Each of us experience grief in our lives, some more than others. Each of us respond to grief in different ways. Some keep emotions inside and walk around with a stiff upper lips. Others let their emotions flow freely. Few of us learn how to overcome those moments when we long for the people who are forever gone. 

I was eight years old when my father died in nineteen fifty seven. Back then few people thought that children had complex emotions. It was assumed that I would get over the loss quickly and without any problems. I was young and the adults believe that my feelings were probably not as deep as those of my mother and grandmother who both fell apart when they learned of my father’s death. The focus of those who came to our home was on my mother as it most certainly should have been. My brothers and I were sent outside to play with the children. Adult things were going on inside the house that they did not want us to see.

I hid my own grief deep inside my soul. I watched my mother dissolve from a pillar of strength into a puddle of unmitigated sorrow. She was hardly able to walk or concentrate on a conversation. She spent most of her time lying prostrate on her bed away from the well meaning crowd that had gathered in our living room. Through swollen red eyes she stared into the abyss as though she had somehow left the reality of the situation. 

My aunts became the caretakers of me and my younger brothers who were ages five and two. They spoke to us in cheery voices as though they believed that we were incapable of understanding what had happened. They kept all talk light and brief, catering mostly to our basic needs. It fell to our cousins and neighborhood kids to talk about how we were feeling. They wondered aloud that I seemed to be acting too normal given the circumstances. They did not seem to understand that I was trying to be brave for my mother and my brothers. I felt the weight of responsibility hovering over me. In some ways my childhood days seemed to be over. I would have to be more serious and reliable from that day forward. I pushed my grief as far down into my psyche as I was able. The tears only came at night when I was all alone in my bed. 

I did not want to be a bother to anyone, especially my mother. I wanted more than ever to make my father proud of me, to prove that his faith in me was deserved. I began a long journey of appearing to be fine, of being strong. Only a chosen few friends knew that I felt like a freak. I needed to talk about the emotions that were strangling me because I did not understand them. How could anyone have known what I was feeling when I had become the model daughter, student, friend? I longed to be free to claim the thoughts that so confused me but nobody seemed to realize how deeply I had been impacted by my father’s death. They changed the subject whenever I attempted to tell them how I was really feeling.

I suppose that I fell deeply in love with my husband Mike when we were dating and he shared with me his grief over losing his grandmother. As he spoke of how important she had been to him and broke down in sobs I knew that he was someone in whom I might confide my own unspoken sorrow. We openly talked about our feelings and felt a kind of relief that had been denied us by well meaning adults who had underestimated the profound ability to love that even children have. Finally someone was genuinely understanding how deeply I had been affected when my father died. 

As a society we have come a long way in acknowledging that traumas like death affect even the youngest among us. We no longer devalue the feelings of children in times of sorrow. In fact, we now know that their confusion over the loss of loved ones is so profound that they are unable to express the depth of their pain. Their grief may take the form of anger or disobedience or withdrawal. They become difficult annoyances and nobody knows what to do with them. They need counseling to overcome the confusion that rages like a storm inside of them. They need to know that their feelings are normal.

I suppose that there are some who would tell me to get over my father’s death and just quit talking about it as though it happened last week instead of decades ago. They do not realize that once I opened my heart to Mike I felt myself beginning to heal. I found the person I had been on the day before the tragedy of my father’s accident. As I talked about my love for father and the great void that I had felt in his absence I found my way out of the dark tunnel where I had felt so lost. It was a process that took years but I finally learned how to be unafraid. 

I suppose that I was attracted to a career focused on children because I understand how vulnerable they are. We have to listen to them and acknowledge their feelings without judgement. They need reassurance that the demons who visit them at night can be chased away by not ignoring them. We must listen to them and let them know that they will never be alone. Their minds are as capable of grief as those of adults. We would do well to listen to how they are feeling. 

We each handle death and sorrows individually but the hurt that we are feeling is universal. I choose to speak often of the tragedy of my father’s death because in many ways it determined the trajectory of my life. Decades later I am not stuck in a never ending loop of grief, but I have instead learned how to admit to the years of longing and confusion that I tried so desperately to hide. I did that so well that many of the people that I knew back then had no idea that my father had died. I was a popular girl, an excellent student, a person with a perennial smile plastered on my face. I had succeeded in masking the storm that was raging in my mind, but I knew that I needed help. When I found someone who would listen, I let loose with a conversation that continues to this day. I want everyone to know how good it is to find someone with whom to share our fears. It is never too late to heal. 

I’m okay and I want you to be okay. We need to speak of the troubles that inhabit our souls. Find that person who is willing to help you let it all out without recrimination. You will only begin the journey to emotional health when you are able to express how you are feeling without apology. The world would be so much better if each of us learned how to express the feelings that worry us. Embrace the grief and heal.