Can accepting some people do not care, help you?
Accepting the loss of a loved one is an open-ended, nonlinear process. It will never truly end, coming in fits and starts and has its peaks and troughs. That said, acceptance often lays some of the groundwork for developing the wisdom to dealing with grief. It does beg the question(s): What do I accept? What should I accept, and from whom? These are difficult to answer, and knowledge is often only gained through experience…but not always.
One central plank of evidence I have shared with people came from a friend within the first few years after my son’s death. He told me I had to accept that some people, including certain family members , just did not care that my son had died. The sooner I accepted this, the easier things would be for me. Initially, this advice felt harsh and dismissive, especially considering the immense pain I was experiencing. It was not easy to hear at the time and perhaps I should place it in the appropriate context.
At the time, my family had found itself unwittingly embroiled in a dispute or conflict with elements of our extended family. As any reader will know, the most difficult ones to navigate and always tend to be ill-timed. The conflict revolved around a particular family member's resentment in having to offer us support. I had been working on the assumption that most people have the capacity to see the death of a child as a tragedy for the family involved, particularly if it is a member of their own extended family. I was wrong and I was probably more hurt by the audacity (well at least in my mind) of these familial elements to create tension at such a difficult time as opposed to the actual rejection. This had been going on for some time, and my friend, who had always been very supportive of my family, was becoming concerned with how upset and angry I was becoming with the situation. He was ultimately attempting to make me see reason as I grew increasingly emotional at the perceived injustice of it all.
Upon reflection, I realised several key truths:
You will always be upset that your child has died.
As a parent this will hurt deeply for the rest of your life.
It is not possible for others to care as much as you and more importantly they cannot be capable of doing so.
From now on to survive, focus only on people who are having a positive effect on your life and remove the negative influences.
Truths 1, 2 and 3 are an important part of building acceptance. Admittedly, the sheer magnitude of pain you are in can make these truths incredibly difficult to swallow, especially in the early stages of grief. However, by acting on truth number 4, it did and has allowed me to spend energy and time on looking after myself and the people who care about my family.
Human beings are social creatures that can form large groups that can function together. We have our own individual needs, and we subvert some of these needs to that of the larger group. When you consider the impact of losing a beloved family member, it would be sub-optimal for the rest of society to feel as deeply and become as affected in the immediate aftermath and following years of this death. Life must go on for everyone else and the rest of society must function. While my personal experience was painful, it also led me to consider the broader societal context of grief.
Conversely, being part of a family group or close friendship, we have all signed an unconscious collective agreement that we will help group members in their time of most need. This is how we have survived as a species. When individuals break this contract, you no longer need to consider them part of the group and more importantly be thankful that good people honour their social contracts, as they will help you get through any tragedy.