When you are injured, wound dressings are carefully applied to your physical body to promote healing and protect the point of invasion from germs. Similarly, in grief you may slap a figurative bandage on your wound, not so much to promote healing but to protect yourself from additional hurt and pain. Because you may sense that others do not want to see the gaping hole in your spirit—the imperfect part of your life that is grief—you cover it up using your own self-styled emotional first aid. When you at last take off your protective bandage and find that you are well, you see that you are healed both inside and out.