Grief & Loss

When I think of all the ways loss has happened in my life, I immediately begin wondering about the scope of loss in other peoples' lives, because I don't think I've encountered that much more than most, and yet it feels like quite a bit. While I have lost several members of my immediate family (my grandmother & my brother most notably), the majority of my losses have been my animals.

Don't get me wrong. I loved my grandmother dearly, and my brother too. But they lived far away and my animals were part of my day to day world. I was responsible for them, and cared for them directly as they aged and began to decline (or in some cases declined suddenly at an earlier age). The grief I felt at the loss of my animals is something I struggle to put in to words. They were such an integral part of my family and I really suffered after their deaths. I struggled to work and eat, and cried more than not for weeks to months afterward. I think that is a fairly common reaction based on those I know who had a similar relationship with their beloved animals as I did with mine (though I'm fairly sure the people I know fall into a different category of pet owner).

Beyond people and animals, I have grieved jobs. In almost all cases via restructuring so that a percentage of the company was laid off. I was lucky enough to make it through many reorganizations at my last company before coming to grad school. The last one was aptly timed. I had been thinking about leaving for a few years and finally, I was in a role that had a history of being cut (there were more of that position in the company than my prior positions so it frequently was a target of downsizing). It was a bittersweet ending. I didn't dislike my job, but it wasn't fulfilling. I still grieved the loss of that identity, it had become such a part of who I was.

I've grieved places. I mentioned my first home in a prior post. I loved that house. It was old and charming and comforted me through some of the losses mentioned above. When I got married I considered keeping it and renting it, but I decided I couldn't do it. I couldn't own it and see someone else living there. The house deserved to have someone love it and care for it like I did, and so I sold it and cried, and took dozens of photos the day I walked out the door. My friend Sara and I toasted the old home in the empty kitchen before I left and I left a note for the new owner, hoping she would be as happy there as I was.

I've grieved relationships both romantic and platonic. Sometimes love is not enough, or a friendship just isn't living up to its role of providing support, nurturing and love. And so you let those people go (or they let you go). It's all painful.

I've grieved for our environment. Until I took an environmental justice class, I didn't realize that the feelings I had were considered eco-grief (who knew there was a term, but of course there is). The pain of watching the live video of all the oil flooding into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill, seeing animals covered in slick, black sludge, unable to move their wings, reading about the great pacific garbage patch (now there are five of them in our oceans), and reading articles from people who knew our oceans intimately and deemed them now "broken."

I have grieved for our country lately as I've watched in horror as so much progress (or what I thought was progress) has been exposed as either false progress (in the form of bigotry and hate that has risen to the surface), or actual rolling back of progress in the form of environmental regulations, not to mention the hostility and vitriol spewed daily in our news cycles and on social media.

Years ago I embraced the Buddhist teaching 'life is suffering.' This doesn't mean I'm a pessimist, I just accept that it happens fairly regularly in our lives. I think this acceptance helps me in my clinical practice. Working with others who are grieving their losses and coming at it from a position of acceptance allows me to witness their suffering in an interesting way. I am not trying to change it any quicker than they are willing to themselves. By acting as a witness and a companion through their processing of grief, I have found that it gives them room to feel whatever it is they are struggling with (in the case of my one client, it was guilt because they didn't have a great relationship with the loved one they lost) at a pace that works for them. I also talk about loss-oriented vs. restoration-oriented grief and this dual model of grief seems to resonate with the handful of people I've talked with about this concept. This model assumes we will be moving back and forth between the two types of orientations, which is healthy. Loss oriented focuses us on the loss itself while restoration is future-focused and helps us see a new path forward. With one specific client, we have been tracking the movement between these two ways of processing their grief during the weeks between our meetings and it provides valuable insights and starting points for discussion when we are together.

In the past few years I heard a new concept of grief that really resonates with me. The grief we feel never really gets smaller, it's our lives that increase around it as we create new memories and experiences and thus it feels like it takes up less room in our hearts and minds, but it's really just in relation to the additional experiences. This is helpful, especially as it relates to grief of people and animals. I think oftentimes we feel guilt at the thought of moving on from our grief. This concept allows us a different way to seeing the grief that doesn't imply my feelings about the loss lessen, rather my life grows around it.