OPINION: Grief part of life - so drop the taboo

NEVER FORGOTTEN: In our society, we impose a time limit on other's grief.

With death being one of the only two certainties on this planet, we're all going to lose someone special at some point. To mourn, some say, is the price we pay for love.

Then how come such a natural phenomenon has become such a taboo subject?

I've noticed lately how terrible our society is at handling others' grief. It makes us uneasy.

We don't much like it when people drop their departed loved one into a conversation. We cringe when they put their favourite pictures up on social media. We tell them, simply, to "get over it".

Friends of mine have heard some truly ghastly comments from members of their community.

For example, a mum who lost her baby daughter being asked, not long afterwards, when she was going to try for another baby. A husband whose soul mate died at just 26 being told he was "living in the past" when sharing memories on Facebook. The devoted wife who had some friends cut all ties after she lost her husband. And the mum who told an acquaintance she still celebrates her son's birthday, four years after his tragic death, only to be asked "shouldn't you be over that by now?".

In some other cultures, the dead are honoured long after the casket is lowered. Deceased ancestors play an important role in Maori traditions -- they are acknowledged at all gatherings and meetings, through calls, speeches and song.

In Judaism, a formal mourning period can last up to a year, where family members don't attend parties, travel or buy clothing -- and every anniversary is commemorated with prayer or lighting a candle.

The Malagasy people have a ritual called "the turning of the bones", where bodies are regularly exhumed and sprayed with perfume -- and family members will even dance with the bones at lively parties.

Even the Victorian English weren't so reserved: funerals were huge, elaborate spectacles, loved ones obsessively collected mementos of the dearly departed, and posed the newly deceased in family portraits.

But now, as Mark Toomer, a Christchurch man who lost his two-year-old daughter, put it, "society is squeamish -- you're a bit spooky if you keep talking about a dead person".

Have we become so dazzled by all those "power of positivity" slogans that we can't handle any "negative" emotions? Is it neoliberal philosophies telling us grief is a symptom of weakness and victimhood? Or are we just terrified by the realisation of our own mortality?

Whatever it is, these attitudes aren't overly helpful for those who physically hurt from missing the person they love.

So, a challenge: if someone you love is grieving, don't impose a time limit on their pain, and tell them to get over it. Instead, try listening and just being there.

It works wonders.