Loss.

I am a history nerd. NERD. It has always defined me and I'm pretty sure it will define me until the day I become part of the unknown in history.  I have written lengthy papers on topics that interest me.  I have continued researching my senior thesis topic since graduating from undergrad.  My senior thesis is probably THE most important and most revealing thing I have written.  Very few people have read it.  Very few people understand why I would write about what I did. ( I wrote about mourning customs in antebellum America; about  Southern women who had experienced great loss during 4 years of war and talked about their grief;   about Ladies Memorial Associations after the war that helped Southern women heal a wound that was so deep in their heart and psyche.)

Since most people do not understand why I ever would have stumbled upon that sort of topic for a senior thesis, I rarely take the time to explain it.  Grief, death, and mourning are all very personal things.  Why would I want to write about women's experiences with grief 150 years later?  Because it is personal. Because history shouldn't be impersonal.  Because they were women and just like me have experienced grief in their lives. 

I read an article on Yahoo! News this morning.  Patrick Swayze's wife continues to text her husband. One woman in the article says she kept her husband's phone activated so that she could phone and hear his voice when the call went to voicemail.  Michelle Williams (Heath Ledger's girlfriend, or at least child's mother) said that she wished that in today's society we still had the traditions of the antebellum era to help those who are recovering from loss deal with the pain in an organized fashion. 

Part of antebellum tradition dictated women's dress throughout the mourning process.  Now, before you get all feminist on me, thinking that societal rules that dictate such things are antiquated, think about how it might help someone suffering from a serious loss. After the loss, women were instructed to wear black.  They would wear their grief on their sleeve, literally. As time passed, they were permitted to alter their clothing's shade.  From black they would go to grey and then a mauve to purple shade.  Then when the societal dictated time was correct, they could begin to wear their normal clothes again.  While it may seem confining to today's women, there is something to be said about dictated guidelines of how to mourn a loss. They moved through their grief emotionally and physically. 

These guidelines were meant to help those who had felt a tremendous loss, hold on to their life and keep it together.  Most of us want for our lives to continue with as normal after a tremendous loss, but it can, at times, seem impossible. It is hard to keep it together. You want the hurt and pain to be over with, but you know that if you aren't feeling anything, then you aren't holding onto the past with enough reverence. 

So what are today's guidelines when it comes to dealing with a loss? How do you move on in the present, while still maintaining a connection to the part of your life that is no longer there?