Grief and memory

The problem with "you will always have your memories"

One of my favorite books about grief is Mary Lamia’s Grief Is Not Something You Get Over (American Psychological Association, 2022). Many of her ideas about grief aim at dismantling mythologies. Among my favorites is her assertion that the concepts of “closure” and “acceptance” do not apply to grief. The notion that the grieving person will one day reach closure by accepting the loss carries with it an implication that grief is time-limited. It suggests that one grieves for a while and then stops grieving.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) now permits a diagnosis of Prolonged Grief Disorder, the very name of which conveys a belief that grief is time-limited. Something cannot be prolonged unless it has an expected length, after which it is, well, prolonged — and then becomes a mental disorder. In fairness, it is not correct to say that the DSM asserts that grief becomes a diagnosis when it passes some hypothetical expiration date. Rather, an individual must be experiencing “persistent and intense yearning or longing for the deceased, or preoccupation with thoughts or memories of them,” and that intense feeling must persist beyond the first year after a loss. The current edition of the DSM (DSM-5-TR) lists the kinds of symptoms that must be present for the diagnosis to apply. But the fact that the diagnosis is possible implies that grief is something one should “get over.”

Everyone knows that grief is connected to memory. We would not grieve a person we have no memories of. Among Dr. Lamia’s contributions is her presentation of cogent ideas about how memory and grief are connected and how they interact. I recommend the book to those who want to explore this subject in depth. But here is an aspect of Lamia’s work that has stayed with me months after reading it.

Memories are often presented to the grieving person as a consolation: “You’ll always have your memories.” That is often true, but that well-intentioned comment might be countered by this observation: memories are the fuel of grief. Grief is not possible without memories. And both bad memories and good memories contribute to the pain of grief.

Troubling, negative memories (that terrible fight we had, and those things we said to each other!) cause one kind of pain — a grief that comes from regret. (I wish I hadn’t said that. I wish I had apologized. I wish we’d had a chance to talk it through.)

Happy memories contribute to the pain of grief by their contrast with the new reality of loss. The mind says: We had happy times. We loved each other. Now that is lost. In that way, good memories are a source of the pain of loss.

That sounds like a cruel trap. Memories, good and bad, give birth to our grief. Painful memories produce painful, regretful grief. Happy memories produce the pain of loss. But Lamia offers hope through new ways of approaching grief — ways that are only possible when we embrace the idea that grief is not something to get over within some ill-defined period of time. It may seem paradoxical, but we can live with our grief by embracing its timelessness. And we can do that by developing and maintaining continuing bonds with those we lose.

We may engage in regular rituals of remembrance — visiting graves, lighting candles, setting a place at the table for special meals. We can keep the loved one’s presence alive through the display of photos, objects, and artwork. We can do without shame what many grieving people do in secret: we can talk to the deceased. Aloud, if we wish.

We can keep their name and personality present in conversations by telling stories about them, passing down their wisdom, their sayings, or their values to younger people.

In all of this we see a new trend in our understanding of grief — away from getting over it and toward carrying the relationship forward.