Depends on one's age. Losing one's mother in one's childhood is certainly reckoned to be one of the biggies, psychodynamically speaking. Losing a parent in one's late teens or twenties is considered - and I use the term advisedly - 'healthier', in terms of one's psychological development. Why? Because it's unconsciously more 'expected' than, say, the death of one's child or one's spouse. Also, an adult generally possesses more resources for dealing with bereavement than does a child.
I read a lot of the relevant literature when my father died suddely, around ten years ago now; I think it was one of my ways of coping (dynamic therapists would call it 'mastery'). I was in Adelaide, the other side of the world, and it was Christmas Eve. I'd just arrived and was preparing to travel up through the centre of Australia, spend New Year at Uluru then up towards Darwin. Perhaps my second or third thought was 'I'll have to cancel all this and fly home - fuck'. Long-haul flights over Christmas aren't much fun at the best of times, and the ho-ho-hoing airport Santas seemed, in my rather numbed state, both 'cruel and unusual'. I passed the flight in a daze, apart from when the piped headphones started playing Albinoni's 'Adagio' and I started crying (greatly upsetting my kindly but embarrassed neighbour).
There is no single way of "coping with it"; in a sense, even the term can seem faintly insulting at the time - one bristles at the suggestion, however gentle, that one 'cope with' the fact that one of the cornerstones of one's life has suddenly been deleted.
Th funeral helps, as does being occupied (although I briefly became quite phobic about having to talk to colleagues about it, in case I burst into tears; I wanted them to know, so they wouldn't make reference to my father, but I dreaded actually having to discuss it myself). I suppose I was lucky in that, despite having clashed violently with my father throughout much of my adolescence, I'd settled into a nice equilibrium with him, and I felt we understood each other. He'd accepted that I was never going to be like him, and started appreciating the things I was doing that he'd never done: delivering babies, travelling around the world... he was delighted that I was doing my medical elective in Australia, and one of the most touching/heartbreaking things was receiving a real 'gosh wow, it's so good that you're doing this' letter, several weeks after his death, it having been forwarded to me from Melbourne. For my part, I accepted that my dad wasn't an ogre, and hadn't been solely responsible for my parents' divorce.
So... I was lucky in not having to process too much guilt. There are regrets, of course - he never saw me graduate, he never knew I was gay - but it could've been much, much harder.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross reckons that, when a parent dies, there's sometimes a sense of 'exhilaration' intermingled with the other feelings of bereavement - because one is theoretically freer to pursue one's own adult destiny (or whatever). This actually did reflect my experience, although it was a little while before I could appreciate it. When one of the cornerstones of my life was removed, also removed was one of the sets of opinions which (whether I liked it or not) exerted a strong influence on my life; I was more able to do what I wanted to do, without worrying about paternal (dis)approval. I like to think I would've come out as gay sooner or later (we were moving into a much more honest relationship than before) but I suspect it would've taken me longer to screw up the necessary courage if my father were alive.
I guess I'm saying it's not all bad; there's the occasional plus-point too. I don't think one ever really 'gets over' it - but, with the passage of time, one eventually gets around it, incorporates it into one's life.
Hmm, this has been much more about me than anyone else. Quite cathartic, though. |
