Needing and Being Needed By Others

So I've been thinking about an idea for a few days. In a book I'm reading it has been talking about how what people want out of life is to be needed. To be wanted by those around them. This is also stated on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as well. It's the third tier, the need for "Love and Belonging."

So what I've been really pondering is greif. When someone dies you feel a great loss. It is deep and it is very real. And the more you need someone the greater the loss you feel. I also personally feel a bit of selfishness is involved, at least for me. I feel like the loss is greater when I consider how much they needed or would have needed me. I feel the loss most acutely at times when I feel I would need or would have been needed by the person I've lost. It's the absence of that feeling that I am morning.

I was once asked by a good friend if the pain of losing someone fades, if it stops hurting. I have thought a lot about this question. I think I can say from my own experience that it never fades completely, though perhaps it changes as my perspective changes. I still cry in grief at my loss to this day though it was over 15 years ago, though I cry more rarely. But I think what still hurts is the longing and the loss. You never regain or replace what you lost, not in this lifetime. Your needs that that person met, the way they met them, cannot be replaced. Your feelings of being wanted and needed by someone else cannot be met by someone else the way they were by the one you lost. However those unmet needs can be met by someone else. It just won't be in the same way.

So I think the answer is no, not in this life, it never fully fades, or stops "hurting" because the hole never is filled. It can't be until you are reunited in the next life with the one lost and once again your need for them and their need for you is met.

My life continues after I lose someone because others need me, and I need them. Life continues, though the grief or loss is never truly over. And truly, I wouldn't ever want it to end. I want to continue to need those I've lost till we meet again and I want (or perhaps it's that I need) them to need me in return.

~Katie Jean~