Grief
Grief is one of those things we all know exists, but very few of us know what it is going to look like when it arrives.
It can be enormous. It can be strangely quiet. It can make you cry in the supermarket, laugh at a ridiculous joke, sleep for fourteen hours, or stare at the ceiling all night.
None of that makes you a bad person. It makes you a person who has lost someone.
Some of the ideas in this article have been shaped by conversations with families I have cared for, by my own experiences around death, and by a friend’s book, Is This Normal?, which asks a wonderfully useful question: what if much of what we experience in grief is more normal than we think?
There is no single way to grieve
There isn’t a correct version of grief.
Often, people experience several of these things in the same day.
Grief isn’t a test that you pass by having the right feelings in the right order.
The old idea that grief moves neatly through a series of stages isn’t a useful instruction manual for most people. Research and contemporary grief practice recognise that people’s experiences vary enormously, and that grief can move back and forth rather than following a predictable sequence.
Your body can grieve too
Grief isn’t just an emotion.
It can affect your whole body.
You might feel exhausted. You might feel restless. You might struggle to concentrate. Your appetite might disappear, or you might eat much more than usual. You might have headaches, stomach problems or a general feeling that you are not quite yourself.
Sleep can be particularly strange.
You might lie awake for hours even though you are exhausted. Or you might sleep far more than you normally would.
You might have vivid dreams. You might dream that the person is still alive. You might wake for a moment and forget that they have died - and then remember.
You might stop dreaming altogether.
These experiences are commonly reported after a death. Grief can affect sleep, appetite, concentration, energy and the way we function day to day.
The important thing is not to assume that everyone else is grieving properly while you are somehow doing it wrong.
You might laugh
This one can surprise people.
And then, suddenly, the guilt arrives.
How can I be laughing when they’re dead?
Because being devastated by someone’s death does not remove your ability to experience everything else.
Grief doesn’t mean you have to be miserable every minute.
For children, this can be particularly obvious. A child may cry one moment and happily play the next. They may return to ordinary activities because that is how they move in and out of the reality of what has happened. This isn’t necessarily a sign that they don’t understand or don’t care.
Adults are allowed to do this too.
You might not have been there when they died
This can be a particularly painful one.
People sometimes feel guilty because they weren’t beside the person when they died.
It is incredibly easy to turn that into a story about what you should have done.
But being present at the exact moment of death is not a measure of how much you loved someone.
People sometimes wait until they are alone before they die. Sometimes a person dies in the few minutes that their family member leaves the room. We don’t always know why.
What matters is all the time you were there - not the particular few minutes when you weren’t.
You might feel relief
Relief can be one of the hardest feelings to admit.
Relief does not cancel love.
It doesn’t mean you wanted someone to die.
It can simply mean that something incredibly difficult has ended.
Grief can contain contradictory feelings. You can miss someone terribly and also feel relieved that they are no longer suffering. You can be angry with someone and still love them. You can be devastated by a death and also know that death was expected.
Human beings are capable of holding these things at the same time.
You might not feel anything
Numbness is a common response to overwhelming loss.
Sometimes the mind seems to put the feelings somewhere out of reach for a while.
You may be able to organise the funeral, answer the phone, make sandwiches, talk to the doctor, clean the house and deal with paperwork while feeling almost completely detached from what has happened.
Then, weeks or months later, something small can open the door.
There is no requirement that grief begin on the day someone dies.
The funeral can help - but it isn’t a prescription
A funeral or memorial can give people somewhere to put the enormous reality of a death.
Seeing the person.
Writing something to say.
Making a coffin or decorating a Daisybox.
Playing their music.
Gathering with family.
Sitting quietly beside them.
Taking ashes somewhere meaningful.
Or simply having people together who knew and loved them.
These things can matter.
But there is no single ritual that everyone needs.
Others want everyone they have ever known in one room.
The important thing is that a funeral should serve the people who are grieving - not force grieving people to perform grief in a particular way.
Children grieve differently
Children can understand more about death than we sometimes give them credit for, but they don’t necessarily process it in the same way adults do.
Honest, simple and age-appropriate information is usually more useful than trying to protect children from every reality of death. Children need room to ask questions, express feelings and continue being children.
And sometimes the best thing you can do is let them go outside and play.
We don’t all grieve in the same way
There is another reason grief can become difficult: we can look at someone else’s grief and decide they are doing it wrong.
A person can also grieve in a way that conflicts with what their family, culture or community expects of them.
They may feel that they are supposed to be devastated but aren’t.
Or they may be devastated but feel unable to show it.
This conflict can create another layer of suffering on top of the grief itself.
A useful idea is dissonant grief: the experience of feeling that your own way of grieving doesn’t fit what you believe is expected of you.
Most people are probably somewhere in between different styles. Grief is individual, and relationships are complicated.
It is worth giving other people the same room to grieve differently that we would like them to give us.
Grief doesn’t mean letting go
There was a time when grief was often described as something we needed to “get over”.
That idea doesn’t fit particularly well with the way many people actually experience loss.
The relationship with someone who has died changes, but it doesn’t necessarily disappear.
Contemporary grief theory recognises these continuing bonds as a normal part of bereavement. The relationship changes because the person is no longer physically present, but the meaning of that relationship can remain part of a person’s life.
What helps?
There isn’t a magic list.
But there are things that many people find useful.
Talk. Even if you tell the same story twenty times.
Move. A walk, gardening, swimming, exercise or simply getting outside can help your body carry some of what your mind is dealing with.
Rest. Sleep if you can. If you can’t sleep, resting still counts.
Eat something. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Get some sunlight. Even sitting outside for a while can be worthwhile.
Do ordinary things. Cook something. Fold washing. Mow the lawn. Watch something stupid. Have a coffee.
Be around people. Or don’t, if being around people is exhausting. Tell the people close to you what you need.
Let yourself remember. Photos, music, stories, objects and places can all become ways of staying connected.
And don’t be frightened by the fact that some of these things might make you feel better for a while.
You are allowed to have a life while you are grieving.
Grief changes
One of the strangest things about grief is that it changes.
At first it might be everywhere.
Then perhaps it isn’t.
Then it is.
An anniversary can bring it back.
A birthday.
Christmas.
A song.
A smell.
A place you haven’t visited since they died.
Sometimes a good day is followed by a terrible day.
That doesn’t mean you have gone backwards.
Grief doesn’t seem to follow a timetable. Research describes grief as something that can change over time, with periods of intense awareness and periods where life feels more ordinary.
You don’t have to measure your progress by how often you cry.
When grief needs more help
Grief is painful, but there is a difference between painful and unsafe.
If grief is making it very difficult to function, is causing persistent and overwhelming distress, is seriously affecting sleep, eating, work or relationships, or includes thoughts of self-harm or suicide, it is worth getting professional help.
That isn’t failing at grief.
It is getting help carrying something heavy.
In Australia, Griefline provides free grief and loss support for people aged 18 and over on 1300 845 745, 9am–8pm every day.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 000.
What I’ve learned
Working around death has changed the way I think about grief.
I don’t think my job is to tell people how to grieve.
I don’t think there is a set of stages they need to complete.
I don’t think a funeral can fix grief.
And I don’t think the person who looks the least upset necessarily cares the least.
What I can do is make things a little easier around the edges.
Give people information.
Give them time.
Tell them when something really does need to happen - and when it doesn’t.
Let them make choices.
Let them sit with the person who has died.
Let them laugh.
Let them cry.
Let them be completely overwhelmed.
And sometimes, simply remind them:
What you’re experiencing doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s grief.
There is no prize for doing grief correctly.
You loved someone.
They died.
Now you have to work out how to live with the fact that they are no longer physically here.
That takes time.
And it looks different for everybody.
This article is intended as information and reassurance, not as a substitute for professional mental-health or medical advice.