Grief, Mourning, and Public Grief
After cremation services in Skaneateles, NY, you will grieve the loss of your loved one. You may hear people say they are mourning the loss of your loved one as well, or they may refer to you as “being in mourning.”
Put simply, mourning is grief that is externally expressed. You – and others – may express grief externally with behavior or clothing. In earlier times, mourning was a formalized process for both women and men, with strict rules about how long to mourn, what to wear while in mourning, and how much time had to pass before you were out of mourning (and could socialize, date, or remarry).
Although most of the etiquette of that process has been discarded, a few remnants of it remain. For example, in most Western cultures, black is considered the color of mourning. Therefore, you may adopt a black wardrobe for some time after the loss of your loved one and many of the people who attend services for your loved one will be dressed in black.
The actions of mourning that are externally expressed are often social in nature. After the death of your loved one, you may not do things you normally did before for a while. Perhaps you and a group of friends met for dinner once a week, or you had a regular workout or reading group that you joined on a regular basis.
After your loved one dies, you may put those kinds of activities on hold while you mourn your loss.
You may also externally express mourning by talking about your loved one with other people, whether in person or on social media. You may also externally express mourning by remembering your loved one’s birthday or by commemorating anniversaries or remembering the day they died.
Grief, on the other hand, is something you feel. Grief is the total of your emotional, physical, and mental reactions to the loss of your loved one. Grief is internal and it is unique to you. When you grieve, you are bereaved. The word bereave has its roots in an Old English word (berēafian) that is defined as being taken away by violence, being deprived of, or being robbed. It’s a good word to define the feelings associated with grief.
When you grieve, you are often alone with your grief. We live in a society that is adverse to the feelings of grief: pain, sadness, and sorrow, so unless you have a close friend, a grief counselor, or a small grief support group where you can talk about how your grief feels, you have to go through it primarily in solitude and on your own.
This can make your grief much worse, because you may feel that it’s not okay to express how grief feels without people trying to minimize it or rejecting it entirely. That can lead to emotional, mental, and physical distress that is added to the loss you have suffered.
Therefore, it’s important to take advantage of the grief resources that your funeral home has, so that you have an avenue and outlet to express your grief in a way that is healthy.
Public grief is a different kind of grief altogether. It is the grief that people collectively feel when a tragic event happens or someone who is well-known dies. It doesn’t touch you in a deep and personal way for very long, but you feel bad about it happening.
If you’d like to know about cremation services in Skaneateles, NY, our compassionate and experienced team at Bagozzi Twins Funeral Home, Inc. is here to help.
