A liberating fact

Not long ago, I was reminded of a special episode on the TV show “Home Improvement” starring Tim Allen as Tim Taylor.  John Binford, the man who gave Tim a job as the main star of “Tool Time” passed away unexpectedly.  John was not only Tim’s boss, but he was also a father figure to him.  This was a big deal because Tim Taylor’s dad passed away when he was 11 years old.  Jill, Tim’s wife, grieved by shedding many tears; Tim however wasn’t crying.  Jill was frustrated at Tim’s lack of emotion.  So, as usual when he didn’t know what to do, Tim talked to his faceless neighbor, Wilson (OK, technically he isn’t faceless; but it is true that you never saw Wilson’s face on the show, it was covered from view, usually by the fence).

Tim confessed to Wilson, “When my dad died, I remember being really sad, but I don’t remember crying.”  At one point in their conversation, Wilson said, “Tim, you have to find a way to grieve.”  And Tim did just that.  I find this episode fascinating.  One of the things I think it illustrates is a very important and liberating fact: everyone grieves differently.

In the early days after my dad’s passing, the funeral home gave me a book written by David Kessler entitled “When a Parent Dies: Dealing with the Loss of your Mother or Father”.  At one point in the book, Kessler wrote, “Some of us tend to feel that our way of grieving is the right way.  We think others should grieve like we do.  Regardless of the grief we feel, we usually fall toward one end of the pendulum or the other.  We are either “grieving the right way (our way)” or judging ourselves that we are grieving the wrong way.”

I have encountered some well-meaning people who prescribe what they feel is the correct way to grieve.  No, they haven’t had the audacity to declare, “Kevin, you aren’t grieving correctly,” but they have still sent me the message that I had better experience this and that in my grief, otherwise, something is wrong.  I disagree.  I think this is an incorrect mindset.

If you go down this path, you can easily frustrate yourself because you’ll be tempted to compare yourself with others.  For example, a friend of mine lost his father and he said for a long period of time - five years - he couldn’t bear the thought of hearing his dad’s voice.  This differed from my own grieving experience.  But that doesn’t mean that my friend was wrong and I was right, it simply reinforces the idea that everyone grieves in their own way.  As Kessler put it in another part of the book, “the truth is that our grief is as individual as our lives.”

Kevin