Grief
Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.
Rabbi Earl Grollman
Oh, good – you’re here. You’re reading this. I hope it helps.
Maybe someone you’ve cared about has died. Maybe your pet is gone. Maybe your best friend has moved away. Or you’re grieving for another reason. For sure, grief will happen in your life.
But you already know that.
You know that everything that lives must also die, that friends go away, that life can be hard.
So let’s talk about how we deal with death, grief, and the mourning that naturally follows losing who or what we love. If this doesn’t apply to you right now, knowing how to support grieving friends is important.
- There is no right or wrong way to grieve.
You don’t have to respond to death or loss the way you’ve seen others respond. And you don’t have to respond differently, either.
You may not be able to say what you’re feeling, or you may feel several emotions at once. Yes, you might be both sad and angry. Or feel guilty and relieved, or lonely and scared. Or all of these.
- Grieving and mourning are different but they go together. Grieving is what you think and feel on the inside when you experience loss. Mourning is expressing your grief.
Grief may feel like sadness, anger, regret, relief, numbness, or all of these things tumbled together. You may feel like you have a hole in your chest or an ache in your gut or you can’t concentrate on anything.
Mourning is letting your grief out. Crying, talking, writing, running, and many other activities are ways of mourning.
While there is no right or wrong way to mourn, there are helpful and unhelpful ways.
- Losing someone hurts and you need time to heal. To heal your grief, you must mourn. Talking about your thoughts and feelings really helps. You don’t have to talk when you don’t want to. You don’t have to tell everything at once, but eventually, you need to connect. Find someone you trust, someone who will listen.
Sometimes grieving teens are told to “be strong,” “move on,” or “get over it.” You can do all of that, but first you need to grieve thoroughly.
Perhaps your friends seem to ignore the fact that you’ve just lost someone you love. They don’t know what to say, so they don’t say anything. Adults might do this, too. They’re afraid that talking will remind you of the death or the loss.
But you don’t need reminding; you haven’t forgotten.
Find someone who will support you, someone who won’t judge how you feel. Tell them what you want to tell – who or what you’ve lost, what your connection was, the different things you’re feeling, or that you can’t seem to feel a thing. What you’re worried about. Who you’re worried about.
It’s okay to feel all these things. And you won’t feel them forever.
It looks like a book full of pictures of faces, with different expressions on each page. You flip the pages, and the faces fan past you. You can be many of those expressions, even at the same time. Does grief make you laugh? Are you grieving deeply but people think it’s strange you haven’t cried? Or do you find yourself crying constantly? Are you the face that’s eating all the time? Or the one that refuses to eat at all? The face that looks numb, or the one shouting in anger?
Grief has a different face for each person, and different faces for the same person. You don’t have to fit a mold.
Let yourself mourn in your own way. Give yourself permission to let your grief look how it looks.
- Just because you’re not crying doesn’t mean you’re not grieving.
- Even when you’re having fun, the memory of your loss can be with you.
- Holidays are hard.
- You need to take naps. Grief can be exhausting.
- You’re afraid you’ll forget the face and voice of the one who died.
What else do you wish people would understand? Write it down. Talk it out. Pretty much everyone has flunked mind reading, and we’re usually not so good at reading emotions, either. But if your friends and family want to help, tell them how they can do that.
The death of a parent can seem to shatter the world.
The grief that comes with such a death also comes with unique questions. Teens need to be able to ask their questions, even if there aren’t complete answers yet.
Please know that you are not unusual or selfish if, in the middle of great pain, you want to know:
What happens if my other parent dies, too? What will happen to me? What will happen to my family? Do we have enough money? Can I keep going to the same school?
Grief can make it hard to catch your breath. Especially when a parent dies. Focus on mourning, on doing things to make yourself feel better. Ask these questions if you need to, and ask to have honest answers.
Remember that everyone who loves you is grieving for you, too. They want to help. Let them. They want to listen, even if they don’t know what to say. Your staying silent doesn’t relieve their worry. As you open up, both you and the people you talk to may find your hearts become lighter.
Allow me to share a story. Yesterday I walked down dingy stairs to a church basement full of foldout tables covered with knives and cutting boards. In a separate room, bags of basil, bowls of tomatoes, heaps of peppers and carrots, and piles of potatoes were tumbling over the counters and into the sinks. A young man in a baggy T-shirt was scraping the grill of an old stove. People of all ages were chatting amiably while they washed veggies. My family and I were ready to chop, wash, cook, or clean along with them.
We had come to mourn.
And we were happy about that.
So began our work with the Burrito Brigade, a group that makes vegan burritos for the homeless. This was our way of mourning.
Several years ago, a member of our family killed himself. Following the advice of the wisest person I know, we made up our minds to “be positive” and mourn him in positive ways. So every year around his birthday, we give a little of our time as a family to help someone else.
This year, we chopped potatoes, stripped kale, and diced tomatoes. As we worked together, we told old family stories, again.
And then we took ourselves out to lunch and toasted the man we all loved who is gone. We spoke his name with affection.
Everyone went home feeling better.
Do something you feel good about. Dedicate the activity to the person you lost. Laugh with friends. Keep hydrated – drink lots of water. Keep a journal. Take naps. Play music. Get a pen pal. Make a memory book. Understand that healing comes a little bit at a time.
You can use your body to help. Run or dance or kick a ball or pound a pillow. Exercise releases feel-good chemicals and increases body temperature, which has calming effects.
Or maybe paint a picture. Whether it’s drawing, singing, spoken word, pounding a drum set, working with clay, or something else, creativity feels good. And feeling good is a much-needed break from sorrow.
Recreational drugs, alcohol, never sharing feelings, techno-escaping – these things seal in the grief. They actually keep you from mourning. Remember – to heal grief, you must first mourn.
You can mourn in positive ways. Grief can help you become a more understanding, compassionate person. None of us can avoid grief; however, all of us can experience it and become deeper, better human beings.
Grieving doesn’t make you imperfect. It makes you human.
Sarah Dessen