Here's something I wrote to a friend:

It's still very very upsetting to have lost Raoul, even though I am
more accepting of my animals' deaths than before -- so you can start
to guess what it was like before...

Because I am less frantic, I can better watch what I do when I grieve,
though it often slips away, and I want to find info about how people
around the globe do -- in particular, now I want to learn the different
views cultures have of the spirits of those who die.

Both for the psychology of it and for the reality that could lie in
there. What do people think and what does that say about us,
psychologically -- and what actually occurs -- do spirits remain,
and how, why, for how long.

I keep wanting to write what I saw in myself, especially this time, and
then I swerve away -- seems dangerous to (a) relive it and (b) admit it
to others. But I'm going to do it. With every animal, huge guilt -- and
so fear of hatred/reprisal -- over the imperfections of my care, though
of course my care is quite good. Mostly that I did not give enough time
and emotional attention. In the past with some dear creatures, that I
let others over-rule what I knew was right for them physically. Another
phenomenon -- that if I did not continue to grieve and cleave, they
would cease to exist. Similarly if I tried to calm myself down, draw my
mind away from their loss, it would kill them -- i.e., the spirit that
seemed present, and needed me -- and that I needed -- I would destroy
him and/or he would abandon me.

I rarely completely stared at the fact that I was thinking the spirit
was there, especially during the day.

This time, two things that stepped down my grief, horror, grasping, and
fear was a long burst of sobbing of telling him I was so so sorry for
having been impatient with him again and again. The other was inviting
his soft dear little spirit in. Of course he can live in me if he wants
to. I love and trust him and would value adding his characteristics to
my nature. It felt as though he was indistinct by then, having drifted
or gotten much less solid, but that maybe he came in. It's been a week
since I lost him.

There's more too, but I have forgotten it for now. Ah, here's
another -- when something occurred to me about his faults or about
inconveniences I'd now no longer have, it was as though I were stamping
on my darling and crushing him. It wasn't ok to think those thoughts.
It was as though I'd hurt him terribly.

See why I was uneasy about describing this? What have you experienced
and thought and done in grief?

Maybe I'll post this on the FML and CSI to see what comes that's useful
or interesting or deeply shared. Those forums can be good for sharing,
if not understanding, grief, since we go through so many deaths of our
poor little creatures.

There are a lot of intense beliefs that spirits remain, while the
beliefs about what they "want" and about what to do about it range
hugely -- from nurturing to assault.

Then there's being possessed and casting out. Some months ago a young
Ethiopian friend went up to the church here to find a group of older
women beating a screaming younger one to drive out a spirit. He was
horrified, though this is his religion.

In the south here there is a group that forbids any mention of a dead
person. I no longer remember why, probably that spirits must be either
prevented or encouraged to come back -- in both cases, the belief is
usually that either this allows them to go away or forces them to. I
wonder what beliefs center around keeping them with us.

So this is the sort of thing I have been thinking about. Nowhere near
so rationally in the middle of the night though.

In the areas of Ethiopia where I've lived there is a lot of urging
you to not grieve. The reason given is that it will make you sick. I
have found it brutal, and avoid releasing my grief around them. They
interrupt you in a way that makes me choke and basically implode.

On the other hand, being a foreigner, no one obtrudes when I am by
myself, even if I make enough noise that someone outside could hear.
A certain politeness, or fear, or chilliness.

How did reading this make you feel?? I hope you answer it, but if you
don't want to or can't, I wont take offense. I miss Raoul terribly,
and I know you know what I mean, apart from what I've written here.

[Posted in FML 7893]