By Michele de la Coudray-Blake
Death – and the subsequent feeling of grief that accompanies the loss, is an aspect of our lives that we cannot escape, and a facet of life that is important to understand. Helping people deal with loss and grief is often neglected, because loved ones, friends and otherwise well-intentioned persons, who are keen on helping the grieving person ‘get through’ the torment that is the experience of grieving, erroneously try to do everything possible to erase the object of grief from the person’s mind.
While the intention is an altruistic one, formulated to guide the grieving individual back to a life of “normalcy” and “moving on” as quickly as possible, forcing an individual through such a necessary process without allowing for due process to occur can make the grieving process more difficult, harder to navigate, and more unlikely to ever have the possibility of reaching closure so that life could in fact, go on. This article will look at some issues of grief and loss and seek to enhance people’s understanding of the process, so that persons giving support to grieving loved ones can do so with sensitivity and respect.
The Time Frame of Grief - The time frame allotted to the grieving process is as unique and specific to an individual, as a person’s features are specific and unique to him. No two people are alike! There is no magic time period by which a person should “be over it”, nor is there an arbitrary time line on which a person travels that automatically transitions him from ‘grieving’ to ‘healed in an instant’. The time frame for dealing with grief is personally determined and includes, but is not limited to, factors like personality, personal coping skills, outside support, traumatic vs. natural loss, ability to “prepare” for the loss, personal spiritual beliefs and spiritual support, to name a few.
The implication here is that there must be overt respect and sensitivity shown to the grieving individual, allowing him the comfort of knowing that others understand his need to get through grief at his own pace, and in his own time. That acknowledged freedom alone is significant, for it allows him the ability to sort out his sorrow in the way that is relevant to him, so that an eventual move towards healing could occur.
The Manifestation of Grief- In the same way that the time line allotted to personal grieving is internally driven, so too is the way that grief presents itself, and that must be acknowledged with respect. No broad brush could paint a common picture of how a person deals with the death of a loved one. Many have experienced anecdotal stories of comparison suggesting that a person be more like “so and so”, who “is not crying anymore, so [I] don’t understand why she doesn’t stop crying by now”.
Grieving individuals manifest their grief differently. One individual may need to have quiet time to reflect on the loved one on a daily basis; another may cry frequently; yet another may pick up and carry on with the outward normalcy of life in quick time, and yet another may have difficulty in speaking the person’s name out loud. One may engage in looking at pictures and touching possessions of the deceased, and yet another may immediately seek to remove their loved one’s personal possessions (like clothes) from the home so that they could try to continue with their life.
One act does not signal more or less love or caring than the other! It is simply what it is – the fact that in processing the pain of grief, each person must be aware of and comfortable with the road he must take in order to reframe a life that had been disrupted by the event of a death. As persons supporting people in their grief, this must be known and understood.
The two issues presented above account for a tiny part of the vast discussion on the complexity of grief and the way it impacts individuals suffering from loss. However, in the same way that we must understand people’s personal and individual response to processing death, it is just as important to highlight similarities among things that impact people at all times.
Anniversaries and “firsts”
Anniversaries and “firsts” will always have the ability to jolt the individual (no matter how well adjusted they may appear) into the painful remembrance of the loss and how much it still impacts them. The first outing to a special place; the first Christmas, birthday, anniversary; the first time the bereaved has to call the deceased’ name; the first time hearing a song that he enjoyed; the first time eating his favourite food – these all have the potential to bring a fresh wave of pain with which the individual has to deal. Supportive onlookers often pay special care to understanding the pain that the bereaved person experiences at “special” occasions, like birthdays or Christmases, but it is rarely recognized that the grieving individual experiences a series of “firsts” almost on a daily basis, and that even though they may appear to be minor, their impact on the bereaved is just as powerful.
Dealing with a loved one who is grieving is difficult to experience, and even more difficult to facilitate because of the natural instinct we have to move people away from pain and into happiness. However, if we remember that grieving is a natural process that is deeply personal and individual to people, and if we develop a level of comfort in letting that individual manifestation reveal itself, then we would be doing a great deal in helping grief move from extreme pain into a level of healing.
"LifeLines is a monthly column dedicated to addressing issues of mental, behavioural, and social health. The column appears on the 1st weekend of the month, and is written by professionals in the field of social work, mental health, and community medicine".
