Film I Recently Saw, One

¶ … film I recently saw, one character asked another why we die. He replied that the reason was "to make life important." This is the first thought the first lines of Chapter 9 brought me. Grief, according to the chapter, and I find myself agreeing, is an expression of how precious those who died used to be, and how precious their memory will continue to be. In this light, I do not really agree with Freud's suggestion that "letting go" is an essential part of healing. Instead, I feel that we should, in one sense, never let go.

In my admittedly limited view, Freud's definition of "letting go" appears to be to move past the sense of loss and grief completely in such a way that the memories of the person becomes less important and hence less painful. He seems to suggest that, as human beings, we can only lead healthy and happy lives if we somehow "forget" the intense sense of loss we felt with the passing of a loved one. As such, we should "let the person go" and ourselves move on with life. I believe that this is not a productive way to handle loss.

As mentioned above, life is precious and important because we will all lose it sooner or later. Those who die are a painful and important reminder of this. In this way, the grieving process is much more than simply letting go of painful memories. It is more even than getting over and moving past the sense of loss. While it is not healthy to hold on to painful feelings and mourning for the rest of one's life after the passing of a loved one, I think one can use it as a reminder of the need to appreciate one's own life. In other words, one does not get over the loss as much as use it as a way to become aware of the preciousness of life. We appreciate life and each other much more because we have lost the loved one. Loss becomes an instrument to appreciation, in other words.

In more specific terms, grief and loss also has another important function in terms of the specific person that we have lost to death. The connections we make during life via friendships and family relationships shape us in a very important way. They become part of our personality and the way in which interact with others and feel about ourselves. When one of these connections is lost by means of death, it is painful, because the connections are important to us. Like the connections we form in life, the loss of these connections also shape us in an important way. The way and the time of death, as well as the specific person who dies, becomes as much part of us and our personality as the living connections we make. This means that we never really "let go." Instead, we integrate what the death means to us as part of the events in life that shape our personality. It is therefore important to hold on, in a sense, to what the person meant to us, and how the death affected us. This is an improtant part of life; being aware of how events shape us and using this to become better and stronger people, as suggested by Chapter 9.