By Claire Sullivan
“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.
”
As Laura Ingalls Wilder famously stated, “home is the nicest word there is,” and I think it’s safe to say most people would agree. The place where you first learned to ride a bike in the driveway, the fairy house you made as a kid still standing at the stump of the tree in your backyard, your great-great grandmother’s piano bench where you put out cookies for Santa and also dreaded sitting at every time your piano teacher came over, the dining room table where your dad pulled out your loose teeth, the unsettling–and quite frankly, ugly–painting your dad picked out that stares at you while you eat dinner (oh yeah, that’s just me), and the front door where the inevitable first day of school pictures were always taken. Even if not all of these scenarios are relatable to you, home is a place where cherished memories can be made. So, when a wildfire tragically burned down my beloved childhood home two years ago, my world was turned upside down. I didn’t recognize it back then, but the loss of my home would soon be followed by grief.
Usually, when people think of experiencing grief, they think of someone who is mourning the death of a loved one. While this is a very real and plausible grief situation, there are other less obvious circumstances in which grief is encountered. Grieving the death of someone is the most common way to grieve, but the loss of a place or the loss of time and associated opportunities are other ways to experience grief (Gitterman & Knight, 2019). The social acknowledgement of grief in response to a non-death loss is minimal, and oftentimes people who grieve these losses suffer silently. Therefore, I’ll be exploring ways in which people who grieve a death or non-death loss can cope and overcome these trials.
The most understood and researched way of grieving is over the death of a loved one. Everyone in their life will experience this grief, and it can be hard to cope with such a significant loss. Research done on college students who were experiencing the aftermath of the death of a close friend or family member found a few factors that helped these students cope. The students who felt a sense of community at their university and had the social support of family and friends coped the best after losing a significant person in their life (McNally et al., 2021). So, feeling integrated in your school, work, club, etc. can help with combatting the burden of grief. Having the social support of close friends and family is also an important emotional outlet to have in this process. Another crucial part of grieving and coping with loss is to make meaning out of a loved one’s death (Neimeyer et al., 2014). Whether it is through storytelling regarding the deceased, disclosing dreams of the lost person, seeking spiritual significance in a striving coincidence, etc., discovering meaning in their death can help people find order and balance in their new life without that person.
The loss of a place can be a more complicated grieving process. The absence of cherished places and structures that comforted us and have been part of our individual and group identities leaves us with feelings of grief associated with being uprooted and adrift. Some situations in which people can feel this type of grief are out-of-home placement (such as foster care), transitioning from home to care facilities for the elderly, being an immigrant or a refugee, homelessness, and human-made or natural disasters. This type of grief can have a disorienting effect and leave people with pervasive feelings of uncertainty, fear, and lack of motivation. They also may feel an enduring sense of living in survival mode (Gitterman & Knight, 2019). Oftentimes people are left on their own to grieve and suffer from the loss of places, and it is important to have empathy and uncover all the feelings one experiences while going through these life changes. Group therapy and having social support through these situations can influence one’s ability to make meaning of their loss and move forward.
The loss of time and associated opportunities can be another complicated grieving process and may go easily unnoticed by others. Situations like these can include being disappointed in years spent in an unfulfilling job or failing relationship, military personnel grieving time lost from family, incarcerated prisoners grieving forced separation and lost opportunities, people in the queer community grieving the length of time it took for them to “come out,” or people with terminal illnesses that may be upset about the length of time they delayed seeking medical attention. These few examples of people undergoing grief due to the loss of time or opportunities demonstrate the complicated course grief can take.
A research study by Backhouse and Graham (2013) explored the complicated grieving process grandparents go through as they take on parent roles for their grandchildren. While taking on the parent role can be rewarding, many feelings of anger, frustration, resentment, guilt, shame, anxiety, and self-doubt are common. These grandparents must navigate multiple losses– the loss or incapacitation of their child, the loss of their personal hopes and dreams, the loss of social or job status, and the loss of their role as a grandparent. These grandparents felt that they had little validation for the grief they were experiencing and felt a sense of isolation and shame from the stigma of being in a family not in line with the social norm (Backhouse & Graham, 2013). This exemplifies the importance of needing to validate all types of grieving experiences and being accepting of experiences that may not be considered “normal.”
So, what do you do if you are in one of these situations? Based off of the research, here are some ways you can cope with any of these types of death and non-death grieving experiences and start moving forward:
Find meaning in the loss. Whether it is through journaling, writing a story, songs, poems, etc., take the time to make meaning of the loss you are experiencing.
Reconstruct a self-narrative perturbed by loss. After you find some meaning in the loss, start to consider what your new self-narrative is and some ways you can make positive changes to your life. What things will you do the same and what will you change because of this loss?
Share your experience with others in the community or with family and friends. Having emotional support in a community or social setting is a great way to express your true thoughts on the matter and receive much needed validation and guidance from others. Group therapy is another great option for people who feel that their friends or family may not understand their experience.
(For grieving the death of a loved one) Retain a continuing bond with the deceased in emotional, symbolic, and memorial terms. Having a way to stay connected to the person you lost is a great way to help you feel their presence and keep their legend alive.
Resist the dominant cultural narratives that script the “proper” performance of grief. There is no one right way to grieve. Now understanding all the types of grieving experiences and losses one can feel, it is important to not feel shame for your grief. Take the appropriate amount of time YOU need to cope with your grief and move forward.
Grief is rarely a linear, prescriptive, stage-based process like people make it out to be. Like Olivia Rodrigo so poetically reminds us, it can feel like “1 step forward and 3 steps back.” Remember to be kind to yourself if you are experiencing grief. As for those who aren’t grieving, remember to have empathy for those who are grieving–validating their experiences can do wonders for their mental health and ability to move forward. Every grieving experience is different, and by following these steps you may overcome the burden of grief and turn it into something unimaginable.
“Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.”
References
Backhouse, J., & Graham, A. (2013). Grandparents raising their grandchildren: Acknowledging the experience of grief. Australian Social Work, 66(3), 440–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2013.817595
Gitterman, A., & Knight, C. (2019). Non-death loss: Grieving for the loss of familiar place and for precious time and associated opportunities. Clinical Social Work Journal, 47(2), 147–155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-018-0682-5
McNally, R. D. S., Winterowd, C. L., & Farra, A. (2021). Psychological sense of community, perceived social support, and grief experiences among bereaved college students. College Student Journal, 55(1), 67–79.
Neimeyer, R. A., Klass, D. & Dennis, M. R. (2014). A social constructionist account of grief: Loss and the narration of meaning. Death Studies, 38(8), 485-498. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2014.913454