There is an idea from The Million Dollar Goal by Dan Gutman that has stuck with me ever since I read that book as a little kid. The idea is that just as you can like someone without loving them, you can also love someone without liking them. Without going too much into spoilers, this is relevant for the main characters after they lose a loved one whom they found it difficult to like. Despite their often-strained relationship, they all felt sad, and perhaps a bit guilty, after their loved one died.
This is something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: the complex and even contradictory emotions that often come up after a loved one’s death. It’s expected that there will be lots of sadness, depression, regret, and fear. What many are surprised to find, if they pay close enough attention, is that there may also be feelings of anger, relief, or joy. Anger is commonly felt toward the situation that brought about the loved one’s death (disease, injury, etc.), but it can also be felt toward the loved one for dying, even when it’s obvious on an intellectual level that the loved one didn’t choose to die. Emotions are irrational like that, and that’s perfectly fine. Relief might come to someone who has been taking care of the loved one for a long time, and now they know they’ll never have to do that again. That relief and possibly joy may be felt once the loved one is no longer in pain, struggling with a terrible disease, having to live in this bizarre world, and the like. There may also be joy in believing that the loved one is now living peacefully in paradise after death.
This also includes things they did that annoyed you, stress you felt around wondering when and how they would die, possible resentments over having to take care of them more toward the end of their lives, and any guilt or shame you feel for feeling or thinking those things. Doing this may take quite a while as such feelings toward the deceased are often considered to be taboo and unacceptable (except for when the deceased in question is nearly universally despised).
I believe that the failure to reveal uncomfortable things after the death of a loved one is why so many people feel deeply upset for the rest of their lives. They don’t want to think or feel negatively toward this person who is now gone, so they bury the negative feelings and thus never get to release them. That, along with avoiding feeling the usual emotions of sadness and regret, may very well be the origin of “The pain never goes away” and other similarly destructive ideas. As I’ve written about many times before on this blog, going deeply into the painful emotions around my dog Sawyer’s death is how I’ve been able to heal as much as I have. This involved acknowledging the anger I felt toward Sawyer for living such a short life and having health problems, welcoming the relief that arose after his death after many fearful years spent wondering if he might die in a brutal way, and the small bits of sadness I felt when he only wanted to visit with me for a short while.
This has helped me tremendously in healing the pain from my loved ones who have died, including Sawyer (as mentioned above) and another loved one who died recently. There weren’t many negative feelings in the latter case, so this has been a much easier process. All the sadness I’ve released over the past few years with Sawyer’s death must be a large part of why this recent death hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I feel extremely grateful for that as I’m not in a position to handle the level of devastation I experienced after Sawyer died in 2022.
If any of this resonates with you, then there is good news. You don’t have to tell these hidden feelings to anyone else. Just being real about them with yourself will bring relief. As painful as it may be to acknowledge some of these emotions, doing so is better than constantly suppressing those feelings and, thus, constantly feeling bad. Also, in case you feel fear or guilt at the idea of what others may think of you for doing this, doing this won’t hurt your loved one at all, whether during their life or after their death. As mentioned above, you also don’t have to tell anyone else you’re doing this, let alone reveal any particular feelings or thoughts that come up. If you’re hurting from the death of one or more loved ones, then I hope this post allows you to heal that pain while still treasuring the wonderful love and memories you shared.