Death Brings Us Closer, Maybe for a Brief Time

Through griefs over deaths of loved ones that I have experienced or observed, there seems to be a pattern. Death brings people closer.

Death Brings Us Closer, Maybe For a Brief Time

Through griefs over deaths of loved ones that I have experienced or observed, there seems to be a pattern. Death brings people closer. The days following the passing, up until and possibly immediately after the service, a very special bond is formed among the survivors. You may say that it is the strengthening of an existing bond. Possibly. Still, there is a uniqueness and different authenticity to this bond that it may deserve to be called its own. This is the time when people often remove or soften their barriers. They expose their vulnerabilities to life, to death. They speak from their purer authenticity. They allow pain to show and desire to support one another to surface.

Naturally, we grieve differently. Those who are hit the most with the death, the ones closest, are perhaps too numb to participate in this “connectedness” ritual of sorts. They could be brought in with the help and support of others, gently and slowly. This authentic connectedness can be healing. It may even be more healing if it could be allowed to be sustained for a longer period of time. Instead, often, people – usually the outlying survivors -get back their habitual fears and go back into their flight modes. Once again, they escape the reality of the certainty of death and the pain that it could bring.

Death brings the survivors closer together for a brief time. It then becomes a springboard for most to flee into their alternate realities. How wonderfully healing it could be if we could suspend ourselves longer in this connected state, authentic with one another, in total kindness and radical acceptance of our vulnerability!

Yasemin