Continuing Bonds

            In one of my previous entries in this blog, I discussed grief and the various stages that people usually go through in loss.  As we grieve over a loss, we often let go of how things were, realizing that the past will never come back as it was.  We then get to a point when we accept the reality of our new situation and get on with our lives. 

            This process is easier said than done.  A colleague of mine, Ms. Angelica Ang, recently did her thesis on what she called “continuing bonds.”  What she tried to capture in her study was how people, particularly widows, grieved over the loss of a loved one (in this case, their husbands).  But instead of totally letting go, many among these women actually thought that their relationship with their husbands merely transformed from a more physical to a spiritual one.

            She found out from some studies done in the west how about 40% of widows actually communicate with their deceased spouse.  They also felt that they were watched over.  Slightly more women (44%) even went to the extent of admitting that they sense their deceased spouse’s presence; they felt the touch, heard the voice, or even see the image of their spouse after their passing.  For many others, their memories of their spouses kept them alive somehow.  Many still keep their spouse’s belongings, and regularly perform rituals of remembrance. 

            As Ms. Ang studied how these continuing bonds were observed among the widows she surveyed and interviewed, she noted 10 manifestations of this phenomenon.  They are as follows: 

1)      Hopeless hope – when they think of their loved one, hoping that someone would knock on the door and they would open to see that person

2)      Visiting the grave – the frequency of visits to the grave as a way of perpetuating a memory

3)      Care – the consciousness that the other (deceased) person can still witness what one does on a day to day basis; behaviors are patterned after what the other person would have wished 

4)      Loyalty – continuing to nurture one’s affection towards the other person, even after death  

5)      Taking on husband’s role – taking up the source of livelihood of the family; doing the things that the deceased person used to do for the family

6)      Preserving his possessions – holding on to what the deceased possessed in life, and not wanting to let go of them; appreciating the “sentimental value” of these things

7)      Deceased as standard – idealizing the contributions of the diseased and using that as the standard for any possible future relationships, sometimes even for one’s children

8)      Legacy – thinking in terms of what the deceased left for the rest of the family, whether these are material things or intangibles (such as values or principles)

9)      Relationships with relatives – continuing to attend family affairs and being involved with  the relatives on the side of the deceased 

10)  Reminiscence – honoring the memory of the deceased (e.g., celebrating special occasions as if he were still alive)

Continuing bonds was studied in the context of widows who lost their husbands.  I suspect that the same phenomenon can be observed with other significant losses, such as, a parent losing a child or a child losing a parent.  At any rate, it is some kind of a spin to the traditional notion of grief that I wrote about months ago.