Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows.
grief is the intense sadness that overcomes us when least expected, like a shadow from the past that darkens the day, the
moment or the mood.(1) Often called a grief burst, this reliving of grief may occur at any
time, usually at the most unexpected moments, and comes and goes for a lifetime. While shadow grief is often associated with
mothers whose children have died, anyone can experience this type of grief burst.
1. Healing and the Grief Process, Lynn Keegan, RN, editor. Boston: Delmar Publishers, 1997, p. 81.
To understand the many forms that shadow grief can take throughout our lives, I recommend:
Living in the Shadow of the Ghosts of Your Grief: A Guide for Life, Living and Loving by Alan Wolfelt, Companion Press, 2007.
Explaining how multitudes of North Americans are carrying the pain of all
types of loss—not just the deaths of loved ones but also the loss of a spouse through divorce, children who leave home,
and the decline of health as they age or get sick—this balanced resource empowers mourners and grief counselors to turn
grief into an experience to be learned from.
Defining the varieties of heartache and its consequences, this effective guide explores
how to inventory, understand, embrace, and reconcile one's accumulated sorrow through a five-phase "catch-up"
mourning process. Readers will learn to use a spiritual and holistic approach to examine and integrate the ignored loss
from their pasts, so that they can go on to live fuller, more balanced lives.
For a different perspective on grief, read The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss by Ruth Davis Konigsberg. She writes on page 16, "Our grief culture maintains that grief is unique,
then offers a uniform set of instructions [on how to grieve]." From the back cover: "With this book, I hope to offer
you a means of escape from our habitual ways of thinking about grief."
Konigsberg's work is thought provoking and well researched. Click A Change of Heart for my review of the book.