I think it’s more than that. It’s also “different” from what I would have been had he lived. Now that’s something to think about.
Another important thing I have learned from this book is that other people often want the bereaved to stop grieving before they are ready. This book advises that every survivor has her/his own timetable and one should be easy on oneself and allow as much grieving as one needs. I must try to remember that. I hope others will, too.
Lyrics from “Everything I Own”
“…I would give anything I own, give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own just to have you back again
Just to touch you once again.”
David Gates and Bread
These days I’m finding a lot of “…words to call my own.”
Missing you, Dennis.
Sad Songs, Breaking Up, Bread, Getting Different
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So you’re thinking right now – so what. It’s no surprise that sad songs make a grieving person cry. But I realized all of these songs are not about losing a loved one through death. They are all about losing a love through separating, breaking up. That really got me thinking. If what I’m feeling now is so similar to the feelings one gets when one breaks up with a love, then people who are in separation must feel as I do. We sometimes call it, “love is dying” when a couple breaks up. And it must feel like something (or someone) is dying.
The difference is a widow like me has a status. People expect me to grieve. Friends comfort me. They give me space when I need it. I am babied to a certain extent at least in the short term. I am allowed to take time off work to help with the mourning. No one expects me to carry on as if nothing has happened. But when did you ever hear of anyone taking time off work to grieve a separation or divorce? When do people give a person going through a separation the comfort they need as much as a survivor? Almost never. I am changed. I am able to better understand the pain of others. Perhaps that is one thing I am learning through grieving.
One of the books I am reading is A Guide for the Bereaved Survivor. Getting back to the comment by Gail’s friend that she should be “over it by now” five years after her husband’s death, there is an interesting and appropriate sentence.
“Long-term bereaved people want you to know that you will never “get over” the death. You “get different.”
So I reflect on this: “different” from what? You could say different from how I was before he died. But I think it’s more than that. It’s also “different” from what I would have been had he lived. Now that’s something to think about.
Another important thing I have learned from this book is that other people often want the bereaved to stop grieving before they are ready. This book advises that every survivor has her/his own timetable and one should be easy on oneself and allow as much grieving as one needs. I must try to remember that. I hope others will, too.
Lyrics from “Everything I Own”
“…I would give anything I own, give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own just to have you back again
Just to touch you once again.”
David Gates and Bread
These days I’m finding a lot of “…words to call my own.”
Missing you, Dennis.
Sad Songs, Breaking Up, Bread, Getting Different
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