Grieving the Life You Left Behind? Me Too.
By: Dawn Bevier
Tags: Grief And Loss, Mental Health, Self, Mindfulness, Covid 19

Grieving the Life You Left Behind? Me Too.

Maybe we have to properly mourn our old world before we can move forward

Image by Science Giant on Pixabay

In the past two weeks, I’ve buried a lot of friends. Security. Relaxation. Optimism. And it’s a bit crushing. To lose so many loved ones in so short a time.

And I’ve seen you attending the same funerals I have. We’ve all been saying our farewells. To Stability. To Calm. To Excitement about the future. And to our sense of power, the small modicum of control that allowed us to sleep peacefully at night.

Quite simply, you and I are grieving the loss of the life we knew before, and perhaps there’s some small comfort in knowing that we’re going through the four stages of grief together. Denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

Yes, yes, I know, there are actually five steps, but that fifth stage? Acceptance? I am miles away from that holy grail. And I’m guessing you’re the same.

And speaking of these steps, I’m learning it’s wrong what they say, about each stage and their logical progression. Because there is no rhythm or rhyme in this funeral dance. One step forward. two steps back.

For just like sinners guilty of lust in Dante’s Inferno, my passionate longing for the days before this terrible pandemic are winds which blow me back and forth in a never ending cycle of grief.

So, let me share my journey. Perhaps it’s one you are walking with me.

Stage One: Denial and Shock (I’m currently in this stage)

Sometimes I feel like I’m hallucinating. I’m seeing things, doing things, feeling things that can’t be real. It’s like I’m in the middle of a Walking Dead episode, where zombies lurk behind every corner waiting to rip me apart. And no matter how stealthy I am, each doorknob I grab, each physical touch alerts them to my presence.

In the middle of the heavy fog that is now my life, I have moments of complete bewilderment. I sit here, looking around, wondering if I’m having one of those crazy dreams you have when you’re pregnant or you drank too much the night before. A dream in which you wake a bit exhausted, have your cup of coffee and continue on with your normal life.

But it’s not a dream.

I’m fully awake and yet somehow still bleary-eyed and confused. Because I can’t believe that this is really happening.

Image by kalhh on Pixabay

Stage Two: Anger (I’m also currently in this stage)

I’m so mad I could scream. I’m mad I had to cancel the girl’s trip to the beach my thirteen-year-old daughter begged me to plan for months. I’m mad it’s so beautiful outside and the sunshine doesn’t brighten my spirits the way it used to. I’m mad I have only been able to see my mom once in three weeks, and I’m mad that the one time I did see her I was more fearful than excited, worried that every surface I’ve touched, every place I’ve gone might make her sick.

So, I now perpetually live in a state of unleashed fury at the universe. And no matter what I do, what obscenities I spew, this international “bully” stands over me, laughing and taunting.

Stage Three: Bargaining (Epic fail at this stage)

So this stage is where I attempt to gain control over my behaviors and emotions. At times I try, but my emotional state doesn’t want to negotiate.

Build a routine-a new normal, they say. Get outside and walk around, they say. Play games and watch comedies to get your mind off of your grief.

But does that really help? When you’ve lost a friend, does an episode of The Office really take the grief away?

When you’ve lost your center, does a daily to-do list really help you get it back?

Not for me.

And I’ll admit, there are times where these efforts do work, for a half-hour, for an afternoon even, but all of these diversions are extraordinarily temporary. And sooner rather than later, I realize I’m back to stage two, or more times than not, I head straight to stage four.

Image by Ulrike Mai on Pixabay

Stage Four: Depression/Sadness (I’m also currently in this stage)

Depression is something I have battled most of my life. And it was hard enough to manage before all “this” happened. And my anxiety disorder fuels this despair. I feel hopeless. Because most of the things that lifted my spirits have been taken away.

I am heartbroken when I see my anxious teenage daughter stay up until the late hours of the night, panicked, unable to sleep because of the fears and worries running through her head.

But this is nothing, nothing compared to the abyss of sorrow I feel for my teenage son.

It’s March and his senior prom is now only a dream. And he’s losing his last days with the lifelong friends to whom he will soon say goodbye: the people he has laughed with and cried with, the people he studied with and talked with about all the things that will never happen. Senior weekend at the beach. Signing each other’s yearbooks at the pre-graduation picnic. Picking up his cap and gown in May in anticipation of the “big day.”

And don’t even get me started on graduation. It’s supposed to be in mid-June and right now, the very thought of the possibility that it will be canceled creates a swirling tornado that encompasses all the stages of grief mentioned above.

I imagine my son’s heartbreak mixed, quite selfishly, with my own. I want to see him throw his graduation cap in the air, hug his friends and pose for silly photos in his cap and gown. I want his 66-year-old grandmother and his 73-year-old grandfather to see this crowning moment in his life. And though I still hold on to this remote possibility (his graduation is mid-June) in my heart, I’m already mourning its unlikelihood.

And adding power to this depression is a complete sense of powerlessness.

A sorrow that stems from desperately wanting this new world to go away, coupled with a rage that this cruel virus reacts like a stubborn child, sitting in front of me and sneering, saying, “Go ahead. Try and make me.”

Stage Five: Acceptance: (I fear I will never get to this stage)

I’m a fighter. I “fix” things when they're not right. I don’t give up. I find a solution. And this acceptance I am supposed to arrive at seems impossible. Like the death of a loved one, I cannot come to grips with the reality that this is my new life for a long while to come. So, once again, I am victim to storms of anger and torrential rains of sadness. And this “promised land”of acceptance seems galaxies away.

The bottom line:

I’m grieving. And I’m fairly certain you are too. For it seems quite impossible to not mourn the lives we lived before. And so we must sing the hymns of grief and lay flowers on the graves of the lives we knew.

And maybe we will come to accept our new reality.

I wish you that fifth step, my friend. Wish me the same if you will.