Surviving Grief
Last year I lost four people that I loved within a six month span. I lost two to cancer, one to drug overdose, and one from Emphysema/lung issues. I may not be an expert, but I would say by now I know a little bit about grief. And the way I see it is that you can process grief one of three ways:
1. You can just not process it.
No, really. You can choose not to. You can pretend like it didn’t happen. You can harden your heart and turn a blind eye and pretend like everything is alright. The only problem with this method is that you won’t actually survive grief. You can’t sustain that. Eventually your body is going to start taking on the effects of grief. Digestive issues, stomach problems, heart problems–it will seep into your bones and eventually you will admit defeat. Hopefully you will have gotten help before this point, but if you make it this far, you’ll for sure be asking for help processing what the cause of all of this is. Oh, and it will probably be expensive to process it. Psychologists/psychiatrists, prescription drugs, medical bills. That stuff isn’t cheap.
2. You can deal with it partially.
A lot of people choose this method. You cry a bit, you kind of accept that they/it are/is gone. But really all you’ve done is cry enough to let some pain out and then you’ve swept it under the rug so that you could continue to function. This eventually lands you smack dab in the middle of situation number 1’s outcome. It might take longer, but you’ll find yourself there–because grief has to go somewhere.
3. You can do the hard work of healing and work through all your grief–however long it takes.
This is the road less traveled, I’ve discovered, when it comes to grief. People don’t want to hurt. I get that. I avoided dealing with the second, third, and then fourth deaths for a little while because I hadn’t even finished working through the Grief Cycle of the first death.
These were people that I loved. I had different relationships with all of them. Some stronger than others, but there was love in every relationship and when I lost them there was an ache and a place in my heart that only they filled. Also, side note, this has nothing to do with how Jesus should be the only thing we need or some Christian cliché about a hole in the heart that only Jesus can fill. That’s true, by the way. But what I’m getting at here is that people make impressions on our hearts. We love because Christ loved us first. And people left impressions on His heart. Lazarus was his friend. He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but He still cried. Guys, if that doesn’t show us how to grieve, I don’t know what will. (You can find that story in the Bible in the book of John, chapter 11, verses 1-44.)
Jesus was hurting. There are a lot of commentaries that suggest that Jesus was actually just crying because He was so mad at the people for not having faith in Him. But I respectfully disagree. John 11:33-36 in the NIV translation makes me feel like I can safely disagree.
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35Jesus wept.
36Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
Jesus was a human. He had to experience humanity in order to say that He understood everything we had gone through (Hebrews 4:15). So I believe Jesus got to the place where Lazarus was and saw all that was happening and experienced His friends — His family — grieving and He was overcome by the emotion of it all and He let it out in the form of weeping. Not a few tears. Not a little side hug. A full on weeping session.
Y’all, the Savior of humanity cried to process His grief, so why shouldn’t we?
What does it mean to process all your grief in a healthy way?
Whatever it looks like for you. There are 5 stages to the Grief Cycle. Just in case you haven’t heard of them, here they are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Hint: they don’t necessarily happen in that order. I stayed in the denial stage for my cousin, the second death, for quite awhile. I was still processing the first death (my Grandmother) and I just couldn’t believe that he was gone.
I spent a lot of time angry. I don’t remember bargaining, but I’m sure that happened. Depression didn’t hit until after the 4th death and God uprooted us again to move back to Florida. That launched me into the Grief Cycle again, but this time for yet another move and so many more goodbyes. I was very very angry at God. It wasn’t His fault, but I wanted someone to blame because none of it was fair and none of it made sense, and I didn’t want to accept any of it. You see I had this vision for my life. Maybe just the next few years. But I can assure you that none of those losses or moves were in that vision. So when I got back to Florida and we were in our new home and Aaron went back to work and I was here alone with the kids all day, anger and depression kicked in. And all the emotions and things that I had stuffed way down deep because I needed to survive came boiling up. It was not pretty. Looking back, I probably should have seen a grief counselor. I probably should have processed more of that. But I am still working through the Grief Cycle for all of it, and probably will be for a very long time.
At the end of June we passed the one year mark of our move to Vermont last year. We were so excited about that move guys. We were ready to dive in and serve where we could and I was so happy to be back with my family after 12 years. I had to turn off the “One Year Ago” feature on Facebook because it was reopening wounds and it was launching me back into the Grief Cycle. We are approaching the one year mark of the first death. My Grandmother was an incredible woman and I miss her every day. She was the first loss. A few weeks later, it will be one year for my cousin. He was just six months older than I am and he left behind the most beautiful little girl. She’s sweet and sassy just like he was, and she charms every room just like he did. I lost my Grandpa in January of this year, and then my step-Dad’s wife (I know that might not make sense at first–divorce makes things messy, doesn’t it?) passed away from cancer in March of this year. My Grandpa was one of the only people that ever called me regularly. I haven’t had the heart to delete his phone number from my phone yet because even though I know it will never happen, there’s still a part of me that wishes he would call one more time. It feels too final when you do that, and I’m just not ready yet. Michelle, my step-Dad’s wife, was spunky and sweet, and she faithfully sent me birthday cards. I still haven’t deleted her number either. While I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked to, she loved my step-Dad with everything in her. And he loved her. And processing his grief with him has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The only thing worse than processing your own grief is processing someone else’s with them at the same time. But we do what we do because we love each other. Because we love those we lost.
So as you can see, I’m still working through the Grief Cycle. Every day I get closer and closer to the acceptance stage. I think I’m finally there with my Grandmother–or at least really close. I found a way to process it all and honor her memory. I wrote a blog post that will come out on the anniversary of her passing. It gave me a way to honor her one last time, and lay her to rest in my mind. I wept as I wrote it and didn’t think I’d make it through that. But I did make it through, and I felt so much better after it was finished. It’s all a process, my friends.
I also want to take a quick moment to mention that grief isn’t limited to death. I have grieved moves, losses of jobs/friendships, things I’ve had to leave behind, a flood, etc, etc. So don’t feel like you can’t grieve a breakup, or a job you wanted to keep but were let go from, or whatever it is that is causing deep sorrow in you. That’s called ‘Grief,’ my friends. And it needs to come out so that you can feel healed and whole again. You were not created to hang on by a thread in this life–you were actually created to spread your wings and soar. I can’t encourage you enough today to take a deep look at your grief, and get some help. Grief counselors specifically know how to help you work through the Grief Cycle and are trained to help you process it. Psychiatrists/psychologists/counselors/Christian healers, etc etc etc. They can all help you. But talk to someone before the grief begins to take over, if it hasn’t already. You deserve freedom and happiness. You really do.
Be brave.
~Nikki
