But how would you know it is not loneliness rather than grieving?

I also believe that certain personality types enjoy feeling down or sad (or even angry) much of the time - like someone who is always pessimistic and who always looks at the glass half empty instead of half full. I guess for them they love the whole concept of grieving because of the negative aspects. I know it's amazing that there are those types of personalities but I have seen it in many many cases....

One of my theories is they prefer to be very negative for dramatic effect - to seek more attention for themselves.

Very interesting behaviour.....

I'm not so certain they are not the same. Grieving may just be a thoughtful lonesomeness. When I grieve I have constant images and memories of the departed. Images that remind me I will never experience that person again. Loniless is is a feeling that someone in your life is missing. Someone that provided company and play.

Celebration requires much more cortex...

True enough and some good points Lube....guess it depends on the context too. Is one of my dogs grieving when I take the other one out for a drive and not her? Or is she just sad and lonely?

Guess that's why I always take them both......:p

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1319769459.jpg

... “Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence” .......
Eckhart Tolle

I'd like to post something light-hearted but the spirit isn't moving me that way.
A few years ago I started noting in my database (is that word still used?) when I read in the obituary section of the local paper when a customer of mine had died. I was thinking of starting a thread here asking how many aquaintances of the members had 'passed' and perhaps drawing some type of conclusion from the numbers but I hadn't come up with a suitable point of discussion to begin a topic.
I'm not good at grieving (or celebrating).
None of us are going to get out of this world alive.
I guess all I have to offer is that we are fragile creatures. I never say I'm having a bad day.
Jim

Sadness

People are different in their responses to the passing of someone close to them or in the case of someone here whose presence on the board we enjoyed and had become accustomed to. I've had several friends pass on and my parents both. In the case of my parents, I have to say I didn't feel much - at least consciously. Their relationships with their children weren't close. With friends I feel sad about the fact the relationship with that person will never be experienced again and the friendship and past shared experiences are gone. With my parents, I felt sad about the passing of another cycle of a generation with all the experiences, accomplishments, and bonds passing on. I mean this in a general way in terms of coming to the realization that generation's wheel of time has gone full circle. I think both of these things have some influence on the grieving process.

Death is loss - permanent loss.

Because of this I can think of no situation in which it'd be normal to celebrate a death of anyone other than an enemy who will not be missed. For a loved one? Loss is always bad. Love is rare and the people in this world who touch us are equally rare. When one of them is lost, it is a setback and IMHO not something to celebrate at all.

Certainly there are situations which make the person's passing more acceptable (if they were suffering and it has now ended, etc) but I don't ever see losing a loved one (or even an acquaintance whose company I valued) as a good thing. Our worlds become less rich and less interesting and only more empty and lonely. For this reason, the grief is natural, as nobody wishes that.

I agree with what several others have said here... death makes us sad because of the loss we feel.

We have sad feelings because of loss throughout life. There are things in our childhood like our best friend moving away when their dad gets transferred... one of our favorite toys is lost or damaged... a beloved pet dies or runs away and is never seen again.

In one's teen years (and beyond) a painful breakup can produce the same sadness. Later, maybe the loss of a job or getting passed over for a promotion... all of these losses produce grieving.

It is important not to get stuck at any of the stages of grieving. It is also important to realize that there is/can be somewhat of a cumulative effect and losses can be progressively more painful and difficult to process because they bring up a subconscious memory of the pain of past losses.

Get ahold of this small book... it's only about 60-70 pages: Good Grief: A Constructive Approach to the Problem of Loss by Granger Westberg. A friend gave it to me a coupla weeks after my first wife died. It's considered to be one of the best and most concise on grief.

I don't remember if the book speaks to this, but I think it may also be possible to become somewhat numb and distanced from grieving if a person has had an inordinate amount of loss in their life... kind of like a PTSD caused by a very difficult life, not necessarily brought on by the stress of war. I would guess that it could probably be worked out with a lot of therapy, but it may take a long time.

Maybe. However, it's interesting that hospital studies have long shown that doctors and nurses say that their most religious terminal patients are the most terrified of dying.

Yes.

Strange you should mention this, but I have personally observed a similar phenomenon in the deaths of various friends and relatives. The ones with the really deep faith fell apart at the end—while the ones without faith were relatively sanguine.

My experience is anecdotal—and I wasn't aware of the studies—but it has always puzzled me.

My thoughts exactly. Loneliness IS the root cause.

Charlie (my much-loved white/orange cat) died a few years ago while I was asleep (a rotten thing to wake up to). Apparently he had a heart condition and according to the vet, likely just keeled over and was gone - bang, just like that. No warning - not uncommon for animals with that condition. As painful as the experience was for me, the image that will always be burned into my mind was that when I found him, his companion cat (Bonnie, the fluffy gray one) was standing next to him with a clearly hurt expression. There is no doubt in my mind that she knew what had happened and she was clearly sad about it and was grieving - her action and expression was definitely saying "goodbye". It tears my heart thinking about it even today. The loss was bad enough for me (he was an awesome companion) but to see her expression was enough to almost make a grown man cry, because I couldn't do anything to make her hurt any less - and she undoubtedly had a unique bond with him.

Animals definitely are capable of emotion and perception, as well as communication and higher-level thought. I have absolutely no doubt of this and have witnessed it first-hand on more than one occasion. It probably depends somewhat on the species (higher mammals = most likely, amphibians, reptiles, etc. not very likely due to primitive brain anatomy), but I have no doubt that these things are felt and experienced by higher mammals like dogs, cats, chimps/primates, probably even whales and dolphins...

Bingo.

I have seen that as well. I guess those that have a deep religious bend tend to be like that because of some serious insecurity. That ones that don't work that way seem to have made peace a long time ago and accept what awaits.

When my Mother died of cancer what I felt was not grief, rather sadness at the death of my magnetic north, someone who had been the arbitrator of my life's many conflicting priorities, the person I could always turn to, who's opinions mattered...I was sad for the loss of us, that I couldn't love her as before.

When you know love and the greatness of the being loved I find it difficult to grieve the passing of a loved one. Death is, after all, inevitable. Loves emotions are precious and resolute and everlasting long after death. My sadness is in knowing the opportunity to share life and create laughter and love, memories with that person is gone.

When I held my beloved lab Earl in my arms and the Vet administered the shot that would end Earl's life I didn't grieve for Earl, we had far too many days of joy and field work, of cold noses and muddy paws...I was sad for the loss of us, the team.

During the days after my Mother died we began the task of moving forward, trying our best to deal with the profound loss...we began to tell stories, recount the good and funny moments of our families life, of which my Mother was the fulcrum.

We laughed and began to face our uncertain futures, each of us no doubt better for having known her love.

Without much erudition...
What makes us grieve?
I don't know...we grieve as a result of feeling the primal pain of loss.
It hurts...it hurts real bad.
Then we notice that, even if we can't explain why we grieve, eventually it's not as freuquent and as deep.
Watch a dog grieve...they do it right.

My experience has been the exact opposite.

Death is a traumatic experience no matter what the religious inclination because it is personally unknown. We may have sat with people who have died, but that is very different from going through it in the first person sense. As a result when it is finally our turn, it can be scary. But in that regards it's not much different than passing through other stages in life like marriage, medical treatments and other things. Until we experience something first hand, it's difficult for people not to be nervous about it. The thing about death is that most people don't have the opportunity to go through the process twice.

Going back to the point of thread, I have to agree with heel-n-toe -- I think that it's the loss that drives grieving. Whether we believe that the person has gone to Heaven, or just stopped -- either way that person is no longer around to provide the experiences that we enjoyed from, and with them previously. In that regards it most likely is similar to withdrawal. But I don't subscribe to the belief that personal relationships are merely chemical interactions. Going to see your favorite comic while grieving will not fill-up the void left by the deceased -- no matter how funny the comic is. The same applies to rebound relationships, they just don't fill the hole in your life.

I don't think I could ever express what grief is to me and my wife. We are very rarely in the same place at the same time as far as the stages of grief go.

I find with me it seems to be a bit of self pity. In the beginning a lot of wanting to feel sorry form myself and family. Its only been 4 years, but I will get a handle on this.