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251 conclusion “It Is Possible to Be Bereft and Not Bereft Simultaneously” - “Jason! Grief is the most powerful emotion a man or child or animal can feel. It’s a good feeling.” “In what fucking way?” he said harshly. “Grief causes you to leave yourself. You step outside your narrow little pelt. And you can’t feel grief unless you’ve had love before it—grief is the final outcome of love, because it’s love lost.” I can’t imagine anyone choosing to be grief-stricken (except, perhaps, a masochist), and yet grief can be good, as we see from the dialogue in Philip K. Dick’s 1975 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (102). Now that I’m completing Companionship in Grief, I can see how other memoirists have discovered the ways in which grief can be not only good but also transformative, allowing them to commemorate and honor the memories of their loved ones. To be sure, it is impossible not to feel ambivalent about grief, for it may be disabling or enabling, leading to callousness or compassion, selfishness or selflessness, self-preoccupation or self-transcendence. Grief can turn us away from the world, to avoid further losses, or compel us to memorialize those who have enriched our lives. In an unpublished essay quoted by Robert C. Solomon, Janet McCracken uses the term “dedicatory grief” to describe the ways in which grief may compel us to honor our lost loved ones: “When someone we love has died, we desire to do honor to, to show appreciation for, that life as a whole, differently from and more importantly than the honors or rewards she may have received for particular accomplishments during her life”(Solomon, In Defense of Sentimentality, 92; emphasis in original). Spousal loss memoirists demonstrate the value of dedicatory grief, for they honor and commemorate their deceased partners while at the same 252 conclusion time maintaining their attachment to them. They not only remember the dead but also show how the deceased may help the living. My own dedicatory grief takes the form of writing books and teaching courses on death education that honor my wife’s memory. I see examples of dedicatory grief everywhere. Each year my former student Julia Florer sends me the sign she wears, “In Memory of Barbara,” when she participates in a benefit for the American Cancer Society. Other students who have read Dying to Teach send me sympathy cards on October 17, Barbara’s birthday. My dedicatory grief encourages students to honor their own loved ones, living and dead. Students who have taken my Love and Loss courses send me emails when their relatives or friends die. They tell me that, as a result of my course, they are able to write eulogies for their loved ones, speak more freely and openly about dying and death, and console others who have suffered loss. Witness the following email I received from a student as I was completing this book: Hi Prof. Berman, it’s Steve from your first Love and Loss course. During my time in college, whenever we had our meetings in your office I remember always telling you how fortunate I was that at that point in my life I had never had a close loved one die. That changed this Tuesday morning, as my grandfather passed away. We were extremely close, and I was a mess the following day. I thought about our class, and more specifically the eulogy you wrote for your wife. I remembered how your eulogy painted a picture of your relationship with her while balancing tears and smiles. I tried to do something similar and wrote something to be read at my grandfather ’s funeral. I don’t think I will be able to get through reading it. I just wrote it, and have only read it once so I’m not sure if it is the best piece of writing I have ever done. I just wanted to tell the stories so people can remember the relationship I had with my grandfather and maybe bring some smiles to people’s faces on what is going to be a really sad day. I have attached what I wrote if you’re interested in reading it. I just want to thank you again for your Love and Loss class. In a way it did prepare me for this, and hopefully I will make my grandfather proud. “Everyone can master a grief but he that has...

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