I have talked to many people, read many articles written by psychologists, and been to a grief counselor. This in no way makes me an expert in grief and I'm not claiming to be. I'm simply writing from the other side of the war zone- what I've learned and my perspective. I wanted to write this because I seem to have a lot of people around me in my life right now that are now just entering their life long grief journey and they have questions and are confused.
My sweet aunt is one of them. She lost her wonderful husband very suddenly to renal cancer. He was diagnosed in January and passed away July 23rd. It overtook his body and when his body was starting to fight back it was too much. His body was overworked and tired, therefore, his heart gave up. There are so many that have been completely devastated by this. You can read more about their story here.
My mom received the call from my aunt shortly after he passed and she was sobbing so bad my mom could barely understand her. My mom immediately jumped on a plane and headed to the state my aunt lives in to be with her. My mom understands a little bit about the passing of a close loved one. She knew that she needed to be there for my aunt. Just as she was there for me. It makes all the difference when you have someone there to support you and be there for you during the hardest time of your life. When I called to ask how everyone was doing one thing that my mom talked about was how my aunt was angry and asking a lot of "why" questions. It's okay to be angry. One of the stages of grief actually is anger. Yes, there are stages of grief. Does that mean that they have to fall in a certain order? No. I was told that to grieve the healthy way you will hit every stage of grief and some multiple times.
I remember my first anger outburst after Corby passed. I threw an apple so hard across my kitchen at my brand new painted white cupboards that it exploded everywhere. I was still cleaning up apple off of them and throughout my kitchen when we went and cleaned out our place after we moved out and had sold it 18 months later. I didn't care what damage that apple could have possibly done, though, I was so frustrated. I started to sob so bad that I couldn't breath and started to hyperventilate. I was sure that I was going to need to be admitted to the psych ward because I couldn't handle what was happening to me. I remember squeezing my head as hard as I could because I wanted it to all go away. I wanted this life to be over. My time in hell to be complete. My overwhelming physical ache that was now constantly part of me to go away. We had our bishop and his neighbor come over to give me a blessing of comfort because of how bad I was. That's when I learned about grief counselors and it was suggested for us to start going to one. I learned from the grief counselor that my anger outburst was very normal and probably won't be my last. She related it to being hit by a Mac truck and my mind was in an ICU from being hit. Just like when your body is injured it does everything in it's power to survive and fight. That is what your mind is doing. I thought that was a great analogy. Grief is your mind's way of recovering from being hit by a Mac truck. The stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That's exactly what your body goes through when majorly injured. It also needs to be said that just like when you are injured your body never goes back to the exact way it was before. There are scars, aches, and problems for the rest of your life. Your body just learns to deal with it and live in it's "new normal" state. Let your mind and heart heal just like you give time for your body to heal. Know that you will never get over your injuries from being hit by a Mac truck. Your grief will always be there. There will always be a hole in your heart that brings an ache with it. You may not wake up every morning like you did during the first days crying and wishing that it were all a bad dream, but you will still ache for your old life and wonder what would it be like if your life now were all different and part of your old life. Kind of like being hit with a Mac truck and losing a limb. Along with losing that limb you get phantom pain and your mind tries to send messages to the limb even though it's gone.
Sorry there are a lot of analogies in this, but I would like people to try and understand from a more familiar or well known perspective.
I like this quote:
“You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”
~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler
That is very well said. You will NEVER be the same.
The grief journey was also related to me like a roller coaster. You will have your ups and think that things are looking up and then you drop off the roller coaster cliff and are back at ground level again. Again, look at healing. All my surgical nurse friends will know about this. You will feel like you are feeling great at about day 2 and then you take a dip in your healing the next day or day after. Grief will definitely have more dips in the roller coaster than healing from an actual wound, but you get my point, right?
There will never be a defined correct way to grieve. It is all okay- especially in the beginning. Be gentle on yourself. Talk to people. Let yourself cry or do whatever you feel you need to do at the time. Everyone doesn't grieve the same way so if there are multiple people that are grieving they won't be doing it the same as you. Some may want to process it all internally. Some may want to cry and scream and talk it through over and over again until they can't talk anymore.
In our SUDC grief group someone talked about how her and her husband were having a hard time with their marriage after their baby passed away because they were angry with each other. They felt that the other person didn't understand. They didn't realize the difference in each other's grieving processes. I've also talked about the statistic I heard at the beginning of my grief journey before: 80% of couples that lose a child get divorced or split. I'm not sure if that is entirely accurate, but I know it is at least a lot. Grief is that unknown and unable to be understood fully, and nobody really knows how to handle it. When it comes to relationships they need to have some other part of it strengthened to make it through. Just like when you lose one of your five senses your body compensates by making another sense heightened. We need to heighten another part of our relationships so that people understand each other. This pertains to any relationship. Not just a couple or marriage. One of the big things that my grief counselor talked about was that we needed to up our communication with each other. To me that is the "sense" that needs to be heightened in the relationship since we lost another of our senses.
I've talked numerous times about how I hate that death is part of our trials here on earth. I hate that more and more people around me are experiencing the heartache of losing a loved one. I wish it were different. I wish that I put three children to bed tonight instead of two. I can guarantee my aunt is wishing that her husband were lying next to her as she falls asleep tonight. Since we aren't in a fairytale and our wishes like that can't come true we make the best with the lives that we have and live our new normal.
To the bereaved, be gentle on yourself. To the supporter of the bereaved, be just that-a support. Let them ride the grief roller coaster and be in the seat next to them holding their hand and covering their eyes when they need you to.
