The more the bereaved work through their losses, the more they value differences in others. As we noted, a controversy exists as to whether grief is ever extinguished, with one side claiming, “Survivors who say they are free of their grief are in denial.” Those who take the opposite view retort, “The bereaved who still grieve just don’t want to release it.” Such simplifying and judging is unfortunate, because there are no absolutes. We wrote this book together because we exemplify opposites.
“I could never grieve your way”—Dianne’s Story
“You know, I could never grieve your way,” Raymond said to me during a retreat we hosted in 1995. “I wish I could allow myself to feel those feelings, but I have never been able to do that and still can’t.”
“Yes, Raymond, I can relate,” I said reflectively. “When I met Elisabeth at one of her workshops, people all around the room were wailing. I thought, I could never do that; it just isn’t my style. But then she orchestrated my path by pointing at me and saying, ‘Your little girl needs to have her tears.’ It was as if she’d hit me in the stomach. No way I’ll go back to my childhood grief, I thought.
“Then, late that night, as I lay my eighty-two-pound body down to sleep, I suddenly realized, I’m sick of carrying this muck inside me. It feels awful and it could even kill me. I don’t want to die feeling like this. With that, I turned flat on my back and sobbed. For five days, I continued to release buckets of tears for that little girl who moved away from her grandma, and for the orphaned adult I had become. It took me years to work through most of that.
“Leaving grief behind is not easy, pretty, or quick, but now that I know how wonderful it feels to be rid of the suffering, repressing my sorrow is no longer an option. That was my path, but one I’d never impose on someone else.”
Transcenders champion every human being. Instead of assessing or judging, we celebrate the fact that no two people, or their styles of mourning, are the same.