Grieving is good, but eventually it’s time to say goodbye

Q: Read your article about how people deal with the loss of someone over the holidays. My question to you is this: It has been 24 years since I lost my mom. She and I were very close. I lost my dad in 1967, so besides being my mom, she was also my best friend. I lived 20 minutes from her and saw or talked to her often until she passed. I had hoped that time would make me adjust to losing her. I am still having problems over (her) passing. Is this normal, or do I sound like I need to talk to someone? -- C, Las Vegas

A: For the first six to eight months of an acute bereavement, I'm willing to call a wide latitude of things "normal." But 24 years later, to find oneself still stuck in such sadness ... well, C, I would encourage you to talk to someone.

C, the way you composed your question might contain some clues for you. Somehow you see your father's death as shaping -- intensifying? -- the bond between you and your mother. You say that, in his absence, she began to be more than a mother. She became a friend. Indeed, a "best friend." You lived close to her. You stayed in regular and frequent contact.

What's normal, 24 years later, is to regularly think of her. To miss her. Once in a long while, to have our eyes fill with tears of memory, gratitude, sadness. But C, just this little bit of narrative from you makes me wonder if you are struggling with a "developmental stuckness," not so much a protracted bereavement.

In my trade we call it a "complicated bereavement," meaning an occasion of loss that provokes other environmental, interpersonal or psychodevelopmental malaise or even crisis.

C, with every respect, I must tell you that I always wince in the privacy of my mind when I hear an adult describe a parent as a "best friend." Why? Because I'm antagonistic to friendships between parents and children? No! But "best friends"? Something about this language is disturbing to me. It makes me wonder if important developmental stages for you were left unfinished because of exaggerated parental bonds that could not be severed.

Severed? Yep. We can't be whole, free, mentally healthy adults until and unless we can say a definitive goodbye to our mother and father. Psychological goodbyes. Geographical goodbyes. Indeed, the success of these goodbyes is what makes possible new hellos -- as warm family, and possibly even a kind of friends.

Talk to someone, C, perhaps a professional counselor with a specialty in bereavement. If money is an issue, there are some terrific bereavement programs around the valley, ranging from sliding scale to free. One possible starting place is the Center for Compassionate Care, a subsidiary program of Nathan Adelson Hospice.

Q: My brother is insensitive to me after my dad died two years ago. I still get in a blue mood during the holidays. Is there anything wrong with that? His attitude is "get on with life!" This is true, but at this time of year it is hard for me still. -- D, North Las Vegas

A: I don't know what constitutes "blue." I don't know exactly what/how your brother is experiencing you, or what you're describing as "insensitive." But I am alerted to the dichotomy that has been postulated between you: Either be blue ... or ... get on with life.

This is a false dichotomy.

The truth is having the courage to embrace "blue" feelings is part of how we get on with life. Refusing to acknowledge grief is the fastest way I know to impede getting on with life.

And yet ...

The truth also is getting on with life is good for blue feelings. Fake it till you make it. Go through the motions as an act of hope and faith in life.

It's amazing to watch the "bereavement roles" in which family members spontaneously and preconsciously specialize. A brother gets on with life. A sister falls into protracted sadness. A widow keeps busy and works on normalcy. Then, as if on cue, families will sometimes "tag" each other and switch roles.

I'm saying that I hope you and your brother sit down and agree to respect the respective paths of recovery you have, for now, chosen. Neither is wrong or abnormal.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@ reviewjournal.com.