I walked a mile with death ...

I walked a mile with Gladness,

She chattered all the way.

Leaving me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

And I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And never a word said she,

And, oh, the things I learned from her

When Sorrow walked with me.

What did you learn from the death of your loved one?

I didn't learn much from the death of my cousin.  Well, I *was* only seven years old.

From the death of my sister, when I was fifteen, I learned that nobody would talk about death.  Nope.  Not at all.  A lesson that holds to this day.

From the death of my grandmother, when I was eighteen, I learned that everybody was embarrassed by death.

Then I lost status, and position, and jobs, and I learned about depression, and learned helplessness.

From the deaths of a couple more grandparents (and, looking back on it, my sister), I learned that people make up myths and legends about, not only death itself, but individual deaths.  The stories about the individual deaths are formulated to support the general myths about death and dying.

So, I guess, I was primed to learn from Gloria's death. I already knew that there were things to be learned from death, and from deaths.

I learned that grief doesn't actually kill you.  (Although often you wish it would.)  And that it is often true that what doesn't actually kill you does, indeed, make you stronger.  And that while most things in this world that make you stronger make you less sensitive, grief makes you both stronger and *more* sensitive.

I learned about the two distinct styles of grieving.  I learned that the grief industry knows only the one style, and addresses only that type of need.  I learned of the hypothesis of grieving as relearning of the nature of the world.

I learned of the uniqueness of grief, but also the commonalities of the symptoms or factors.  I learned that nobody who is not bereaved understands grief.  Some people do care about grief, and sometimes even ask about it, but they are extremely rare.