Today at work, I went to an educational offering where Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief were discussed along with new research from George Bonano, a new book from Ruth Davis Koningsberg, and some of the work of Alan Wolfelt. It was suggested that the Five Stages of Grief as the media has portrayed it and as has been taken in by Western or at least American culture is not true--that the research doesn't support it. I find it amazing time and again that what was initially brought forward by Kubler-Ross as stages of anticipatory grief that she found as common ground among patients dying from terminal illnesses has been something that we try to apply to those who go on living after the loss. With that said, everyone grieves differently, as everyone's loss is unique. No two people have the same relationship as someone else does. My relationship to my parents is different from my siblings relationship to my parents. My relationship with my spouse is different from your relationship with your spouse. The same is true for our relationships with our jobs, our coworkers, our friends, our houses, our cars, our pets, etc. How I grieve the loss of any of these may be very different from how you would, or it could be very similar but what it won't be, is identical. However, I do believe that there are some commonalities that we experience as we grieve, especially over the course of our life time. My belief about grief is based my own personal experience as well as 13 years of experience working with grieving people as both a hospital and hospice chaplain.
I like to think of grieving as being like taking a walk along the beach. First of all, I believe that grief comes in waves. When we are young and/or new to grief, we are much like a toddler who is knocked down by the waves. If we are lucky we have parents, family, and or friends who will pick us up. As we grow we become stronger, we are able to walk along the beach and those waves can come washing over our feet like bittersweet memories. Sometimes a loss can be a big deep loss and we find ourselves wading in knee deep or even chest high water. The experiences of previous losses have made us strong enough to walk through these periods. All waves are not the same. Some are big crashing waves, some are small ripples, and others are tsunamis. Waves vary depending on the season, so does grief. Just as waves get bigger depending on the cycle of the moon or season of the year, our grief has seasons. Holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and other milestone moments are times we can pretty safely expect a bigger wave of grief to come our way. The tide comes in and the tide goes out. There are periods when it is easy to walk along the beach and not even be touched by a wave. There are periods when we walk along and our grief/loss doesn't come anywhere near us. We are able to focus on other things. And then somewhere seemingly out of the blue comes a big wave that hits you and knocks you back to your knees. It could be a fragrance, a familiar face, a song any number of things can trigger a fresh grief reaction--years, even decades after the loss. Sometimes we choose to ride the waves, to float along with the grief, and to give ourselves fully to experiencing the feelings of our loss. We just need to remember to watch out for the riptide that can pull us under to a dark place where we can't escape. When we feel that tug, we must call out for help so that a life line can be thrown to us. We can also watch out for our friends and family to throw out the life line should they need it or to call for a life guard to come and rescue them. As for the tsunamis, just like most of us never experience them at the beach, I think most of us never experience them with our grief; however, on occasion a loss does come along that leaves someone brokenhearted and unable recover. And in those instances, it really doesn't matter how good you are at swimming or how strong you are emotionally or physically, if you are too close to the wave you are swept away by it. Thankfully, I've not experienced that and I hope that neither you or I ever do.
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