Stillness in bereavement – 21 lessons in grief

I haven’t written about losing my father in July and I am not going to now, as the story is not just mine. I have, however, been reflecting on what I’ve learned about grief during the past four months. I spend a lot of time in meditation and this has allowed me to feel what needed to be felt, to experience difficult emotions without resisting them or pushing them away and to reflect on my journey.

When I made this list, I realised it needed to be shared. If this is you, now, please know that you are not alone.

1. Grief can still happen even if your relationship was not close.
2. Even after a long illness, with no hope of recovery, death is a shock.
3. Grief can be a surprisingly physical experience, manifesting as fatigue, acute anxiety or symptoms of illness.
4. There can be a sense of camaraderie amongst the recently bereaved. When they are going through what you are going through, and the taboo is temporarily lifted, there is relief and even joy in shared understanding.
5. Bereaved people don’t want to avoid talking about death – their loss, death in general, their current circumstances. Avoiding bereavement makes it into an elephant in the room and creates a gulf between people.
6. In fact, when you are grieving, the subject of death can be interesting or even fascinating. You may want to know more, to understand, to read and learn.
7. There may be an urge to isolate. This need not be a bad thing, at least for a while, at least every now and then. A lot of company can be overwhelming and exhausting.
8. Seeing your loved one’s body can be helpful and need not be a dreadful experience.
9. Grief is a roller coaster. You never know what to expect one day to the next or even one hour to the next.
10. Tradition is comforting. There is a sense of safety and gentleness in the familiarity of customs. Flowers, music, the order of events. Dispensing with these can be painful.
11. You can create new traditions and customs.
12. Respect is important. Respect for the person you have lost, whatever your relationship, and feeling respected yourself.
13. For a while, you will be in a different place from other people who have not been recently bereaved. This is OK.
14. Not going with the flow (see 9. above) can be really painful. Go with the flow of your feelings whenever you can.
15. Trying to appear OK, to put on a brave face, makes everything worse. You may have to do this some of the time but don’t do it all the time.
16. Just because you don’t cry, it doesn’t mean you are not grieving.
17. Distractions, like television, shopping, going out for meals, while sometimes enjoyable in themselves, are not necessary. Rather than trying to take your mind off it, allow yourself to feel whatever you feel and your mind will let go when it is ready.
18. It’s OK to be alone with your grief. Concerned friends may feel you need constant company, but this is a big change and most of us need alone time to feel our feelings and process what is happening. Being alone need not make things worse (see 7. above).
19. Grief doesn’t have to mean you are sad that someone died. Their passing may have been a relief and a release, but grief will still happen.
20. Neither does it mean you are missing them in the usual sense. In fact, if the illness has been long and incapacitating, you may have already had months or years of missing the person you knew. Grief will still happen.
21. Grief is indefinable, unpredictable and can be overwhelming. It is private and different for everyone. It may never totally disappear but it will diminish and become less insistent. But it is not personal. It is part of the universal human experience and what you are feeling has been felt, is being felt and will be felt by countless others. This is the ultimate comfort.

These are my lessons, so far. There will be others. If you can add to the list, please share in the comments or send me an email. While we feel alone and in pain we need to know that we are not, in fact, alone. Our shared experience connects us.

Bonus lesson: it’s OK to laugh. About the person you have lost, about the arrangements, about anything. Unexpected absurdities are there to bring you the release of laughter. If you are one who can’t cry, at least allow yourself to laugh. It’s OK.