Thank you to our Counsellor, Louisa Gibson, for sharing this blog on grief.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the grief process. We grieve for many things; lost opportunity, failed relationships, places we have left behind and also with the death of a person we have loved. I’ve experienced the grief that follows the death of a family member as a process; not the linear progression that Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described in her 1969 book The Five Stages of Grief. We don’t experience one stage and then neatly move into another, ultimately arriving at acceptance.

The duality of bereavement suggests that a healthy way of coping with grief involves oscillating between accepting the loss and confronting it. This duality can be particularly relevant when dealing with the loss of a parent who lived into their 90s and had a “good” life. We may experience profound pain when that parent dies, but there can also be relief if their death was peaceful, and they were fortunate enough to be surrounded by loving children and grandchildren.

Grief is actually a messy business. It’s like a pinball bouncing between a vast range of emotions, ricocheting from sadness and despair to relief, guilt, acceptance, and pain. Over time, the bouncing may slow, but that silver ball of emotion remains ready to hit against our walls of tolerance and capacity.

It’s helpful to accept grief as a natural process and to make room for the emotions that arise. Accepting grief and allowing these emotions to surface unapologetically will aid in the mourning process. Working through these emotions, naming them for what they are, will help make sense of them and of yourself in a changed world.