Where are we going with this? What is the most optimistic outcome you can imagine for your grieving process? Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? And if a potentially happy ending to grief did exist, what would it look like?
When I asked a similar question of a Facebook group sponsored by The Compassionate Friends, the responses surprised me. This was an unscientific poll and I didn’t attempt to carefully analyze the answers. But it appeared that the two most common reactions were that the grievers either 1) hadn’t thought about it or 2) felt the best possible outcome was to be reunited with their lost loved ones in the afterlife. Combined, I’d say these represented a majority.
It’s interesting that people haven’t thought about how they would like this process to turn out. But the second answer surprised me more than the first. I am a non-believer, so perhaps that is to be expected. But even for those who accept the Christian vision of an afterlife reunion with people who have died before them, it seems like a bold write-off of the prospects for a positive outcome in this life. That’s really the best you hope for? Ouch.
It may be that Americans are more likely than others to give this answer. The US., of course, is a largely Christian nation. And as far as I can tell, Christianity is the only major world religion that emphasizes reunion in the next life with loved ones we lost in this life. I assume, therefore, that non-Christian grievers do not consider reunion after death to be the best they can hope for. Personally, I don’t, but that’s just me.
Another thing I learned from online grief communities is that some people get upset if I suggest the possibility of a positive outcome. Many grievers, apparently, don’t want to consider that they might successfully navigate this episode. Not a few become seriously offended. I have been banned from online support groups for putting forth the idea that there is anything at all you can do to feel better, much less have any sort of happy ending. Still it seems to me like a pretty good idea to at least have a goal in mind when you’re making your way through a challenging experience like this.
Looking For Happy Ending Ideas
Bereaved people can be exquisitely sensitive to language. Using terms such as “getting over it” or “moving on” is near-certain to raise hackles. I’ve seen some propose “moving through” or “moving with” or other alternatives. These didn’t seem like meaningful distinctions to me. They are still quite vague. I wanted concrete, carefully thought-out ideas about what the best possible outcome of my grieving experience might be.
Me being me, I wondered what science had to say. I found grief scholars tend to describe grief’s ultimate outcome as “resolution” or “integration” instead of “getting over it” and the like. This is fine, especially if it doesn’t get the speaker banned from a support group, but still doesn’t really tell me much.
It seemed like some of the scientific assessments of grief symptoms might offer insight. There are dozens of these that measure how far someone has progressed through grief. If I looked at the concepts the assessments used, I thought, perhaps I could get an idea of what the designers thought were indicators of successful grief. One in particular called the Grief Resolution Index caught my eye.
The Grief Resolution Index was developed in 1987 to assess how widows were coping with loss. It presents seven terms paired with the question: “After your husband died, how well were you able to do your grief work in terms of the following?” Each of the seven is to be scored for fit using 1 through five, where 1 is “very poorly” and 5 is “very well.” The seven terms are:
- Accepted the death of my husband
- Stopped saying “we”
- Became able to reach out to others
- Was able to do my crying and get it over with
- Said goodbye to my husband
- Was able to think through what my husband’s death meant to me
- Was able to get on with my new life
I guess if you answer 5 on all seven, you have fully integrated the loss. (You’ll notice the developers of this assessment didn’t shy away from “get it over” and “get on with my life.” I suspect they’ve gotten a healthy ration of complaints about it.)
Most of the terms seem sensible. Acceptance is an obviously critical matter. I’m not clear about what’s wrong with saying “we,” however. The third one is an indicator of progress, no doubt, although I’m not sure being able to reach out to others is a measure of resolution, exactly.
Number four, “Was able to do my crying and get it over with,” is something I aspire to. I’ve cried more in the nearly eight months since Brady died than in the rest of my life combined, I believe. And as for intensity – I didn’t know an adult could cry that hard. I am sure I have many more tears to shed for Brady and may be buying my facial tissues at Sam’s Club for a long time to come. But I would be happy if one day I could limit the water works to special occasions.
Spy novelist Daniel Silva’s books feature a protagonist, Gabriel Allon, who visits his dead son’s grave on the boy’s birthday and cries without restraint. The rest of the year, he’s as cold as befits a professional assassin. I’m no assassin, but I would like to emulate the fictional Allon to the extent I cry just on Brady’s birthday March 13 plus maybe the anniversary of his death October 2. If I could do that, I’d think I’d at least have partially achieved the best possible outcome to this.
I think responses five, six and seven also fit well with my idea of what resolution would look like. Say goodbye, find meaning, yes and yes. And the last, get on with my life, very much so.
However, despite the rigor with which this assessment was presumably developed, I don’t find it entirely satisfying. It left out some important aspects, I thought. For instance, my best-in-class resolution would include being able to think about good times Brady and I had without weeping. Ditto watch my video of him playing “Blackbird” on his guitar or see kids playing soccer (Brady was a passionate soccer player and I watched him in hundreds of matches) or do anything that brings him to mind. If I could think of him without feeling a stab of pain, that would be successful grieving, it seems to me. The Grief Resolution Index did not completely answer my question of what a happy ending might look like.
The TRIG Gets Closer
Another grief resolution measure that is very widely used is the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, so named because the original developers were based in my uniquely excellent home state. The TRIG has 17 statements including a dozen to be answered on a five-point scale from “completely true” to “completely false” and five more as “true” or “false.” Most don’t relate to this topic, so I will just mention a few.
Some TRIG items that seem on point include statements such as “I can’t avoid thinking about my child who died.” (This version of the TRIG is for bereaved parents but it is used to assess other grieving people as well.) There are also “I am unable to accept the death of my child.” and (echoing the Grief Resolution Index) “At times I still feel the need to cry for my child who died.” These seem to get a little closer to painting a picture of what a successful grief resolution might look like.
My attention was drawn to two items in the true-or-false Related Facts section. One is “I feel that I have really grieved for my child who died.” While there’s no doubt I have really grieved for Brady, I am not sure I have grieved enough. Perhaps that’s not the intention of this item, but I am not sure how I’d answer it. It does seem to refer to the idea of closure that many grievers feel is important.
The third Related Facts item really gets to the point: “I feel that I am not functioning as well as I was before the death.” I think this probably suggests what a good resolution would look like more than anything else I’ve seen so far. If you could function like you did before, that may be as positive an outcome as we could hope for.
What About Happiness?
But what about happiness? Neither the TRIG nor any other assessment I’ve looked at specifically addresses whether you can ever hope feel as happy as you did before the loss. These misty referrals to resolution and integration miss the point. I want to be happy again. To me, that would be real success. Right now, unfortunately, it seems like that might be too much to hope for, to tell the truth. It may not be possible.
But perhaps I’m too pessimistic. Maybe there is hope for pre-loss happiness. I can’t find the citation but I recall reading somewhere about a study that asked bereaved parents 10 years after their loss whether they were as happy as before the loss. Forty percent of mothers and 60 percent of fathers said they were. If my memory is accurate and that finding is relevant to the rest of us, I am encouraged.
The Happy, Functioning Ending
My examination of the evidence for what a happy ending to grief might look like didn’t produce a solid answer. After thinking about what I have learned, I have settled on the two factors of function and happiness. I’d say that regaining pre-loss ability to function and be happy would be a positive outcome. Actually, I think I’m doing well on function, but happiness still eludes me.
There likely is no one-size-fits-all vision of successful grief. Most people would agree with that, I suspect. Even George Bonanno, a researcher who has done as much as anyone to apply modern research techniques to grief, wrote, “There are no absolutes about bereavement because the process is too idiosyncratic.”
But for now, my griever’s version of the good-guy-gets-the-girl ending is a return to pre-loss happiness and ability to function. That’s not much, but it’s what I got.
Thanks for sticking with me through this look at evidence for successful grief outcomes. I deny suggesting that anybody’s idea of grief success is wrong. Ditto those who don’t think there can be such a thing. This is my report of my experience examining evidence-based bereavement grief coping. Nothing more.
Please comment, like, share and subscribe. I think there is good evidence for grief coping strategies that can help us get through this incredibly difficult episode without suffering more or longer than necessary. I’d love to share them with you and hear about your viewpoints. And whatever your vision of the best possible outcome to your grief experience is, I fervently hope you achieve it soon.
Grief Science 