I first had grief explained to me in a college mental health seminar. We were shown an image of a ball in a box. The box was labeled “life” and inside the box was a big ball bouncing around. On one side of the box, was a small red button labeled “pain”. The analogy goes as such: in the early stage of experiencing loss, the ball is so big, it has little room to rattle around inside the box, causing it to often press up against our “pain button”.

At 18, this diagram was difficult to relate to. I had experienced my fair share of growing pains, a broken heart here, an end of a friendship there, fallout with a family member, the disappointment of rejection to my dream university. Although I had lived a fairly sheltered life up until that point, my parents made sure to raise my siblings and I to have thick skin. Life is not going to be easy. You experience hardships, you feel how you feel, you work through setbacks, get over it, and move on. I could not imagine enduring a pain so great that it would carry on with me. Naivety is bliss.

The Early Stages of Processing Grief

Experts studying grief are reporting in new studies that it can take 12-24 months to heal from the death of a loved one. I was 23 years old when I experienced my first great loss. My grandmother was 81, and had lived a magnificent, full life before lung cancer took her within two weeks of her diagnosis. When I got the news that she only had a few months left, I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. Knocked off my feet and winded. I had an image in my head of a cartoon character in one of those old TV shows I used to watch at my grandmother’s house when I was a kid. Hit over the head by an anvil or grand piano falling out of the sky, crushing me flat. My mind did not know how to begin to process that she was going to die, and it was going to be soon. The two weeks that followed were met with confusion and anger at the fact that there was nothing I could do while she slowly slipped away in hospice care. All I could do was try to comfort her in her passing. It was sudden, and it was quick.

I thought back to the image of the ball and the box. Only in my box, there was no space for the ball to move around. The ball was so big, it was suffocated by the box. The box barely withstanding the weight of the ball, ready to burst. The pain button being held down at all times, firmly pressed against the side of the box with no relief.

The standard five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. None of these were applicable to me. To me, the five stages of grief do not give enough context for the actual emotions you endure after the death of a loved one. In what stage do you categorize the guilt you feel for continuing life without them? Or the constant glance at the calendar to see how much time has passed since they died. 5 days. 2 weeks. 3 months now. How have I made it 6 months without them? Come on, this is getting old, you can come back now! I tried applying my own personal processes of dealing with emotions to this new pain. Life, hardship, deal with your feelings, get over it, move on. Only I did not know how to deal with these feelings, I could not just get over it, I could not move on. Not a very sound coping mechanism. The early stages of grief are heavy. I felt like gravity was constantly working against me, trying to hold me down, confining me to bed. It was deep, indescribable pain.

I thought back to the image of the ball and the box. Only in my box, there was no space for the ball to move around. The ball was so big, it was suffocated by the box. The box barely withstanding the weight of the ball, ready to burst. The pain button being held down at all times, firmly pressed against the side of the box with no relief.

If it really takes 12-24 months to heal from loss, my family received a double whammy. Not even a year after the passing of my grandmother, my cousin’s middle boy contracted meningitis. One day, he collapsed and never woke up. He was seven years old. In that same week, my mom had surgery and began her first round of chemotherapy for breast cancer. Oh yeah, and this was also the first week we entered lockdown for a global pandemic. Everyone in the world was in survival mode. There was no time to stop and grieve, or even begin to accept the new reality that was forced upon us. Life, hardship, get over it, move on. Why did I think that this process ever truly worked?

The Road to Acceptance

With my grandmother’s death, I had begun to realize a level of acceptance. I shared 23 years of memories and a lot of love with her. She taught me amazing life lessons and was the true matriarch of my entire family. She made a great impact on everyone she crossed paths with. As hard as it was to lose her, I knew that it was simply her time to go. As tragic as it was, it made sense. With my cousin, nothing made sense. This is where the true five stages of grief come into play….

Five Stages of Grief

• Denial: This can’t be happening. He was just a baby. He was a healthy, happy boy.
• Anger: How the hell could this be happening? He was a healthy, happy boy!
• Bargaining: If only the doctors tried harder to catch it before it spread, he would still be here. They should have done more.
• Depression: I don’t know how we are going to move forward without him. What is our family without him?
• Acceptance: now this is the part where we express how much the person we lost meant to us. How lucky we were to have them in our lives. How thankful we are for the years we had with them. But this is where it gets messy. We did not have years. We did not have enough time. He was supposed to have more.

In Brene Brown’s newest book, “Atlas of the Heart” she explores 87 unique human emotions and experiences. In the first chapter, Brown discusses how individuals describe human emotions as either states or traits. One of her examples is anxiety. A person can make statements like “I have anxiety” or “Well, I am just an anxious person” which signifies this feeling is a trait, a part of who they are. As opposed to someone saying “I don’t want to go to this party, the thought of socializing is making me anxious” which implies they are in a state of anxiety and only feeling this emotion for a short amount of time, or when tied to socialization. Using this now to reflect on the pain I felt during the first year after my grandmother’s passing, grief certainly felt like it was a permanent part of me. Like it had always been there and I didn’t know how life was before. If there were such a thing as a 12-step program for recovering grievers, I would have been there looking for answers on how to heal. “Hi, I’m Melissa and I have been in mourning for 10 months, with no signs of recovery ahead.”

The road to reach “acceptance” has been the longest one to travel down in my journey with grief. I am reminded of one thing my aunt (who had just lost her mother and grandson a year apart) told me in a conversation we had about her father, that she and my mom lost when they were little girls. “You have to get over it.” Boy, was I tired of that phrase. “You just have to.  It’s the only way to move on.” It feels cliché to say that life is for the living, but it’s true. Acceptance is not always happy or even uplifting. There is no happy ending, you learn how to live with it. If there are any positives to grief, I have found them in human connection. I believe the best way to explore yourself and your emotions is by sharing them with others. Leaning on family members and friends for comfort helps to ease the pain. Finding ways to relate to each other makes you feel less alone.

Although these triggers bring a wave of grief and pain, sweet memories follow prompting me to smile and share their stories with those around me. This is how we ensure their memory lives on.

Learning to Heal and Carry On

The size of the ball will fluctuate over time. Growing and shrinking as we continue to experience life, which means more loss and pain. When the ball triggers my pain button now, this grief does not feel heavy. There are no more grand pianos falling out of the sky to crush me flat. Instead, it is empty. It is lonely. When I am hit with a wave of grief now, my chest feels hollow and my breath is shallow. It feels like I cannot get enough air into my lungs. I feel light and airy from my shoulders all the way through to my fingertips. This feeling settles for a while but in a somber way. I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to scream. I can’t feel the air around me. It is not a heavy burden I am carrying. Instead, it’s calm but somehow overwhelming. There is no weight on my shoulders, holding me down, confining me to bed like it was in the beginning. Instead, it is the pure absence of mobility or thought. Then, suddenly, the feeling leaves as quickly as it came on.

These small triggers create opportunities to explore fond memories and carry on the legacies of those who are no longer here. I have moments where there is a familiar smell in the air of something my grandmother cooked or baked for us, or I hear a laugh that sounds like hers. With my cousin, sometimes I will notice the face of someone walking down the street and I will imagine that is how he might have looked when he was older.

Although these triggers bring a wave of grief and pain, sweet memories follow prompting me to smile and share their stories with those around me. This is how we ensure their memory lives on.

I have found a lot of self-growth in acceptance. Acceptance has taught me to cherish the simple things life has to offer. I hug tighter, laugh harder, and say “I love you” as often as I can. I appreciate every moment I have. I know that the hole in my heart from these losses will always be there, but my heart grows bigger around it each day.