Grief and Letting Go

I think maybe this is easier for some people than others.  As with life and adversity in general, how easily we deal with it has much to do with early experiences and how well those went for us.  As a military brat I became accustomed to people coming into and going out of my life.   I learned to love well and be a devoted friend in the time there was, and had no choice but to learn to let go when the time came.  ‘Letting Go’ refers to the ending of relationships as well as the deaths of loved ones, and while neither is usually a happy event, they’re both a natural course of life that must be dealt with.  It is how we deal with it that is actually more important than the loss itself.  Some may argue this point.

We all face these situations several times in our course of living.  Sometimes we find we face several situations at the same time.  A long time acquaintance recently passed away very unexpectedly.  A co-worker and friend who I admire has moved and I’m trying to keep a line open between us.  Another friend is combating a serious unknown illness which may not be curable.  An older relative who is dying…  So how do we go about Letting Go of all these people who are so dear to us?

Years ago I read a definition of grief which I think covers it fairly well ”Grief is the expected presence of an individual”  (author unknown) but to flesh it out, I would add  “..punctuated by the painful realization that they will not appear.”  Often following the death of someone close we find ourselves expecting their presence.  Perhaps we wake up thinking to find them, the phone rings and a fleeting thought of them may occur.  We see someone on the street who resembles them from the corner of our eye.  These are all examples of the ’expected presence’ we may have to endure as we mature through the process of grief.

Yes I did say mature.  I think this is important to differentiate between the moments we endure and the period in which we mature through the process.  These grief events may be painful to endure- the moment of realization brings the full sense of loss back to us again.  These events are also the catalysts for our ability to grow and mature as individuals.  We acknowledge the pain and sorrow these bring us, if only to ourselves, and eventually the pain does pass.  IF we learn how to let it. 

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross shook the world when she published her work in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying“.  She listed the five stages of the process as denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance.  Her model at that time was meant to assist the dying person come to terms with their impending demise,  and the family to understand what the dying individual was experiencing.  Her model has been widely used and applied to different situations.  A Google search will turn up numerous examples, as well as some criticisms.  Although Dr. Kubler-Ross listed the stages in a certain order, she was adamant that these stages did not always occur in that order, it was possible for them to manifest in any order and in fact, stages may be skipped altogether, though an individual would at least experience two of them.  I think if we consider past events in our lives we can find instances:

She was certainly in denial there when everyone told her he was cheating on her, until the proof was undisputable, then she was certainly angry !

He went through a period of depression when he was passed over for the promotion he thought was in the bag, but he eventually accepted the situation when he realized the other guy did have more qualifications for the job.

 The teenager who denied the mistake as long as possible, then  resorted to serious bargaining with the teacher/parent/girlfriend when trying to regain the trust/life situation he had prior to the big mistake. 

These situations reflect how easily the model can be applied to life events other than dying.   In the above examples we can see where a moment of realization occured to encourage a movement between stages.  I admit it’s been a number of years since I studied Dr. Kuble-Ross’ writings, but I  don’t think she quite emphasized the importance of two other points which move us throught her listed stages.  The first being the moment of Realization.  These are fleeting and happen with arbitrary swiftness- that moment when you realize it won’t be the “expected” loved one on the phone.  That moment of waking when we realize the “expected” won’t be there.   In that second, when the thought occurs and is negated by reality, is the point I’m referring to.  There’s the afterward which lingers as our mind reviews the presented material.  Perhaps even the self chastizing for the traiterous thought which we know very well should not have even bothered to come by to cause us fresh pain.  Annoying and painful though they may be, these moments bring us closer to ‘Letting Go’.

The second point I add into her stages is Understanding.  At some moment we will feel the need to acheive this in order to Acceptthis change which is forced upon us and perhaps these moments mentioned above are the mind’s way of forcing the needed reflection.   In order to be willing to let go we must come to understand that the situation is unhealthy for us - not necessarily understand why or how the change came about.  It is this lack of understanding which I believe is the sticking point for many individuals.  In some cases the understanding is never acheived.  We see this most often in people greiving deaths due to suicides, random acts of violence, and most tragically, the deaths of children.    At times we can accept, but that  doesn’t mean we choose to ”Let Go’.  Again this is most often seen in people grieving the death of a child.  They may accept their life is now changed.  How could they not when there is no longer a reason to drive to ballet class or football pratice?  But they may not choose to move on, continuing to bring the deceased individual into each new day with them, rather than keeping a perspective of the individual’s place in the past of their life.  This requires an understanding of the detriment of carrying the grief with them day after day.

There are other life circumstances where the lack of understanding keeps us stuck in a stasis of sorts and keeps us from Acceptance and finally ‘Letting Go’ to move on with our life.  Often this is due more to a tendency to gnaw at the “why” of a situation even when we realize it is unhealthy for us.  Faith or religion can be helpful in resolving this if we can chalk it up to God’s Plan and be satisfied with that.  Barring this, we need to be able to see that knowing why may be nice, but in the end doesn’t really make much difference to how we move on,  where we go and where we end up.  And this is what is important to our individual growth- that we move on.

We rarely appreciate the changes in our ilves when the change is forced upon us.  Often there is the resentment at a loss of our comfortable circumstance.  We woke in the morning having a pretty good idea of what to expect from the day and figured the next day would be pretty much as endurable as the previous.  Maybe a little better ( We have plans with a friend) , maybe a little worse (We’ll have to give our boss bad news)  Many of us balk on occasion at having to repeat the same daily routine of going to work, chores, etc.  That’s why we take vacations, change jobs, perhaps move to a new house.  But in these events we choose the changes and feel some amount of control.  Forced change takes this control from us and learning/remembering that we do not have control of others or circumstances is a process of reaching maturity.  To acheive our end result of moving on we must reach some level of understanding to Accept the change.  The thoughts, “If I had done this better,  maybe if I didn’t do that so often…” - these are thoughts that fool us into believing we had some participation in the control of others, not a realization that we only have control of ourselves.  We may feel we simply choose to accept the circumstances we find ourselves in, but in reality I believe we at least reached an understanding of the point that we didn’t have control.

Now that we have moved to what is usually the final stage of the grieving process- Acceptance, we must practice Letting Go.  We can not let go, and yet remain the same.  This behavior isn’t going to work to our long term benefit.  To grow as individuals we must pursue a path which will lead us to the goals we have a desire to attain.  In this at least, the change does us a favor, for it gives us the opportunity to move in direction we weren’t pursuing for whatever reason. Many grieving individuals may feel it traiterous to move on with their lives, or worse, prefer to remain in anger.  This can be very frustrating to combat for the others in their life, but it’s very important to remember not to encourage the behavior, nor condone it.  A bit of tough love should be utilized here by setting a firm boundary with the person stuck in anger or guilt.    When we begin to explore these new paths open to us we can regenerate the immediate satisfaction, if not happiness with ourselves and our lives.  We should be prepared for a false start here or there, perhaps we’ll find a path doesn’t lead where we thought, and if so we should feel free to withdraw to explore another.  The point to keep exploring, growing and learning.