Understanding Grief

If you’ve had little or no experience with bereavement, you may be caught off guard and feel totally unprepared to deal with it when it happens to you. Not knowing what to expect, you may be wondering whether your reactions are normal and dreading what might be coming next.

It helps to know that certain feelings and reactions in grief are normal, universal and predictable. But how you may experience them — and for how long — is uniquely personal and distinct.
Grief is extremely powerful. It can catch you totally unprepared, knock you off balance and shake you to the core. It can be painful beyond words— physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually—and it can change your life completely.

Understanding the process and knowing what to expect can help you cope. Your particular pattern of progressing through your grief will be uneven, unpredictable and unique, with no specific time frame. But the more you learn about grief, the better you can cope with it.

The worst kind of grief is the grief you’re experiencing now. Don’t compare your grief with anyone else’s, and know that, at this moment, your loss is the worst thing that could happen to anyone.
Grief work is very hard and takes enormous energy. Much as you may want to do so, there is no way to avoid it. You cannot wait it out. You won’t get over it quickly, and nobody can do it for you. And the longer it waits, the harder it becomes.

Unfortunately, friends and family members may be finished with your grief long before you are finished with your need to talk about it, and unexpressed feelings can become distorted. It is important that you find an understanding, nonjudgmental listener with whom you can openly acknowledge your feelings and experiences, express and work through your pain, and come to terms with your loss. If friends and family aren’t as available as you need them to be, or if your needs exceed their capacity to help, consider attending a grief support group or seeking help from a bereavement counselor.

How grief is expressed varies among individuals. Everyone grieves differently, according to their age, gender, personality, culture, value system, past experience with loss and available support. Grieving differs among members of the same family, as each person’s relationship with and attachment to the deceased family member varies. How you will react to this death depends on how you’ve responded to other crises in your life; on what was lost when this death happened; on who died (spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, relative, friend or other; how you lived together and what that person meant to you); on the person’s role in your family; on when the death occurred (at what point in the life cycle: yours as well as that of the person who died); and on how (the circumstances surrounding the death, and how the death occurred).

Certain manifestations of grief are typical, common and normal. Although your grief is as individual as you are, some feelings and reactions are universal. Their intensity will vary, and they’ll happen in no particular order. You may experience all, some or none of them; they may happen only once or many times, sometimes several years after your loved one’s death. Respect your own feelings and reactions. Take time to look, listen, experience and understand them. They are nature’s way of getting your attention.

While the agonizing pain of loss diminishes in intensity over time, it’s never gone completely. It is absolutely normal to feel the aftershock of loss for the rest of your life. Grief is not a reaction to a single event, like an illness that can be cured and from which you will recover. It’s more like a deep wound that eventually heals and closes, but whose terrible scar remains and still can hurt at times.

Grief changes through the years. It changes you as well, influencing who you are in the present and affecting who you’ll become in the future. It must be worked through, adapted to, and integrated into your life, as different situations will require you to accommodate this loss again and again. You will re-visit the event continually as you grapple with its meaning— emotionally, socially, economically and spiritually— and as you struggle to find a place for your dead loved one in your present and future life.

Death may have ended your loved one’s life, but it did not end your relationship. The bond you have will continue and endure throughout your lifetime, depending on how you take your memories and your past with you into the future. Many mourners report maintaining an active connection with their deceased loved ones by talking to them, dreaming about them, sensing their presence or feeling watched over and protected by them. It is normal and healthy to foster these continuing bonds, as you decide how your loved one will be remembered, memorialized and included in your family and community life.

It is not the passage of time alone that heals. It is what you do with time that matters. Mourning is an active process, not a passive one, and recovery is a choice. Coping with grief involves many courses of action, and as you find your way along this journey, you will learn how to use this time to help you heal yourself.

There is no right or wrong way to do the work of mourning. There is only your way, and you must discover it for yourself. There is no magic formula, no short cut, and no easy way out. Grief is like a long, winding tunnel whose entrance is closed behind you, and the only way out is through.

To learn more about what is normal in grief, visit Marty’s Web site, www.griefhealing.com.