A Daily Guide to Grief

Grief is a natural process that happens to every single one of us. It will happen to us all, but it can all come in different severity. There are no rules to grief, might I add. Everyone will experience it differently in so many different ways. Of course, logically, there is a set of sequences that happens, but many don’t follow that order and that’s completely okay

Usually, the shock is the first stage, but some may experience anger first. I suppose it may depend on the relationship to the recently deceased. If I’m honest, I didn’t quite believe it, and it seems like a blur six months today. I knew that if I went back in time on that particular situation, I would remember each detail but with it being so far away now, it seems like a dream blur. It’s the best I could describe it. I had a panic attack whenever my granny passed away, I felt so overwhelmed by what I was feeling: shock, anger, sadness, isolation, I felt abandoned. It didn’t feel quite real. My family calmed me down as we were all there as she passed. We waited for the doctor to declare her death, and everyone had gone home except for my uncles, mum, and her sisters. I wearily looked around my granny’s living room. Less than a month ago, we were sitting on that sofa watching a movie, laughing about life and now I buried my head in desperation, crying my heart out.

I also believe nothing can prepare for your grief, either. If you know if your loved one is dying or not, it still hits you like a ton of bricks. You feel like you’re trapped in a nightmare, and the worse of it, the nightmare has only started. And you’re not quite sure when the nightmare will end, or whether or not if the nightmare will ever stop. We knew that my lovely granny was dying, but like I said, grief still occurred. The image above is the sequence I talked about.

As we knew, my granny was dying, I grieved for the loss and hurt already. The loss of her walking, the loss of her independence. Cancer is a horrible disease, and I never want anyone close to me to go through what I and my family went through. My mum was already in stage four of grief as we heard news in March that it didn’t look good. I was worried about my mum more than myself, that may sound so unloving, but my emotional needs had to come second, my mum would need me for a shoulder to cry on, in the end, I knew that. It was the fact now the death had happened, I couldn’t get over it, I was in denial that she was gone physically. It may sound crazy, but my discovery of spirituality helped, knowing that she didn’t suffer and that she was surrounded by loved ones, especially her parents, her sisters that had passed, her brother, and her husband; my grandfather. By the time I let my close friends know what had just happened at 3 AM, I waited by my mum for the doctor to arrive.

I can’t recall much, if I’m rather honest, until the next morning. I knew, though, I had a dream of my granny, alive spiritually and amazingly well. I guess you could call it odd, but rather obvious that I would dream of the woman that I loved and thought about so much while they took her body away but whether or not her visitation in her dream was real, it was extremely comforting to know that she was still with me. It made my grief a little easier to deal with while I looked after my family, to the best ability that I could. I loved them, I hated seeing them suffer, upset and angry.

It wasn’t really until after a few months after my granny’s death that it began to sink in. Her birthday went, her first birthday away from home. No more Friday nights spent eating chocolate and watching Murder, She Wrote, no more deep talks about life, no more watching The Simpsons after our dinner. I started staying on Tuesday, too, because I wasn’t working at the time and I had no other reason for not staying. I knew she appreciated it though, she wasn’t really a woman of many words, but I knew that she loved the company. None of those thoughts came across at her funeral or even the following week. It began happening when we started clearing out the bungalow, her belongings. I still have my granny’s number and contact name on my phone, I’m just not ready yet to get rid of it. I feel like that would be the final stage of my grief, to accept that there will be no more phone calls or any of the sort.

I kept myself busy at the gym, going out with friends, going on holiday to London, going to birthday parties. So, I always had something else on my mind other than the grief. I still laughed, I joked with my friends, I still went out and had a great time. It makes me feel guilty for even typing this, but like I said, grief is an extremely weird emotion. It’s powerful and overwhelming. Many people may not feel the emotion until maybe years after a death, or months. Everyone’s experiences are different. On the other case, my mum was and still is struggling to come to terms with her own stages of grief. We have had arguments worse than ever before, but it’s only because I know she’s struggling inside. There was no sleep for her, she only let the emotions out on me. It was hard, but I knew she never meant any harm.

Just because you don’t grieve “enough” or “cry enough” doesn’t mean you didn’t love that person any less. You may be coping with grief better, but it’s okay if you’re the exact opposite. You’re hurting, emotionally. Big time.

It felt odd, yet “finalised” when we went to the grave to see both of my grandparents' names on the headstone. It looked beautiful when we placed the flowers on it, though. Over the past couple of years, I have allowed myself to cry, to scream, to shout, to yell. I never bottle anything up, and if I do, it’s on a rare occasion. I do struggle sometimes, I am not ashamed to admit it, sometimes all I want is my granny to hug me, to give me a bar of chocolate, a kiss on the cheek and say, “Let’s put Home Alone 2 on the TV.” I do believe, though, the gym has helped me a lot. It has put me in control of something that I felt like I didn’t have control over, such as her condition, her cancer. It made me frustrated. I also have to thank my doctor who recommended the gym to me, “Get a personal trainer and workout” was her last words before she came to my granny’s house two days before she died, my 19th birthday, to say that she wouldn’t last the weekend. I took the frustration out on my body, working the fat off me that I put on during my last year of school. Working out is therapeutic.

Grief is an emotion that we pay for loving someone. It’s so worth it. I wouldn’t love my granny less if I knew what was ahead of us this time next year. It just means someone was worth missing.

My last piece of advice, more importantly, is to take each day as it comes. I don’t believe in being excited about things anymore in the future (at the moment) because you don’t know what is around the corner for you or for your loved ones. Be grateful that you have them in your life, either that or you see them daily religiously or rarely, you have something that someone doesn’t. If I knew my granny wouldn’t be there, this time last year, I would have lived with her to make sure that we had more than enough memories. I am so blessed that I had nineteen years and a day with her, I remember as a child coming home from school and a jigsaw was waiting for me. A bar of chocolate as a treat for completing my homework was a good memory, watching the Simpsons, watching that we both loved.

This year’s Christmas is going to be extremely difficult and it’s the natural grieving process. I’m not sure when I will be ready to create new habits, but I know I will one day.