Grief

Sometimes people grieve when no death is involved - except maybe the death of a dream.

It's not uncommon for parents to grieve when they learn their child has special needs and won't be able to have the life they'd imagined.

Or if someone learns they have a disability or chronic illness themselves grief is a normal reaction.

As when someone dies, it's usual to go through the five stages of grief explained by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (sorry I don't know how to add umlauts to her name.) Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance and people may cycle through them for a long time or return to them long after they've come to terms with the situation. The same thing is true with the sort of grief I'm talking about, and any of the stages can re-occur at any time.

If they do, it's perfectly normal.

The Right to Grieve

One of our foster kids often had violent tantrums. Smashed windows and thrown furniture were common throughout the years he lived with us. But he was a kind-hearted child at heart and, even when having tantrums, we knew he'd be careful never to hurt anyone else.

When he reached puberty that changed and the day he physically attacked me we knew we wouldn't be able to keep him because he would endanger the other kids. We gave him up and he was institutionalized.

Although we hadn't been able to adopt him because of legal technicalities, we had considered him our son and loved him as our own. And when we lost him, I was stricken with grief.

One relative, who had been a teacher and knew it's possible to love kids you didn't gave birth to, told me she was sorry. Someone else who had been in danger of loosing her kids in a custody battle also expressed sympathy. But that was all the support we got. My mother told me she was glad our son was gone because caring for him had been so hard on me, and other people had similar reactions, if they noticed at all.

A few weeks later the son of one of my friends was killed in a car accident and the entire community offered her sympathy and support. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I felt jealous. Why couldn't those people understand that loosing a child for any reason can be just as painful as loosing one to death?

Since then whenever I hear of people who lose their children in custody battles, have to give them up for adoption, or send them away for institutional care they have my greatest sympathy. Loosing a child for any reason is one of the most painful things a parent can experience.

A Different Kind of Grief

Decades ago Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about five stages that people dealing with grief are likely to go through; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Since then her theory has been questioned, but apparently most grieving people do go through those stages, although they may be in a different order and some or all stages may be repeated many times.

Death is not the only thing that causes grief. We may grieve at the loss of anything we value, and discovering that we or a loved one have a serious medical condition or special need normally results in grieving. And, unlike death, these things are not likely to be done so that we can deal with them and move on. Instead they often continue for a lifetime.

Those things can bring about the death of a dream, such as when a child is diagnosed with something that will prevent him or her from having the expected sort of childhood, or when people discover conditions that will prevent the kind of career or marital relationship they had or hoped for.

It's perfectly normal for people dealing with special needs to have certain stages of grief occur many times during their lifetimes.

Grief

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 a disability is "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits ... major life activities."

Recently several people I know have died and the survivors who loved them are dealing with grief. That certainly substantially limits their major life activities, so perhaps grief should be considered a disability.

I'm not suggesting that people who have lost a loved one should be entitled to use handicapped parking spaces, but they should certainly be given allowances for being unable to accomplish things they usually can do. For example, employers should be understanding when the work of someone experiencing grief is not up to par and insurance companies should be willing to pay for counseling when it's needed.

Fortunately grief usually becomes less severe with time as people work through the four stages and eventually the effect on major life activities will be much milder.