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To me the various stages of grief are like seasons. It gives them a rhyme and a reason. A time and a season. A circular movement. A recognizable pattern, of sorts.A loved on has died. Died quite recently.
A child we knew only for a short time, but we had seen the promise of a full life. A wife of many years, a mother and grandmother, not yet ready to retire. A young lover has gone, too early, too soon. There was still so much heat and desire to turn into strength and loving.
Someone special is gone from us. There is grief.
This grief moves through various stages. But not in any order or even a discernible pattern. Or in the order of the seasons.
They can happen all at once in very short time span, like a small child rushing through opening up birthday presents.
They can happen over many years, ebbing and flowing like the tides on an ocean beach.
They have their own rhyme and reason. Their own time and season. And no one seem to be able to hurry them.
about all aspects of death including the luminous side of dying for both US and international events. Click here to find out more about my talks and click here to contact me. |
Spring Grief
Some grief can be like blossoms in spring. Spring grief can erupt all over a tree, spending itself lavishly in thousands of blossoms. It can cover a meadow with hundreds of fresh new bright flowers and be gone in a few days. It can push through ice and snow, showing its fragile blossoms no matter what the weather is doing.Spring grief comes on fast and hard. There is no stopping the ice melt of tears. The dam is broken. There is no shushing the howling of the heart. The wolf is out and about. He is howling at the moon all night long. There is no taming the beast of anger. It has a cause. It has a reason. It wants its way.
Spring grief wants company, but only if we are strong enough to ride the rapids. Only if we can be around loud, messy, and torrential expressions of feelings. No room for intellectual reasoning. Have tissues ready and offer to run a bath afterward.
Our spring grief can be over just as hard as it came on. Not that grieving is over. It just found one way out. There are more stages of grief. More seasons of grief.
Summer Grief
Summer grief is like a slow and humid summer's day full of heat and flies and dark greens. This kind of griefing is slow to build, long to stay. It takes its time to rise to the surface. It sits there for days, just sits there. Gets hotter. Stays hot. Just won't go away.The summer grief heat wave can last for weeks. No easy release. No fast build up and no fast outburst. Just steady heat scorching everything day in day out. Scorching heat like desert heat. Even the nights don't cool off.
It feels like nothing is moving, but the heat won't go away. It feels like nothing is moving, but the grief and the aching heart won't go away. It feels like the grief is just sitting there, burning like hot desert sun. Just sitting there.
Summer grief needs company. Company which can handle a long walk without many words. Company which loves to sit and watch the sun setting quietly. Friends and family who will let us know that we are loved. Without needing much in return. That this too shall end. Even this slow and steady heat.
How long can this last? How long will this last?
And then the grief season changes. More stages of grief. Grief finds another way to make itself felt. Yet another way.
Autumn Grief
The grief of autumn is like the falling leaves. Constant and steady. Every day some leaves are falling. At times just one leaf at a time. At times a gale blows through and many leaves float down to the ground. Autumn grief is like the fog hiding the clear edges. Making all and everything hidden and yet all is still there. Voices carry strong. We might hear our loved ones as if they are calling to us from far away. But we cannot find them. We cannot find them anywhere.
We feel lost in this fog of grieving. No past and no future. No sliding backwards. No stepping forwards. Just lost in the grief. Lost in the sorrow. Lost in the pain. Lost in the grieving.
Imperceptibly but steadily even this stage of grief moves on. Into another one of the stages of grief. Into an other season of grief.
Winter Grief
When grief is like winter, it goes underground and sleeps like the bear in its wintery cave. It covers itself with layers of frosty snow flakes till its shape is lost. All sound is muffled.
It puts on thick layers of crystal clear ice so no running water can wash away the sorrow. Like hot tears can wash away sorrow.
Its frost nips and bites away all remnants of bright colors. All that is left are various hues of white. Empty and flat whites. Mostly empty whites.
Winter grief stays underground for a while. It is safe there for a while. It stays hidden there for a while. Knowing that the thaw will come. Melting the snow covers. Breaking the ice layers. Bringing back all the colors.
And winter grief is lonely and alone. Deep within it is solitary. At peace with itself. At rest in its cave. At one with its season. Knowing from deep within that even this season will change. That again the stages of grief will change.
Return from Stages of Grief to Coping with Death
Return from Stages of Grief to A Good Dying Home
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