What exactly is grief? Grief is the response to loss. Particularly the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Grieving is the result of grief and everyone grieves in their own way. Some people cry a lot, while others remain numb; some people need support and need to talk about their grief and need to be constantly with people, while others close themselves off from people, and need solitude and cannot talk or express their grief. Sometimes they don't want to.
According to some experts, there are five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It depends on the individual, how fast we move from each stage to another.
1. Denial
Denial helps us to survive the loss. Life makes no sense, the world seems meaningless and cold. Denial helps us pace our feelings of grief, making sure we do not take in more than we can handle.
2. Anger
Anger is a necessary step in the healing process. There are many other emotions underneath your anger, but anger is one of the emotions we are used to handling. You can be angry at your family, friends, doctors and even God. Anger usually hides the pain we feel at losing a loved one.
3. Bargaining
Before a loss, it seems you will do anything to prevent losing a loved one. You bargain with God, making promises of anything you can think of, just so your loved one would be spared.
4. Depression
After the realisation that your loved one has gone and will not come back depression hits. There is an empty feeling inside of you, nothing can alleviate the pain and suffering. Thoughts of giving up on life start creeping in.
5. Acceptance
Acceptance doesn't mean everything is fine and you are well. It means you have now accepted the fact that your loved one has gone and will not come back. We learn to live with our loss but that doesn't mean we will ever be okay with the loss we have suffered.
I never met my grandmother from my father's side, and my grandfather from his side died when I was very young. My aunt (my dad's sister) says that I remind her very much of her mum. Below, are my grandmother and grandfather from my dad's side.
I had met my grandfather from my mom's side a few times, but by the time I met him he was already blind and suffered from Parkinson's disease so I never really spent much time with him. Also, he and my grandmother were separated so we always had to keep it a secret whenever we went to see him. The only grandparent who played an important role in our life was my grandmother from my mom's side. She used to come every summer when my mom went away on tour with the orchestra, to take care of us. She was a petite lady with short white hair. She used lavender Eau de perfume and whenever I smell lavender it reminds me of her.
She used to call me Kitty. She was the only one allowed to use that particular nickname for me. I used to make her chase me around the garden, give her a different hairstyle and she used to let me put make-up on her. She used to have a pendant she almost never took off. A year before she passed away she gave it to me. A silver pendant in the form of a four-leaf clover with the etching of a lady on wearing a crown of stars. I wear it during important milestones in my life, like graduating from University (again), becoming a British citizen or just when I need to feel my mom and grandma close.
My grandma died when I was 18. She was discovered to have colon cancer in stage IV and while the operation was a success, her lungs filled with water and she passed away soon after. My mom and I took the train to Bucharest to go to the funeral. My aunt and I were a mess and cried continuously at the funeral. My mom cried but not as much and I asked her why, and she said she was happy that my grandma isn't suffering anymore and isn't in pain. It took me a few years to understand what she meant.
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and had a mastectomy that year. I was in the hospital in Bucharest waiting for her to come out after the surgery to make sure she is okay, after which I returned home to pack my bags and leave for the UK. That was one of the most painful things I had to do, leave my mom when she just came out of surgery and not being there to help. She couldn't have chemotherapy due to other health issues.
In 2013, the cancer returned and she had to have an operation again. A few days before she died, the cancer reached her lungs, she lost her voice and passed away before my brother and I reached Bucharest.
When I arrived in Bucharest my uncle picked me up and took me straight to the hospital morgue to see her. I think I managed two minutes before feeling sick and running outside to be sick behind the hospital. I can't really remember much that happened afterwards. I remember a wake and a funeral. My brother took care of everything, I was useless. I couldn't sleep and for a while, I couldn't really eat either. I was crying constantly. My ex kept telling me to seek help, I don't like counselling and I wouldn't have been able to actually talk about things, about how guilty I felt, how lost and empty. Even now, 7 years after my mom passed, I still can't really talk about it or even write about it without crying. My mom was 63.
I had lost it badly after my mom's death. I was clinically depressed. I was comfort eating, and I have memory lapses. I was suicidal. I am unsure how I even made it out of that dark hole. I do believe my mom helped me over it or I wouldn't be here today.
Someone I used to call a friend actually told me I will get over it. I think if she would have been in front of me, I would have slapped her or punched her. That's not how grief works. You do not magically get over it. Time does not heal all wounds.
I have seen an interesting explanation of how grief works. You have to imagine grief as a moving and changing thing. Alive. Sometimes, it overwhelms us and sometimes we manage to build a normal life around it. Out of the blue, grief comes back, because something will remind us of the loss we suffered. We learn to live with it, but it never goes away and everyone who says otherwise, anyone who tells you you need to snap out of it, it is okay to walk away from them. Their emotional range is that of a stone.
My dad got ill two years ago. I went home to help get him back to his feet. My brother and I discussed the potential of him passing away but we discounted that. I had only been in Romania for 2 days, my brother had to go back to Vienna to work for a few days, but he promised to be back for my birthday. This was Sunday night. My dad passed away suddenly on Monday afternoon. I was with him at the A & E. Seeing how much he suffered it was much easier to let him go. Now I understood what my mom said when her own mother died.
My dad was 75.
The hardest months for me are February and May. My parents birthdays were in February. I actually got married on my mom's birthday, 19 February 2011. My divorce was official on the 14th of February 2018. May is when my mom died. I struggle sometimes pretty badly, as I do miss my family. The pain of losing both my parents is still there and pretty raw.
So to answer my own question, no, I do not think we ever stop grieving. I think we learn to live with the grief of losing a loved one. We all grieve in different ways, do not let anyone tell you that the way you grieve is wrong or strange, or that you need to stop crying and grieving months or years after losing your loved one.
While I don't like to go to counselling and will probably never do, if you find that there is no one within your family or friend circle that understands you, do seek help with a professional. We instinctively know what we need to heal. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
My thoughts are with you if you ever lost a loved one.
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