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Welcome to my website, I am glad that you have found your way here, although I am sorry for the reason that may have brought you. I am your host Mitch Carmody, a bereaved father, bereaved son, bereaved sibling and grief facilitator. We are now closing in on the end of the first decade of the new millennium. Most of us baby boomers remember reading about Haley’s comet when we were kids and we hoped to see it zoom across the night sky as an adult. We hoped to see men land on the moon and witness space travel to an international space station; we used a real outhouse; we had only a couple stations that we could watch B&W television on; telephones had party lines that you shared with neighbors; one computer filled an enormous room; water was not sold in bottles and there was no AC. That was only 50 years ago, my has the world changed. No Berlin wall; no nuclear exchange with Russia happened; we saw Haley’s comet come and go; we watched a space shuttle carry passengers to an international space station; we passed beyond the angst of Orwell’s “1984”; we live the technology present in “2001 a Space Odyssey”; a computer can now fit into the palm of your hand; we can telephone anywhere in the world at the touch of a button; a black American has become our nation’s president. Many changes have come to pass that were foreseen and unforeseen, but where have we come in terms of processing our grief for the loss of a loved one? In the early 1800s grief was still puritanical in approach and death was perceived to be some form of punishment from God for sins and the wicked were punished accordingly. Death within the nuclear family was treated as if was an embarrassment of some wrong doing and kept hidden from view; handled privately and quietly. Stillborns, premature births and suicides were not even recognized with a mourning period and in some cases not even allowed to be buried in hallowed ground; for the most part the name of the loved one whom had died was forbidden to be uttered. In the early 1900s a more proactive approach developed toward understanding grief. Mourning mementos such as gloves, scarves, and rings proliferated. Burials began to be attended by large-scale public processions and funerals at the gravesite, and funerary speech began to take on a sentimental or eulogistic quality instead of damnation. Life after death was hoped for and the belief that the spirit survived death became the norm. This also gave rise to the Spiritualism movement/religion that brought forth a plethora of mediums, séances, and Ouija board encounters that supported life after death. In the latter part of the 20th century we seemed to have reached a point in bereavement processing that had moved from that ecstatic era of extended and ritualized mourning to our current paradigm shift to a “Drive Thru” mentality to “get this all over done with”. Three days off from work, the waking, mourning and the cremation/burial have taken place and public mourning is finished... Get over it, move on. In this latter transmogrification of the bereavement process we find a more sanitized, streamlined approach that has adapted to our fast moving culture. Wake periods are kept short and sweet or even non-existent; funeral plans are made quickly without elaborate preparations; mementos of mourning are seldom worn or displayed; even the wearing of black is seen less and less. This lack of a very personal and public display of mourning has created an environment that can delay or circumvent the critical lamentation period that must take place. The loss must be expressed, the bereaved need to lament their loss and express their pain. I believe our society is ready for a paradigm shift in the bereavement process; a shift to proactive grieving™; a shift that will allow the bereaved to be able to grieve naturally and openly; be given permission to express the full depth of their loss. To be able to lament and to mourn as long as is needed; to have the freedom to express their pain whenever it erupts; to be able to survive without guilt, without shame and without fear of ridicule; living the loss, living the pain and regaining the joy. We live; we love; we grieve; we remember; we survive; we make a difference... |