Grieving: facing disappointment

This article, Disappointment — The Neglected Emotion, by Gillian Driscoll begins, "I fired God over a bicycle." Of course, you're going to want to read further (click the title to go there, but come back!).
I myself "fired" prayer when I was 8, when I prayed for my grandfather to be brought back to life, and it didn't happen. It affected my relationship with prayer, and also with God I suspect, for more than thirty years. How we handle our disappointments over smaller things or or early losses may become a key element of grieving our losses, as is confronting the necessary losses that come with changes in our lives, in our families, and at work. If you haven't read Judith Viorst's Necessary Losses, I commend it to you. Her basic premise is that we have to lose in order to grow. Some losses are necessary.

There is some research that shows (I am missing the reference just at the moment) that the quicker or more easily we learn to grieve the better off we will be in old age when we are confronted with grief and loss of friends, family and capabilities so much more often. If we do not learn to grieve we will be overwhelmed as the losses accumulate, and if we don't recognize the impact of our losses, we may be letting some of those losses control our lives.

What old loss or disappointment affects you today? What necessary loss has given you the person you are today?