Mail Call: Home At Long Last

Thank you for Jennifer Elison's piece on the typically unacknowledged and often unacceptable feelings of relief after someone's death ("The Stage of Grief No One Admits To: Relief," My Turn, Jan. 29). I was 25 when my mother committed suicide after 20 years of severely agitated and angry depression that still has a profound impact on my family 30 years later. At the time of her death, people were shocked and confused when I responded to condolences by saying my mother had really died when I was 8 and that "whoever or whatever had inhabited that body since then has to be happier now, and so are we." I truly understand the experiences of being dragged through hell, powerless to help my mother or myself, and being misunderstood and rejected when I was unable to mourn her passing.

Barbara J. Leech

West Chester, Pa.

Jennifer Elison cites several instances when it may be appropriate to feel relief at someone's death--mental illness, a child with an incurable disease, chronic illness like Alzheimer's. But she cites these as parallel to, or supportive of, her own "overwhelming relief" at the death of her husband. I'm sorry, but "rigid and unreasonable expectations" and an unhappy marriage cannot justify a spouse's sigh of relief on the day the offending party is crushed in a compact car "hit by a semi truck on a dark stretch of highway."

Mika Singh

Chantilly, Va.