When grief slaps you in the face, and tells you to pay attention

Dear Avery,

When I started seeing a therapist over a year ago (which I highly recommend for anyone), I told her of my experience with infertility and how it broke me. She listened for a few sessions, and then introduced the topic of “Grief”.

“Do you think perhaps you are going through stages of grief right now?”

Natively, I thought: isn’t grief about death? I haven’t lost anyone close to me. Surely this is not that…

Wrong.

She followed it, “Grief can be a death of dream, too.  Realization that what you planned in your mind did not happen. Death of an idea you had for your life.”

Honestly, I could not fully comprehend this for months. It didn’t commute in my head. We worked through it over time.

The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with what we’ve lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.

Denial? Yep >> This wasn’t happening to me. Can’t possibly happen to me…

Anger? Lots of it. Anger with God (how you could not let this happen for me?), anger that my life wasn’t going to plan.

Bargaining? Ahh, not so much. But grief doesn’t fit in a box. You won’t fit everything in there.

Depression? This is a heavy word, and I probably told myself I wasn’t battling depression. But that is another form of denial. So I’d like to claim spurts of depression.

Acceptance? This comes in waves. There were periods of time where I accepted that I may not be a mother, or this just wasn’t the right time.

OK, so what now? I am going through grief of my own. I started recently reading books, listening to podcasts, taking time to sit with my self in my grief — and look at it in the face, talking to others about THEIR grief. All of it. I was running away from it so long, until it slapped me in the face and told me to pay attention. Feel the sadness. Feel the gratitude. Feel the acceptance of moving on. FEEL THE GRIEF.

Here are the things I’ve learned, and if YOU are feeling grief or a loved one is grieving, here is what I know:

1. Ask people “How are you doing, TODAY?” not “how are you”? Everyday is different. Treat it as such.
2. Let the grief come, when it comes.
3. You can’t put grief in a box (ha! I already said that. But it’s true. Grief does not look the same for everyone)
4. Sometimes Option A is not available, so kick the shit out of Option B. (Thank you, Sheryl Sandberg for this life lesson)
5. Post – Traumatic – Growth: happens after trauma, we grow to become more joyful, more appreciative.
6. We must believe that Option B exists. And in order to move through your grief, go with Option B.

So Avery, know that you will encounter grief of some form in your life. I’ve learned that it comes in different sizes due to different traumas, but none-the-less, it will come.

A wise professor told me, “It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be sad. It’s OK to give yourself the time to sit in the corner and wallow. But after that, you have to pick yourself up and move on.”

Grief is apart of life, and after it comes such gratitude and beauty once the clouds part if you allow yourself to see it.

I may not see or feel the beauty everyday, but everyday I try.

And that’s where I’m at today. Tomorrow — we shall see! And there is such beauty in that.

With love,

Aunt Megs