~daily message from Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman

An individual doesn't get cancer, a family does.

~Terry Tempest Williams

In facing loss, sharing grief with others in the family can be wonderfully helpful.  As we mourn together, tell our common stories, and go over old possessions and memorabilia, we are able to be present to one another in ways no one outside the family circle can possibly be.

But at other times we may be the last person another family member needs in working his or her way through grief.

Why?  Because we all have different histories with the one who has died, and the different ways of grieving.  One member of the family may feel resentful - or heroic - that he or she has carried more of the burden of a parent's long illness.  Another, less close, may feel relegated to some kind of second-class status.  More reserved members of the family may find the more expressive members jarring and overwrought.  The intensity of death and loss can make otherwise acceptable differences in style seem almost intolerable, and it may help us get through some difficult times if we can accept both the graces and the hazards of sharing our loss with one another.