Establishing Significance
I believe the establishing of significance is preliminary to the beginning of grief. I think significnce can determine the outcome and the pace of recovery. Folks who can establish significance seem to move along well in their grieving. Those who can't seem to, get stuck and not move as well.
When something happens to us, the first thing we want to do is establish the significance of the event. If a little boy hurts his hand while playing in the yard, his mother cleans the area, and even though there is no wound, the boy wants a bandage on it. We now have neon bandages just for this purpose. The boy proudly displays his hand for significance of the event. When everyone has seen the wound and commented properly, then the bandage can come off and the incident can be forgotten.
Any times we have an operation we want to tell the whole world about every detail. Not that we think ours is the worst operation ever, we just want and need to share how we feel and what we have experienced.
From the moment a loved one dies we begin to establish significance. This is a natural response to a death. We want to talk about the person. We want the world to know how important the life was to us and all of the wonderful charactersitics the life exemplified. Often our friends do not understand this need and try to change the subject or avoid the subject altogether, but we want and need to tell the story of the person.
The Need for Significance
We do not know what we have lost until it is gone. We almost need to take an inventory to find out what we have lost before we can grieve the loss. We take much about our loved ones for granted and have never had to do without their presence, therefore we do not realize all they mean to us. I have loved my wife for forty years and have always known that she has great value to me. The day she had emergency by-pass surgery and I could have lost her, I discovered value in her that I never knew before. Even with that experience I still do not know her true worth and will not know unless she dies before I do. Then and only then will I know all she meant in my life.
Often this inventory can create a sense of guilt. "Why didn't I recognize how much this friend meant to me?" Or, "Why didn't I say something about how great this friend was?"
I hope you will not let that guilt become an obsession to you. You did not recognize the value or express it because it is impossible to really know what we have lost until the person is gone.
The Types of Significance
There are three types of significance that need to be established.
The first is Personal Significance. We need to establish what that person meant to us. Since we really do not know all of the value until a person is gone, there will be a period of time when that value is flooding in on us. Every day we find another area we had taken for granted. Every day we find a new area to miss. Things that may have even irritated us now may become things we would give the world to be irritated by one more time.
There may be an incessant need to talk about the person. We may tend to make a saint out of someone who was not saintly at all. We may find some family and friends looking at us like we have gone too far. Let them look. Right now you need to work throught he process of significance. And in the working through you may go to the extreme. It is like a pendulum that swings too far at first, but in time it will settle down to the right path. You will settle into a real view of the person in time. Right now you need to let the pendulum swing and feel whatever you feel. If you need to talk about the person go ahead and talk. If you make them to be far better than they were-go ahead. That is part of the healing process.
The flood of emotions will not continue forever. You will not find a new thing to hurt about every morning from now on. As significance is established you will move on into the rest of the grief experience and work towards reconstruction.
Second, There is the Personal Pain. This is the times for discovering what you have lost. This is very close to the significance of the person, but it takes on a more personal aspect. What the person means is one thing. What the loss means to me is another. This is the time when the effect of the death begins to become very real. The personal pain will vary with each person and with each loss.
>If a Friend Dies
When my friend died, I had to fight the urge to stand on the street corner telling the town how much he meant to them and to me. I seemed to fear they would not understand just how valuable his life was. I also had the need to tell them how much his death hurt me and what the effect would be on my life.
If a Child Dies
After the death of a child the flood is not about things a mate did for us, it is a flood of things we did for the child that we no longer do. The glood is a river of loneliness and despair over the loss. You will wish you could tell the whole world now much the child meant to you and how important the life was even though it was short.
Areas of loneliness begin to flood upon us. You will think of at least a million things you want to tell that person. Events will happen almost hourly that you will think you must remember to tell him, and then the heart will remind you that you can't do that in person now or anymore.
Third, We Need to know the Social Significance. We also need to know how much our loved one meant to others. Funeral Homes visits and the funeral gives people the chance to express how much the person meant to friends and neighbors. Friends dropping by or calling to tell how much the person meant, will help ease their loneliness and pain.
During the next few months you will be trying to establish significance in many ways. Often you will be doing so subconsciously. You may not see any connection between what you are saying or doing and significance. The questions you ask can be connected when you ask, "Will I survive this pain?" You want to know if you will survive, but you are also saying, "See how much I have lost." If you ask, "Where was God when my loved one died?" You are responding to one of the universal questions, but you are also saying, "My loved one is so important there must be a good reason for the death."
Significance and Healing
Significance is a major key to you health. If you can establish it you will move on into the grieving process as a natural cause, and proceed through the grieving process much faster. If you are not allowed to establish sifnigicance, then the need to do so can become obsessive. Many times the people who can't seem to adjust to a death are the ones who were not given the chance to establish and move on. Years later the death is still fresh and they are angry because no one would listen or care.
The Vietnam War provides us a good example of not allowing significance to be established. The unpopularity of the war kept our nation from honoring the sacrifices of those who fought the battles. Often they were honoring reviled for being involved. The majority of the nation ignored them when they came home. The nation tried to forget, and in the forgetting denied the veterans the significance of their sacrifice. Today many Vietnam veterans have become full time victims of the war. The war dominates all these years. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington has done much to heal many of these brave veterans. The memorial is nothing more than a monument to the significance of the lives lost in that tragic war. When they find significance, many can move on.
Significance and Conflict
The need for significance can create conflict with friends and family. Your friends want you to be better. Your family members do not want you to hurt. Their natural tendency will be to put the best face on your pain. When you are trying to tell them how much you have lost, they may well be trying to show you that everything will be all right. They may do this with the best of intentions, but their efforts can make you very angry. Right now you want someone who will listen to you and not try to fix the problem. The problem can't be fixed, and you need to inventory the loss and begin to grieve. It may be necessary for you to tell them that all you need and want is someone to listen. I wish I could persuade people to just let folks tell their stories and not think they have to explain it or have a solution so it won't hurt. It still hurts and some explanations are maddening.
