Relief as a Response to Death

We mourn, genuinely, and are gratified

Relief comes with many experiences of grief.

Death is accompanied by grief. But if the person has been sick, or declining, if you have been a caregiver — there is often relief.

Relief can come when the adult child is freed to live their life openly — gay, sexual, partnership, career. I think relief might be a factor of age, as well.

When my mother died, she was 65, and it felt unfair that she would get no retirement years with my father. But I knew their last years together had been fraught. They were both about to lose their roles, and her health had been compromised. She was the first one to die in the network of aunts and uncles, and I didn’t know how to “do death.” Family rituals, the flowers, the visitors, the collection of photographs, and the strange way we interacted were new to me and my siblings.

There were moments of raw emotion when the older generation made assumptions about how things would be done, and how roles were changed but no one had explained those assumptions to us young adult children. My brother asked, “Who will keep the family together now?”

In a few years, our extended family rituals for end-of-life would develop a familiar pattern.

Death rituals are changing to celebrations.

The rituals around death have been changing, and COVID accelerated the experience from the immediate funeral to a celebration of life, together with a memorial webpage and technology options. The celebrations of life events happen at some convenient time further out, with a picture and candle substituting for a casket.

I was a new mother and felt grief to lose my mother just when she could be a source of advice to me. Our relationship had not been easy.

My father remarried within two years. My new stepmother was a better match for him, in some ways. They had their retirement years to travel and to get to know each other’s families.

When my father died, twelve years later, he had been diagnosed with a terrible chronic disease, and I was glad he escaped the months or years of decline. I loved him deeply but was relieved to live and write openly without self-censorship. The generation gap played out in our family, and my values and mores on living day-to-day life were very different from those of my parents.

I get how persons of those generation gap years outside an older generation’s social norms might be relieved as well as aggrieved. Many of us who are heterosexual and living a life with “don’t ask, don’t tell” qualifiers also felt free upon our parents’ deaths. The greatest change for me was in self-censorship.

Grief is a complex emotion.

I have had friends who suffered abuse from their parents, yet were caregivers to them in the end. The parents’ deaths, too, were mixed with relief — the abuser was gone, the caretaking was gone. But the person also experienced grief in losing the day-to-day role of caretaker, a complicated emotion of commitment, time, and superiority.

I also had friends waiting for their inheritance. They openly talked about what they would do when they had the money. I am thankful that my relationships were not complicated by money.

The ritual is changing — good

I am also thankful the ritual is changing so I don’t have to get somewhere with a few days’ notice. I have extended family who live in rural areas, places with limited flights into a regional airport and then a rental car and several hours drive away.

Familiarity with death makes a difference. I have more peers, now, who have died, and I don’t view death as a great divide. It is not a novelty to me. My relationships with those who died have altered, but the relationships haven’t disappeared. My friends or intimates are still available to me in my mind, and sometimes dreams. I view death as a scrim.

Celebrations of life are often that — parties, non-religious ceremonies, or other commemorations. I didn’t realize I was showing up to an event that was in place of a funeral when I appeared at a party and realized it was a wake.

Handling death has changed in some medical facilities

Professionally, the staff had prepared for the first death we experienced in our new medical facility. I felt so proud that we had agreed that we would purchase a special quilt to cover the body, and staff would stand in respect as the body was wheeled out of the facility to a funeral home. We didn’t want to hide but to honor death.

I asked the chaplain to meet with the widow when she visited one last time to collect her late husband’s things. The chaplain stifled a giggle when I asked her how the conversation had gone. “The widow asked me if I had ever used Match.com. I think she’s moved on.”

Or I think of a friend who attended the funeral of her father out of respect. The man had abandoned her family when she was a child, so she had grown up without knowing him.

The chaplain at the funeral home turned to the family in her homily and asked them if they would like to offer remembrances. My friend started chuckling, her siblings caught the giggles, and they all had to stifle laughter as they declined to share memories.

I’ve told my family that I view death as a change of address. I don’t want any bills forwarded. But having a new home is not a cause for fear.