Dealing with Grief

There are no rules of how each and every one of us deals with grief. From the first goldfish floating on top of the bowl to the pet turtle that wasn’t such a pet to the dead puppy to Nana’s funeral, death is just a sideline of life.

When young we look to our elders to guide us through the emotion mystery of what to do and how to feel.

Sure there are lots of tears and wailing, but what does it all mean?

What was here yesterday and not here today?

If the process is to flush the beloved down the toilet or dump in a pit in the backyard and say a few words or a full blown dress up in your finest dudes to listen to people sing and preach but the body never moves, the process of grief is confusing.

How emotionally attached to the deceased factors into the grief.

First of all, the shock of a missing a member takes time to understand. Comprehending the “new” reality can take some time to adjust to.

Dealing with a flood of cards and letters and flowers from emotions that are probably sincere but never heard of before is confusing enough in the haze of grief.

Once all the hubbub of the death march is over and everyone else is back to his or her lives of choosing the correct cheese and bottle of wine, the new actuality of life appears on the calendar.

No matter there is no way to avoid it. The clothes in the closet need to be cleaned or passed down or thrown away. Items that may have seemed worthless are now precious. No one else can perform this task.

Little things like what television shows you shared or meals are not as interesting or tasty alone.

Finding scraps of paper messages or bookmarks or videos forgotten but now retrieved have to assimilate into this grief process. If necessary to store away for the next generation to ponder, hide the emotions for no one else to know.

There will always be memories (if they were worth remembering) and photos and sounds and words and smells are only snippets that bring back a moment of time. Then it fades away.