What is grief? What does grief do to a person? Why don’t we talk about it as openly as we talk about other things? We actively work on raising awareness about various societal stigmas, but loss and grief are things we barely touch upon.
The day I lost my father, I realized that we are never really taught to show empathy. The elderly section of the population told me that I had to be strong for my mother, and that I cannot be crying. Majority of my friends ended up saying “I won’t ever understand what you’re going through, but I’m always here if you need to talk”. I knew that I did not want to be sympathized with, because I sensed sympathy, and at times even pity. It’s a grieving person’s aura that attracts negative emotions strongly, and so sympathy and pity were things I’d immediately grown repellant to. All of this made me question the established narrative of loss and grief in our society. I often used to wonder why we don’t know much about it, and the very fact that I would’ve (or already might’ve) said similar things to grieving people, broke me. Turns out that most of us don’t really know what grief is (let alone understanding it), what it means and how it affects a person. And because death is an inevitable part of life, we should know how to help ourselves and others who are grieving, to walk through this endless state. This is my tiny effort on explaining grief and the things it brings along.
To my experience and understanding, grief is nothing like Kübler-Ross’s theory of Five Stages of Grief. It’s an amalgamation of extreme emotions, experienced only after a loved one’s death. And this is an endless state to be in. It is more like a log of wood floating in the endless ocean, neither does it sink away, nor does it know it’s destination, it’s just there, floating.
Grief is Fear becoming Reality
We’re humans and fear comes naturally to us. Fear of losing a loved one, fear of loneliness, fear of being abandoned, fear of death, fear of them leaving us forever. We’re often afraid of our fears coming true. So as a byproduct of these fears, we avoid talking about death, we avoid thoughts related to potential loss and grief, and we pretend as if death isn’t a real thing. But when we lose a loved one, a long standing fear finds it’s base in loss. Our fears turns into reality, and grief is all that’s left.
Once that kicks in, there are other fears that start their play. And these are the more irrational ones that wouldn’t go away soon. Will I always feel this way? Will people be sick of listening to my grieving self? Will people push me away? Will my friends leave me now? Would no one want to be around me? Will I no longer fit in this world? Will the society accept the weak me? Will everything change now? And countless other fears - fears that a normal person would deem irrational - follow along.
Grief is Change
It marks the beginning of a new life, but the one that you never asked for, the one you never wanted. This new life will have plenty of firsts (followed by those bitter sweet lasts). The first time doing something without them. The first time eating a food item they loved, without them. The first time visiting their favorite place, without them. The first time playing their favorite sport, without them. The first time doing this/that without them, and the list goes on endlessly. A person experiencing loss often deals with other unpleasant aspects of loss - the more logistical and practical ones - for example, taking care of the finances and legalities especially if it’s a parent/partner that they’ve lost. So, almost everything changes, you also change and all of this is unasked for. Our daily life changes too. The way we talk to others (and to ourselves), the way we look at things, the way we experience and express emotions, the way we eat, sleep, and do other things - everything changes. Our relationship with ourselves and with the outside world also changes. We become more sensitive and often start observing the trivial things we’d otherwise overlook. We start resonating with the ones who are experiencing similar things, and we stand with each other. Most of us also experience a massive drop in our energy, and doing the tiniest of things feels like a huge task to accomplish. And every bit of change that we experience is followed by the same question, “I never asked for this change, why is it only happening to me?”
Grief is an endless state to be in
Every moment of happiness is accompanied by a shade of grief and emotional tumult. You question your existence - should this be happening? Why couldn’t they live to see this day? Why only my parent/partner/grandparent/sibling/child/friend? What mistake of mine triggered this? How could I have reversed this? How am I to live this life without them? Why didn’t they take me with them? And whenever someone says things like “That’s the worst thing that has ever happened to me”, you stop yourself from asking them “Really? Have you lost a loved one? Worse, have you lost your parent when you were barely 20?” Grief is like a raw base that encourages other negative emotions and thoughts to sprout on it, so every external agent that interacts with internal feelings of grief, is either accepted or tossed ferociously. Every Morning waking up, and hoping for the reality you’re aware of to only be a bad dream, is an endless state to be in. At every node, every important decision to make, wishing they were here to help you out, is an endless state to be in. With time the urge to have them by your side alleviates but never fades away. Although there will be episodes of temporary peace, satisfaction or happiness, the overarching grief never really goes away. A deep void is created, and much like other voids, this can’t be filled in - neither by any thing nor by anyone.
Life is never the same again, but with time we learn to accept the reality and also learn to live with it. We grow more grateful for the tiniest of things around us. We learn to empathize with others, and we learn to listen. We find our ways of connecting with them through positive thoughts and happy memories. While people will try to give the best of advices to deal with grief, listening to these can be overwhelming. Everyone has different ways of grieving. Some things work for some, other things don’t. It’s on us to decide what works the best for us, because nothing else really matters. Resilience is developed only with time.