by Greg Lincoln
When someone you love passes on, sometimes it is hard to separate yourself from the belongings of your loved one. You may feel like you want to keep them forever and protect and cherish them because you love them so much. They remind you of them. It is piece of them. Each item holds special meaning and having it near you gives you a sense that feels like the opposite of sadness, but you are still sad.
When a person is a hoarder, ever thing that they own is worthful to them, it has value. They can tell you exactly what it means to them or what plans they have for whatever it is that they have. When someone tries to get rid of the things, saying they are nothing or saying that they won’t be needed or used, it is hurtful to the person to whom the stuff belongs to. It causes feelings of anxiety and is upsetting to that person.
If you want to discard some of their things, always ask first. Never throw away their things without their consent.
If that person has been bereaved, the belongings of the deceased become a part of the belongings of the bereaved. If the bereaved person is suffering from prolonged grief, which is Complicated Grief, they have developed an abnormal style of grieving. They feel the pain of loss intensely even after months and years.
It is important to recognize that people who show signs of hoarding need to be shown empathy and understanding. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, to see things from their point of view and not your own.
Sometimes when a bereaved person finds out about some of the things that were lost, it causes them to go into a spiral of misery that can last for hours, even days.
Surviving Complicated Grief involves resiliency, because this kind of grieving never has an end. It goes on and on, never ceasing. There must be therapy to build resiliency. Is time a healer? Some say so, but for some time only deepens the grief. The more the days pass on by, the more we have time to think about what she means to us.
So don’t delay to show your loved ones that you cherish and appreciate them. Tell them now, today. Let them know that you care.
And us, we can only wait. As we wait we can decide how we want to wait – to do nothing or to do something. We must have courage, courage like those of you who are suffering from bereavement grief have and are still moving forward with life. You are our heroes, those we look up to so that we can try to understand why we are going through this.
Thank you, dear friends, for your gifts of kindness, the way you continue with the age-old customs and traditions of kindness time after time, day after day lifts us up and helps us on our journey. Quyana for all that you have done.
