By: Ashley Oliver, M.S.
Losing someone close to you for the first time is overwhelming. As a child, I experienced loss from a distance. It was always a distant relative or someone I knew because of their relationship to my parents. I understood that it was sad and I felt very sad for the people experiencing the loss, but I never fully grasped it myself…until now.
Three weeks ago I learned what grief felt like. My mom called me to break the news that my former pastor, Jeff, passed away after a valiant battle with colon cancer. My whole body just went numb. Jeff wasn’t just integral throughout my faith journey; he was a father to me since the age 10. Following my parents divorce, my father and I became estranged. Jeff, having 4 sons of his own, always referred to my sister and I as his daughters. He was there for birthday parties, my high school graduation, dating woes and all the other highs and lows of my teenage life when my biological father wasn’t.
The news of his passing alone was painful, but to make matters worse, I wasn’t able to attend the funeral because the travel costs were too expensive for me as a student. I went from feeling numb, to upset that I couldn’t be there to say my last goodbye, to just being overcome with sadness at the fact that he actually isn’t a phone call away anymore. I started to realize that maybe all of the thoughts and emotions that vacillated within me, day by day and hour by hour, was grief.
As a natural problem solver, I was having a hard time with my vacillating feelings. I thought that I needed to find a solution to settle my up and down feelings. Last week I was sitting in bed scrolling through Instagram and randomly saw a picture of a plate of Haitian food and instantly felt sad. I thought about a memory of Jeff where we shared that exact meal and said to myself “He is really gone…you won’t ever get to share a meal together again” Who sees a picture of food and wants to cry?? What is happening to me?!”
I was holding the unhelpful belief that I should be more in control of my emotions. But if I truly understand and accept that emotions are a natural part of the grieving process, then why should I not be allowed to cry over an Instagram picture (no matter how silly I may think it is in hindsight). The truth is that there is no rule-book to grieving, yet I was trying to create rules that ultimately lead me to feel embarrassed and ashamed. There really is no right or wrong way to grieve.
There is no reason to put generic expectations on how you grieve. You may feel an array of emotions while grieving. Remember: grief from any loss may not be a linear process. The notion that one mourns a loss and then gets over it, to the extent that emotions about the loss are not triggered in the future, is a myth. Emotions that have to do with loss might be triggered throughout our lives or only be triggered a few times. Either way, I learned that I had to grant myself the freedom to express my emotions and cope with them as needed. While I would prefer to not randomly cry while scrolling through Instagram, there is no reason that I absolutely must not randomly feel sad when thinking of the loved one I lost. Incorporating this philosophy into my life has allowed me freedom to accept my feelings. So the next time a memory is triggered and I randomly feel sad and want to cry, I can accept that may look odd to the public AND that’s okay because it’s a part of my the beautiful spontaneity of grief and living life after loss.
What has grieving looked like for you? And what helped you through your grieving process?
