Grief is self employed entity
Last night I was talking with a friend who recently lost her mother. We were talking about the unpredictability of grief including when it hits, how it hits and how we're often taken off guard by it. I like to call those bitch slaps. When your day is going along as usual and suddenly, something reminds you of someone or something and you're sobbing like nobody's business and it plumb came out of the blue. That's grief bitch slapping you. You don't have time to think about it or react to it to protect yourself. It just happens and you are left defenseless in its wake.
Then I got to thinking, Grief is a self employed entity.
Grief is accountable to no one, but is available to everyone. We never really want to employ it, but there are times in our lives when we have no choice. When that time comes, grief will not give you any idea of what it has in store. It doesn't have to, you've already paid with the loss you had, so grief will go on it's own agenda. An agenda that has no time frame, no supervisor and no set schedule. It comes and goes when it wants. Sometimes it shows up as planned and other times it's out of nowhere. It doesn't care if it has been 2 months since your loss or two years. It works at it's own pace with no one to tell it otherwise.
Grief also plays by its own rules. You can't command grief to come or go and you can't control the form it takes. Without a doubt, grief can come in ways that make people confused. For example, those of you who are old enough to remember Mary Tyler Moore may remember the episode of Chuckles the clown's funeral. Chuckles the Clown had passed away and the whole news station was at the funeral. There sitting in the church pews, everyone was somber. As the minister began to speak, everyone was quiet and solemn careful not to make a distraction. Everyone that is except Mary. After every few sentences, Mary would start to chuckle. She tried so hard not to laugh, but each chuckle got louder and louder to the point she burst out laughing causing the minister to stop and everyone to stare at her. The minister then told her it was okay. That Chuckles was a clown and she could laugh because he would want to be remembered by laughter. He ends by saying "So laugh for Chuckles, go ahead and laugh" and Mary breaks out sobbing. It is a classic moment and one where people say "that's me, I've done that". While some people may not understand it, grief can cause people to laugh or smile. It's a defense mechanism against the awkwardness of death and the situation at hand. It's a way the anxiety and grief come together to help a person's brain cope with the pain. Laughing or smiling in an uncomfortable situation is something many people do. It's not wrong or bad or any of those negative descriptions. There's no rule book for grief, OR how to handle it, it just is.
(by the way if you're interested, check out the video of that scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJny78bpsgo It's super funny)
Grief is part of life. It's not pleasant and it's a part of life we wish we didn't have to experience and grief covers all kinds of losses. Death, loss of a job, an old friendship, innocence, loss of an easier time gone by, loss of independence and the list goes on and on. But no matter the way grief comes into our world, it is crushing and it feels like it will suffocate you. Often times we don't think we can make it to which a friend of mine always says, "the only way over grief is through it" Truly though, we never get over grief. We just incorporate it better into our lives. I guess the only good thing about grief is we can share it with each other and not be alone with our grief. Grief may be a self employed entity, but we can hire as many helpers as we need to help us get through what is to come. I like to look at those who support us as life preservers that hold on to us so when that next wave of grief comes along, we are able to hold on without drowning until that wave goes back out to sea and we can come up for air for a brief minute. Those life preservers are key and it's the one thing grief can't touch.
Grief is indeed a self employed entity who works on it's own terms and has no time frame and no expectations. That means it's okay to cry when you are bitch slapped. It's okay to cry 5 days, 5 months, 5 years, or 5 decades later. It's plain okay to just cry and the deeper you love someone, the deeper the grief will be. There may be people who don't understand and ask you if you think you should move on or "get over it". But that's not the way it works. Because grief is self employed, there are no policies or procedures, no manuals, nothing to guide us through our grief and that means no one should ever tell anyone how to handle grief.
So next time grief comes calling, grab your life preservers and hold on. Surround yourself with those who won't judge you and who will sit with you in silence as you grieve. Over time, grief will incorporate itself into your world and you'll come to a place where it only stops by from time to time. That doesn't mean you're over the loss either. It just means you found a way to incorporate life, loss, and grief in your world and have come to accept, that life will really never be the same again.