The grief journey – sad, scary, exciting, etc

I went to a reunion/memorial event for a school friend who passed away.  There are always remarkable things said and heard at these events.  Death brings the best life out of us as we face inevitable truths, just as death brings us into even closer connection with one another.  Death is not all bad.

As I listened in on the conversations I was party to, one particular piece of wisdom struck me poignantly.  “It’s sad, scary, exciting,” was what I heard.  I’m actually not sure the third word was ‘exciting’ but I will leave it as that because each of these words together explain the grief process well.

Grief is a mixed bag of a compendium of emotions — sometimes like all the seasons in one day.

Grief is full of sadness.  Sorrow.  Depression.  Unchangeable realities — yes, more than one, many realities in fact that would be changed back if only we could.

There is so much gut-wrenching distress that goes with the grief journey, waves and waves of it, to the point of nausea, over and over again.  Just when you think a corner is turned toward happiness, joy or contentment, in comes the tide of cosmic emptiness and that current convinces us that there is no hope.

Tears upon swelling and sobbing tears, tears that roll down the cheeks, tears that won’t stop.  But just as much an inability to sleep and stop analysing, yet a paralysis in many other functional areas of life.

Grief is also scary.  You often don’t know from one moment to the next just what will come, which evokes tremendous anxiety, panic attacks and the like.  

With the thoughts that come to overwhelm, and the feelings unpredictable, there is little wonder people run from the truths enveloped in loss.  Having said that, many people find they have no option but to face their grief, and the fact that there’s no option but to be brave and face the ever-rippling tsunami feels only slightly better than a complete denial, though at least after a few years there is recovery and new life for the suffering that’s been endured.

Grief is also full of excitement.  Not party excitement, but theme park excitement.  When you’re on a roller coaster for the first time, it dawns on you very early on that you can’t get off until the end of the ‘ride’.  Grief is one-hell-of-a-ride.  Once grief has entered your life, you want to get off the ride for all your worth, but then you find that you’re on it until the ride is over.

Grief always takes longer than you anticipate or feel you can bear.

But that’s not all.  Excitement brings with it not only the intensity of overwhelm, but real hope of the new.  Grief ushers in a new normal, and that’s not always bad.  It just takes an eon before you can begin to see the good that can come from being smashed against the rocks of life.

Dedicated to Allison and friends.

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash