Grieving - What I have learned about the process over the years
At first,
each wave of emotion is powerful, overwhelming and you are completely
submerged. Tears rise up of their own volition, sometimes so
violently they turn to a gagging breathlessness as grief engulfs your
being. Everything is blackened out. You don't know if you'll ever
breathe again. Later you will learn that this is sheer shock. The
emotional pain translates to physical pain – headache, dry eyes,
dehydration – all things you barely notice, if at all at first.
Every normal task feels abnormal, like eating, using the bathroom, or
talking, and everything blurs together in a haze, a weird mix of
intense emotion and the dullness that remains once a wave subsides.
It feels like you will never be happy again, but mundane tasks keep
you going for those first few days or weeks. Because it hurts so
much, you might even try to stop thinking about it – a natural
defense, and a much-needed momentary break – but that wave will
always come crashing in. Let it. Eventually the swells die down in
frequency and intensity, with each wave hitting more softly and
ebbing more quickly.
Grieving is
incredibly personal, but at the same time, it can be shared to some
degree with those who were also close to the person lost. It feels
strange to laugh, in between the swells of grief, but good memories
come up and if the person who was lost had a good relationship with
you, you don't mind laughing because you want to honor their memory
with goodness, too. You might even feel a little happy to see all the
family and friends that came to honor your lost loved one.
Grieving is
being sad for all the memories you won't make with them anymore,
sadness that your journey with that person is over, sadness over a
future lost. It can also involve self-pity, feeling sad that you are
sad, as well as anger and confusion, and later on, jealousy of others
who still have their sister, mother, brother, father. Regret might
also play a role in grief, even when the person who died had an
overall positive relationship with you. And there is no good question
to the answer “Why?”
Grief
changes you forever. There is a depth etched into your soul from that
wound, from that loss, and no one will ever be able to fill that hole
in this life, because there is no one exactly like that person you
lost, no relationship that can – or even should – completely
replace it. With that wound there is an added sensitivity to loss and
sadness, even imagined loss, and it leaves you wobbly the same way
staying in water for a long time can make your legs feel like they
are in moving water, even long after they are dry. Later on this will
make you a better friend to those who also go through loss.
Eventually
you start to notice people with those attributes from the person you
lost, and you realize there is still that goodness in the world,
albeit not wrapped up in the package that was the person who died.
And there will be a search for a way to deal with that sadness etched
into your soul, for the times a swell rises up after a long, long
absence of grief-like feelings. There might even be a sense of
obligation or dedication to always feel a little sad, to continue to
miss that person no matter how many years go by, because you always
want them to be a part of your life. There are many good ways to
honor someone's memory. It might even serve as a way to allow you to
grieve in the future, because all feelings need the chance to be
felt. It makes you human. It makes you sane. Just don't hold it in.
