When most people think of grief, they picture a family crying at a graveside while a casket is lowered into the ground. They picture meals delivered, only to collect frost in the freezer. They picture stages, ending with acceptance. Grief can be so many different things, though, and it serves as a beautifully heartbreaking reminder of the power of love.
Grief takes many different forms. We buried my grandfather and I was so apathetic that I did not shed a single tear. I have also left school early because I could not stop sobbing and shaking uncontrollably on the bathroom floor when I should have been in biology. Grief has a funny pattern of hitting you when you least expect it, or when it is the most inconvenient.
A common misconception is that the five stages of grief are a track that leads you from one to the other, all the way to the end. Some people do follow the denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance pattern chronologically, but others may skip a step, or stay stuck in one forever. It is a cyclical process that gets easier but never fully ceases to exist. There is no true end to grief.
Just like there are different stages of grief, there are also different types of grieving. You can grieve for friendships. You can grieve relationships. Breakups and moving away can cause the same five stages. You can grieve a stage of your life you are no longer in and you can grieve a life you will never get to live. You can grieve for pets, people and places. You can grieve someone when they pass away, as is commonly seen, but you can also grieve them 30 years later on the anniversary of their death. You can grieve them on their birthday, and you can grieve them on a random Tuesday.
This November marks the seventh anniversary of my best friend passing away. She was the most beautiful soul. She was only eleven years old, most of which was spent in and out of the hospital, but she always had a smile you could somehow feel in your heart and a laugh that could get a giggle out of even the most solemn people. I have struggled with grief for a long time. I mourn the girl frozen in time. There is so much sorrow when I think of her family and friends, having to keep going without her.
I cry on bathroom floors, I yell off rooftops, I scream songs at the top of my lungs whose lyrics almost allow me to comprehend what I feel. I grieve her on every birthday that passes, each one that she will not celebrate, each one that places me a year further from her. I grieved her when I had my first kiss, got my license, lost friends, made new friends, when I left for college and so many other random times: all the times she should have been there but was not. Even on the brightest days, a certain scent or a child laughing in a certain pitch brings me right back to feeling the pit in my stomach when I realized she was actually gone.
The way I see it, though, is that grieving her is hard, yes, but it is so beautiful. The only way we could possibly avoid the pain of loss would be to never have anything worth losing. If we never cared for our friends or loved others we would not lament over the loss of them. We do not mourn the bricks that made our childhood homes, we grieve the memories of Christmas morning runs down to look under the tree, Sunday breakfasts and football games on the television.
We mourn the life we may have had with the one who got away, because of the joy we once felt, no matter why or how it ended. We naturally part from our childhood friendships, which hurts, but only because we remember our preschool playmates in a strange dreamlike aura, masked by youthful ignorance do we miss it.
These things only hurt because of how good they were. Grief can be incredibly overwhelming, but it can also serve as an indication of how beautiful it is to be able to love someone or something so deeply that you physically cannot bear the loss of it. Oh, how harrowing, but how breathtakingly beautiful it is to love.
Nov. 11 is the seven-year anniversary of the passing of Arianna Dougan. She continues to be remembered by her loved ones who keep her memory alive by sharing the joy she so profoundly embodied, in addition to supporting other childhood cancer fighters. Spread Ari’s Light honors her and her bright soul and furthers this mission, which you can learn more about here.
No matter what you are grieving or how you feel it, know that you are not alone. Sometimes it can be too heavy to carry alone, and it is okay to seek help. For more information, visit this website. Reach out to your loved ones, check in with yourself and others or talk to a licensed professional. I know from experience that coping can be confusing, scary and overall frustrating. I find so much comfort in remembering that we are so blessed to be able to love, even if it causes hurt. Leaning on my friends, checking in with myself and remembering the happy times help me get through the hard times.