“But life is not about lost and found,” I told them.
It’s about celebrating that the spirits of our loved ones came to us—sometimes for a few short days, sometimes for many decades—and it’s about letting go. About acknowledging the sorrow and joy that coexist in this moment, and embracing all of it.
Parents often say, “I’d die for my child.” I heard a few of the parents in the grief group express the wish to trade places with their deceased children—to die so their children could live. After the war, I felt the same way. I would have gladly died to bring my parents and grandparents back.
But now I know that instead of dying for my dead, I can live for them.
And live for my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren—for all my loved ones who are still here.
If we can’t move on from our guilt and make peace with our grief, it’s damaging to our loved ones, and not a compliment to those who’ve died. We have to let the dead be dead, to stop yanking them up again and again, to let them go and to live our own best lives so they can rest in peace.
Sofia is at a critical place in her grief.
Her mother was a dynamic teacher and celebrated psychologist who finished her master’s degree at age fifty (like me!) and became certified in Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy (like me!)—a theory and method of guiding patients to discover meaning in their lives and experience. She was still working at age seventy, and had just published her first book, when she started having back pain. She was an exceptionally healthy woman—Sofia can’t remember her ever having so much as a cold—but suddenly she was refusing food, avoiding family events and social functions because her back hurt so intensely. She saw a specialist who found nothing wrong. She went from specialist to specialist, trying to discover the root of the pain, and finally a gastroenterologist performed the tests that revealed her diagnosis: stage-four pancreatic cancer. She died a month later.
For a year, Sofia was in constant mourning, crying all the time. The passage of time has dulled her intense shock and sadness, and the pain is less raw and consuming—but she’s in a precarious place, a crossroads where she can choose to heal or stay stuck. To heal doesn’t mean to get over it, but it does mean that we are able to be wounded and whole, to find happiness and fulfillment in our lives despite our loss.
“She died so suddenly,” Sofia told me. “There was no time to prepare, and I have so many regrets.”
“Do you have guilt? Do you think there’s something you could have done that you didn’t do?”
“Yes,” she said. “My mom was so strong, I never thought she was dying. I scolded her for not eating. I was trying to help her, but if I’d known they were her last days, I would have reacted differently.”
She was imprisoned by two words: what if. What if I’d known she was dying? What if I’d known I was about to lose her? But what-ifs don’t empower us. They deplete us.
I told Sofia, “Today you can say, ‘If I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently.’ And that’s the end of the guilt. Because you owe it to your mom to turn that guilt around. Just say, ‘That used to be me. Now I will begin to cherish the memories that no one can take away.’ You had her for thirty-four wonderful years. There will never be another mom like that. There will never be another therapist like that. So cherish the person she was and the time you had, and don’t waste another moment on guilt, because guilt does not produce love. Ever.”
Guilt stops us from enjoying our memories. And it prevents us from living fully now.
“When you’re guilty, you’re not available to be playful, to have intimacy,” I told Sofia. “And you’re tarnishing the beautiful things. The memory of blow-drying your mom’s hair in the hospital, helping her feel elegant and pretty as she wished to be in her final days. The gift that she went quickly, without suffering for years and years, unable to control her faculties.”
Sometimes we may feel that we’re cheating on the dead if we laugh too much, that we’re abandoning them if we have too much fun, forgetting them if we’re happy.
“But you belong dancing with your husband,” I said, “not sitting at home crying for your mom. So get rid of that punitive parent voice in you—the should’ve, could’ve, why didn’t I. You’re not free when you’re guilty. If your mom were sitting with you now, what would she tell you she wishes for you?”
“For my sisters and me to be happy. For us to live a full life.”
“And you can give her that gift. Have a full life. Celebrate. Your whole life is ahead of you now. I see her winking at you, encouraging you. So show up for your sisters and your husband. Love each other. And when you’re ninety-two you can think of me, and how your life began when your precious mother died and you made the decision to have a full life, and not be a victim of any circumstance. It’s your job now to give her a gift: let go. Let go.”
Grief has so many layers and flavors: sorrow, fear, relief, survivor’s guilt, existential questioning, diminished safety, fragility. Our whole sense of the world is interrupted and rearranged. The adage says, “Time heals all wounds.” But I disagree. Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time.
Sometimes people compensate for the upheaval of grief by trying to keep everything the same—jobs, routines, and relationships remain static. But when you’ve
