How Long Does It Take to Mend a Broken Heart?

Julian Austin, Canadian country singer, released a song called Should Be Over You. He sings, How long does it take to mend a broken heart? After the heartache and tears, lonely and hurting, one night stands and drinking ain't working, and missing you has near killed me a time or two, then after that I should be over you."

Austin's explanation of how long it takes to get over a broken heart refers to a romantic love that ended, but his words could apply to hearts that break when someone we love dies, also.

Broken hearts are not like broken legs. If I fall down the steps and break my leg, it will hurt, but a doctor can prescribe Medicine to take away the pain. The medical staff can set my leg so that the bones will grow back together. Within a few months, I should be able to run as well as I did before the fall. Our bodies have a wonderful way of healing themselves.

On the other hand, if we experience a broken heart, it's a whole different story! As Austin sings, drinkin' won't work, and there's no Medicine that will take away the pain. And if there are doctors that can fix our broken hearts back, they must be hiding in Tazmania because I can't find them in south Georgia or on the World Wide Web.

In spite of the bleak picture, our hearts do have the capability of healing, in due time. They may never work as they did before the tragedy, but they should be able to attain a level of functioning that we can be comfortable with. The key words are in due time.

After Arlyn (my daughter) died, I searched for answers to the question: how long? I read grief books, and I quizzed people who claimed to know all the ins and outs of bereavement.

When I asked how long it would take for me to get over Arlyn's death, I received a variety of answers.

Some experts said two months is long enough for deep grief; others said six months. Some people said to allow one year for mourning. Still others said that there is no set time limit, that it varies from person to person.

In my research, I found that the way we grieve and the duration of our grief are as unique as our fingerprints. No two bereavement patterns match.

How long it takes to recover from a loss or death depends on the interaction of various factors. A few of them are:

* Who died?* How did the person die?* Is there a good long-term support system in place?* What are the complicating life circumstances?* What is the person's attitude?

Let's consider each of these issues.

Who died?

How we survive, heal, and grow after a death are determined, in part, by our relationship with the person who left, and that person's age.

How long a person has lived seems to matter sometimes. If the person who died is an infant, a child, a teenager or a young adult, we may feel the loss harder than we would if the one who died has a wrinkled old body topped by a weathered face, wispy gray hair and tried eyes.

I am not sure why this is; perhaps some of you will offer your opinions. If someone who has lived for ninety years dies, why should we be less affected by it than we are by the death of a child who only lives nine years?

Next, our relationship with the person who died is also significant. The death of a son or daughter, is considered to be one of the most profound losses anyone ever experiences.

However, the death of our husbands, wives, lovers, brothers, sisters, parents, or close friends may break our hearts, too. The break may simply be at a different place.

Sometimes, people grieve for beloved pets as hard as they do for the humans in their lives. People also grieve for celebrities and for people they have never met, if they have somehow been touched by them.

How did the person die?

We respond to loss or death differently according to whether it happened suddenly or gradually, and whether it's a death caused by sickness or a violent one.

Some of us may have experienced the slow grief of long-term care for someone we love. We may have watched an aging par