Reflect, Remember, Recharge, Re-Focus, Resolve, & Have Curiousity

I had a plan to reflect, remember, rest, recharge, re-focus, resolve, and have curiosity while processing the stages of grief in the summer of 2020. During the process of planning to write out these six Rs, I have tried to separate the stages of grief out accordingly and work on them in a vertical progression. I am finding that in trying to go through the stages of grief, I am not able to move from one to the next orderly. So I am going to start trying to do both on a continuum knowing that the stages will overlap or at least bleed into the other. Sometimes it is grief over many different losses. Or it can happen over one loss, such as the loss of a spouse, partner, or child.

As I write this, I am in grief for many reasons. The most current is my husband and I just had a friend die. We have been friends for 60+ years. It has only been a few days. What I am beginning to recognize is that this underlying sadness is the way I have been feeling over the past few months. I lost a friend of almost 30 years before the stay-at-home-self-isolating order was given. The two send offs are going to be extremely different. The first was a big celebration with lots of people, music, food and sharing. We were able to collective sing our friend home. The second death is not going to be that way. At this point he will be buried, then celebrated later. Presently we do not know when or how that will occur.  In looking at this I realize that I am experiencing complicated grief. I am in a different stage of grief with both of these deaths. The other is interrupting my grieving for one. Both of these deaths are being interrupted by the pandemic. This reminds me of body surfing and jumping waves in the Pacific Ocean when I was young. Sometimes when I was knocked down by a wave another would crash into me before I could remain my balance. If that happened too many times I became exhausted and could no longer stand up. I am feeling close to that as I write this blog. Then I realized it is more that the two deaths. It is much more. It is recognized grief covered with unrecognized grief, AKA disenfranchised grief.  

Some examples of disenfranchised grief are loss of…

·      People we do not know

·      Miscarriages

·      Leadership

·      Jobs

·      Socialization

·      Emotional support

·      Family visitations

·      Safety

While doing this reflection and remembering the things I have it has become clear to me that I am in the following stages of grief on a personal level: denial, anger, bargaining and some sadness. Depending on the thought or memory I am experiencing is where I am in this process. At each stage grief is relatively resolved; rarely is it completely resolved in some final way, as I have been taught. Therefore, I can be brought back/pushed back to an earlier stage at times. So I have to experience that earlier stage some more before I move forward. When a loss is deeply significant and maybe traumatic, I can re-experience it for many years as I revisit the loss. The loss of a spouse, partner or child is such a loss, especially if the relationship was especially meaningful. In some ways I may never completely be done with the grief, but I will learn to live with it with less intense pain. 

As a nation we are all over the place. Without national recognition we are not moving through grief at all; we are experiencing denial, anger, bargaining and some sadness and we are trying to jump to making meaning and accepting without recognizing that a traumatic event is occurring.  As I move through my own process I am aware of where we are as a nation and I am reflecting on both.

Over the next few months I will be talking about disenfranchised grief and the wisdom I am gaining from reflecting on the concept. You will read my learning in this blog. Remember to reflect, remember, rest, recharge, refocus, resolve and be curious. These can be done in the order they arrive in your awareness.