    
|
|
|
| When someone dies, everyone expects us to grieve. But it's natural, normal, even desirable, to have some positive feelings when someone has suffered terribly from a physical or mental illness...when a relationship has been unhappy or abusive...or if the person you knew actually died years earlier, as with Alzheimer's disease. Termed "nontraditional loss response" by therapists, reactions such as relief, happiness--even joy--can follow such deaths, especially in this age of "medical miracles," in which people can be kept alive much longer than they would wish. Positive feelings may predominate for you, or they may be mixed with darker feelings. This is particularly true if you were a family caregiver. Reading about feelings of sadness, longing, and despair, when you feel released, can add to the guilt and emotional conflict you feel. We know these conflicts firsthand. Jennifer's marriage had been very unhappy, and her husband was killed suddenly the day after she asked him for a divorce; Chris's beloved husband, Don, died after fifteen years of a disabling illness. In this groundbreaking book, we share our own and others' stories, compassionate clinical analysis, and practical advice. We feel it's important to recognize a wide array of post-death reactions, to embrace them, to learn from them, and to use them as energy for change. |