Loss comes at different seasons of our lives and for different reasons. It triggers an emotion within ourselves as a result of some life circumstance. There are many who believe that mourning is best when we find closure, but the idea of getting over it and the extent of the emotions triggered is a myth. I’m not sure if we really ever get over the loss of someone, as much as we learn to cope.

There is this misguided belief that mourning and getting through a loss is a process that people work through, where any significant loss, later and repeatedly, brings up longing and sadness. That the reason why a person hasn’t been able to find closure is that our emotions don’t work through the loss by closing it out of ourselves. This thinking isn’t true. As time passes the feelings may become less intense. We learn to distract ourselves and start to create new memories. However, those deep emotions aren’t erased. Mourning does not have the goal of finding closure. Rather it’s about what we will do with those emotions more than anything.

Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays and any landmark event that comes up may trigger emotions of anxiety and depression because we wish to spend these days with those that we have lost. These are the external reminders that are triggered within us. Most people try to get over it, but that’s just the opposite of the purpose for emotions.

I remember reading about mourning. What it said was this, Grieving such losses is important because it allows us to ‘free-up’ energy that is bound to the lost person, object, or experience—so that we might re-invest that energy elsewhere. … Healthy grieving results in an ability to remember the importance of our loss—but with a newfound sense of peace, rather than searing pain. I thought further about what I read and came to realize that mourning is a part of the journey to healing.

You can remember what you learned from the person you lost, remember what you enjoyed, and you can cry if you feel like crying. Even if your grief is about a relationship gone wrong. There is always something that you can learn through recollection. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow expresses his lifelong experience of grief in the first 3 lines of his poem, Secret Anniversaries of the Heart: The holiest of all holidays are those. Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart.

This is the notion of remembering someone within our hearts. Rather than thinking about how we can get over others and try to get past the loss and emotions that we feel. What may be meant to be instead is to try to lessen the pain and loss that we feel inside by learning for ways to remember ways that we can do to remember that person.