Task I: To accept the reality of the loss
When someone dies, even if the death is expected, there is always a sense that
it hasn't happened. The first task of grieving is to come full face with the reality that
the person is dead, that the person is gone and will not return. Denial of the loss can
be practiced on several levels and take various forms.
Task II: To experience the pain of grief
Experiencing the pain of a loss includes the physical, emotional and behavioral
pain associated with a loss. Anything that allows the person to avoid or suppress this
pain can be expected to prolong the course of mourning. People short circuit the working
of Task II by cutting off their feelings and denying that pain is present. Society may be
uncomfortable with the mourners' feelings and hence may give the subtle message, "You
don't need to grieve". Giving way to grief is stigmatized as morbid, unhealthy and
demoralizing. The proper action of a friend and well-wisher is thought to be distraction
of a mourner from his or her grief.
Task III: Adjust to the environment in which the deceased is missing
Adjusting to the new environment means different things to different people, depending on
what the relationship with the deceased was and what roles the deceased played. The
survivor is usually not aware of all the roles played by the deceased. This realization
seems to emerge about three months after the loss and involves coming to terms with living
alone, raising children alone, facing an empty house, managing finances and the like.
Many survivors resent having to develop new skills and to take on roles themselves that were
formerly performed by the deceased.
Task IV: Withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship
The fourth and final task in the grieving process is to effect an emotional withdrawal
from the deceased person so that this emotional energy can be reinvested in another
relationship. This is easily misunderstood by the bereaved who think it is somehow
dishonoring the memory of the deceased. In some cases they are frightened by the prospect
of reinvesting their emotions in another relationship because it, too, might end in loss.
The realization that "There are other people to be loved and that doesn't mean I love
(name) any less" marks an accomplishment of this task.
When is mourning finished?
Asking this question is a little like asking "How high is up?" There is no
ready answer. In the loss of a close relationship, Worden states he would be suspicious
of any full resolution that takes under a year and, for many, two years is not too long.
One benchmark for completed grief is when a person can think of the deceased without pain.
There is always a sense of sadness when you think of someone that you have loved and lost,
but this sadness lacks the wrenching quality it previously had. One can think of the
deceased without physical manifestations such as intense crying or feeling tightness in
the chest. There are those, however, who never seem to accomplish a completion to their
grieving. As one widow says, "Mourning never ends. Only as time goes on, it erupts less
frequently".
