Is It A Salve, Or Salt In The Wound?

This one came to me as I played Dragonquest VIII last night. In the game, you come across this kingdom where everyone dresses in black and is very depressed. Their queen died, and the king has ordered a period of mourning - for the last two years. So you can see how that would wear on the villagers' psyche. The king himself is a wreck, spending his days locked in his room, and his nights in the throne room, sobbing about wanting to see his wife again. One of the servants mentions a folklore about a place where wishes can come true, and you, being the goodhearted sort you are, go off to that place, and meet some oddball that agrees to help the king out of his funk. This person tells you that everything has memories, including walls and shoes, and upon reaching the king, draws out the memories of the room around them so the king can see his beloved from times past. From this, he realizes she wouldn't want him to drown in sorrow, and resolves to be the good ruler she thought he was, and move forward. And so happiness returns to the kingdom.

What I was thinking was, this trope of the grieving character turning themselves around by seeing their lost loved one seems to come up every so often (I recall Monk had a hallucination where he saw Trudy again, and didn't Sisko on Deep Space Nine see his wife once or twice?). Seeing this one play out made me think it was a little odd. I suppose it works in this case, since the king specifically said 'If I could only see you one more time', but in most cases, it would seem as though seeing the person that you miss so much, would only make it hurt that much worse when they inevitably go away again. In others words, it wouldn't actually help the person to move forward.

I guess it works because the lost loved one usually tells the grieving party to pull themselves together, and so the person resolves to do so, or they'd be dishonoring the deceased. Even so, I'd figure it would open an old wound as much as it would provide closure.