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I am not sure I know when mourning is successful, or when one has fully mourned another human being. I’m certain, though, that it does not mean that you have forgotten them, or that something else comes along to take their place. I don’t think it works that way. I think instead that one mourns when one accepts the fact that the loss one undergoes will be one which changes you, changes you possibly forever, and that mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance. So there is losing, and there is the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. I don’t think, for instance, you can invoke a protestant ethic when it comes to loss. You can’t say, oh, I’ll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I’ll apply myself to the task, and I’ll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me. I think you get hit by waves, and that you start out the day, with an aim, a project, a plan, and you find yourself foiled. You find yourself fallen. You’re exhausted, and you don’t know why. Something is larger than your own deliberate plan, your own project, your own knowing.
-- Judith Butler
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