In our culture we complicate mourning often by judging the amount of crying or emotional outbursts we observe. If the mourner is crying and being openly expressive, we might say that obviously they are not handling their grief well. We are making the assumption that crying is being out of control and irrational. This assumption is untrue. The release of emotions is healthy grief and a sign of a mourner meeting his or her personal needs in grief.
If we never see the mourner cry, we can often wonder to ourselves if their relationship with the person who died was close at all. In that conclusion we are assuming that a lack of emotional display or crying is the same as a lack of love. That assumption can be untrue depending upon the person, the relationship and the progress of the mourner in their grief. You may just have caught…
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