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Grief: A Way of Being
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This morning when you woke up, did you decide how you would feel the moment you got out of bed? Whether it was happy, bitter, frustrated, stressed, or angry? Did that mood change as your day went on? Most of the time, our mood does change, and it does because often what we feel the first moments we wake up are the lingering emotions from the recently passed days and your sleep schedule. It does not determine how the rest of your day will go, nor will it determine your mood for the entire day. Rather, it’s a mood we decide to feel. Now, think of this analogy the same way we think of grief.
The death of a loved one is a moment in our lives that deeply affects us and whether we acknowledge it or not, we also need time to feel however we feel, much like the way you feel when you got out of bed. There’s no right or wrong emotions or moods to feel during the grieving process; you just feel the way you do. Period. Clinical director Cindy Allison of Pathway-Therapy was asked what grief is. As she sat to think of what its place in our lives looks like, she briefly paused, and said this:
“Grief often holds a space in the conversation but it should not always hold the weight of the conversation.”
Our conversation should not depend on grief. It should not rely on grief. One should understand grief as uniquely as one understands the self. Each one of us holds a special place for grief, and whether that be two months, six months, one year, or five years, we can’t let grief hold the weight of the conversation. Feel grief, look at grief, understand grief. And, once having done this, learn to let grief move on. Let it go the same way we let go of our emotions in the morning. We may feel convinced that our emotions in the morning are spot-on and will dictate the rest of our day, but take the entire context of the situation into account; what is impacting you to feel the way you do? If you’re grieving, it means you have love in your heart and that love has just transcended the human experience. What death holds for each of us is a mystery. We must learn to come up with our own understanding of it to live with it.
Cindy understands grief as a normal process in our lives in just the same way we know how to live. Acclaimed author Mitch Albom wrote in Tuesdays with Morrie about his dying professor giving him one of the most important lessons of life: “When we learn how to die, we learn how to live.” Since death awaits each of us at the end of our lives, we shouldn’t fear it. You should question it. Once you question it, you’ll begin to understand that death is not something to be solved like an equation. Death is one of the few things we must accept without explanation or meaning. It simply is. And when we come to grips with this reality, we begin to see life differently. Renowned grief counsellor Dr. Patrick O’Malley said we should learn to live with grief instead of getting over it. After suffering the loss of a child, Dr. O’Malley began to take a more personal approach to helping his clients. Grief for Dr. O’Malley is a culturally prescribed belief. In other words, the death of a loved one doesn’t have to mean grief painted as an illness, darkness, solitude, or loneliness. Rather, grief is a natural response to the loss of a loved one. Dr. O’Malley was asked what one piece of advice would be to someone who just experienced losing someone close to them, his response was this:
“One piece of advice in the early days of loss for those who grieve is to stay open to whatever feelings occur and to be careful to not be self-critical. Grief can be confusing and disorienting. There is not a right way to grieve. Your unique way of grieving will unfold in the weeks, months, and years to come. Remember, you grieve because you loved, so the size of your grief is the size of your love for the one who died.”
“You grieve because you loved.” And people say modern poetry doesn’t exist…. What often happens is we take other people’s experience of grief and make it our own. Grief is confusing and should never be underestimated. Take the time you need to grieve. Don’t let someone determine when grieving should stop. But remember, once you’ve experienced those feelings, learn to let them go, for your feelings, like those felt first thing in the morning, will not dictate the rest of your life. You decide what your feelings are. Dr. O’Malley understands that grief is our psychological language, and when we grieve, we’re often not alone. We have family or close friends to grieve with because they’ve also experienced the same loss. Maybe not in the same profound understanding, but the loss is still felt. However you choose to grieve, the death of a loved one affects more than just one individual, so we must begin to take the journey outside of our heads and place ourselves in a social setting of community, whether that be family or close friends.
Oftentimes, what we are missing during the grieving process is perspective. So, let’s look at two cultures in the world that have a unique approach to the death of a loved one and how they grieve.
Death in the Vietnamese culture, though it varies according to religious belief and geographical region, relies heavily on family. A proper burial is more than just a traditional gesture for the dead; it reminds the living to grieve and, when ready, to move through life. It becomes a process of therapy in and of itself. A celebration of life rather than the end of a life. What we're often taught about death is a Westernized scope whose framework is one of sorrow, oblivion, and /-meaninglessness. But death for many Vietnamese beckons t he bereaved to communicate with each other, and, in so doing, it allows death to communicate to the bereaved the important values for communal responsibilities. Death, if it arrives somewhat expectedly, should be approached with community values if one wants the person to die peacefully. For Buddhist Vietnamese population, death is rebirth. That's why it's important that the last moments a person is on earth in their given body are sacred and peaceful.
Día de los Muertos is Mexico’s celebration of life. It translates to Day of the Dead and it holds a special place in the lives of many Mexicans, including myself. Each year, around the end of October to the first week of November, my family places pictures of the deceased, decorations of skeletons, cempasúchil (marigolds), luminously colourful costumes, candles, plants, and traditional Mexican dishes that the deceased enjoyed eating. For Mexicans, these things represent death. But death isn’t something to fear. Death is something no one can escape from and as Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti said: “Death is only a symptom that there was life.” That is, it’s something as evident and present as life. So why fear it? Of course, there will be sorrow and grief when a loved one passes away, but it only means they passed from this life. As Mexicans, we don’t claim to understand death in any scientific way. We place ourselves as finite human beings who must preserve and celebrate life at every possibility. Even if it means the end of it. When a loved one passes, we put up an ofrenda. Basically, we put out a table setting in a special place in the house at the end of October offering the dead a representation of their lives. By setting a simple offering for the dead, we allow them a place in our lives that goes beyond the human life and that transcends the cycle of physical death.
Look back at each approach taken in this article, and you’ll begin to see a common factor in each of them. That factor is one of understanding, cultural belief, and love for one another. None of them claim to tell you how death should be approached down to each minute. We must respect those that have passed on while still holding onto the life we have.
Now, what we at Pathway-Therapy believe is this: we are individuals placed in a very special place in the world. We offer something for life and for death. How we feel between those two events comes down to us and the members of our community. Thus, moving with grief and embracing the cycle of life, leaves you with the opportunity to find your own footing and place in all of this and the impact you’d want to have on yourself and others through it all.
Below are a few references used throughout this article discussing the processes of grief:
Dr. O’Malley’s NYT article on how grief transformed his practice and his life
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/getting-grief-right/?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=undefined&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=Blogs
Dr. O’Malley’s book on grief.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30962223-getting-grief-right#:~:text=Patrick%20O'Malley-,Getting%20Grief%20Right%3A%20Finding%20Your%20Story%20of,in%20the%20Sorrow%20of%20Loss&text=When%20the%20New%20York%20Times,flood%20of%20gratitude%20from%20readers.
Excerpts used from an interview of Dr. O’Malley
https://www.heart-in-diamond.com/cremation-diamonds/interviews/getting_grief_right.html
Vietnamese beliefs on death and grief
https://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Vietnam/sub5_9d/entry-3382.html
If you'd like to explore more of what Grief means for you, get in touch here at Pathway-Therapy
At Pathway-Therapy, we openly welcome and work with many life challenges.
Understanding why and how you react or feel the way you do in relationships with others helps you take a step towards a healthy, grounded, and fulfilled place in the world. Working with a trained psychotherapist will help you explore your life with different lenses and introduce alternative choices and pathways.