The Grief Cheat-Sheet
By Ziva Glanz
My Dear Newly Bereaved,
The following is what I wish someone would have told me as I began my journey of grief. Hopefully, this can alleviate and accelerate your process by not having to figure it out on your own. While, by definition, the circumstances surrounding everyone’s losses are different, there is much which is mutual and shared. My hope is that you can gain from what others have experienced before you.
- Take the Time to Grieve: Time seems to change after a loss. Emotionally, the first few months may feel like a few minutes. You are probably still reliving the loss every single week at the exact same time it happened. You may now be measuring time by the number of Shabbosim since your child passed away. At this stage, simply trying to put one foot in front of another is your only job. Just that will take up all of your energy. Now is not the time to think too deeply, over-analyze events, or wonder why this happened. Sadly, you will have time to always get back to that later. For now, just breathe. The shock of the loss can leave you feeling like you have to re-learn even the simplest of tasks. I remember having to mentally walk myself through the process of making something as elementary as a sandwich. If people ask how they can help, suggest they assist with meals or laundry since you may not have the energy for those tasks. If you are focused on just getting through your day, and putting one foot in front of another, you are doing
- The Human vs. Spiritual States: You are straddling two worlds right now, this world and the next. At times, you will experience a level of unprecedented spiritual connection as your mind soars straight to the foot of the Heavenly Throne, the כסא הכבוד, where your child now sits near Hashem. At other times, your human side will come out, which simply wants to have your child back and isn’t interested in spirituality. You want to kick and scream in protest until you have your child with you again. Despite knowing intellectually that the rage and what-ifs are futile, you may find yourself vacillating between these two states, often with no rhyme or reason. That’s okay. Don’t be afraid of either emotional extreme and instead embrace them. Sadly, there are no answers. Much like a child having a tantrum, the rage will eventually tire itself out. Moreover, the presence of both states signals that your process of working through the grief has begun.
- Be Gentle on Yourself: In terms of the process, it’s best not to have any expectations of yourself. Don’t let people tell you that there is a time limit on grief, or that you should move on already. Whoever has experienced the loss of a child would never tell you that. Though there is a shared science to the experience of grief which we will discuss below, getting over it is not part of the process. ‘Time heals’ is an expression that can be very misleading. Time is not what heals. Your loss has created a hole at your core and just as the loss remains, so will that hole. However, this should not worry you, because with time you will learn that the grief is there to help you.
- Grief is Your Friend: If you read only one thing, read this: – Don’t fear the grief. Lean into it. Embrace it. The intense grief you are feeling is not only a tool; it is your friend, and I say each of these next words with intense emotion. It is only by going through the painful and tough process of grief that we, in turn, become the stronger, deeper and more expansive people who then have the capacity to grow around the hole that remains at the core of our lives. So we don’t move on; we move forward. You would gladly hand back these superpowers in a minute, but you will move forward as a person stronger than you ever imagined you could be.
- Grief is like a Tsunami: The waves of grief may hit you like a tsunami. You may feel knocked over and struggle to regain your footing. Like a tidal wave, if you fight against it, it can just pull you down further. Instead, embrace the wave of emotions and let them wash through you organically. Ride it. Reassure yourself that it is an intense wave of grief but it will not last forever. Though it may seem to occur at very random times, it’s usually indicative that more grief work needs to be done, or it’s an emotional blood-letting long overdue. Just as in a storm, hunker down. Tone down some of the noise and responsibilities from the outside world, and make the choice to go deep into that abyss. It’s best not to ignore it. Do the work of listening to your mind and body and most likely, you will learn how to ride the wave. Not only that, but eventually those waves will lead you to the shores of the New You; a place where the stronger, deeper You emerges and where you will smile once again.
- There Will be Changes: When first faced with grief, your pre-loss emotional responses may make you assume that your goal is to get back to yourself. You may look at who you were before and feel as if it all just exploded into a thousand shards. This is to be expected. You are not meant to catch those shards and try and piece the old you back together. Instead, think of it as a cocoon that has imploded and realize that you are in the process of becoming a butterfly. A great deal might shift in that process. Don’t be surprised if your priorities shift or if careers or goals that were previously important to you morph. There will be people who were once central to your life who struggle to be there for you. As a result, they may be less relevant to the person you are becoming. Alternatively, there will be others that really rise to the occasion and become deeply embedded in the New You. The great irony of loss is that through our loved one’s death, those who remain go through a process of rebirth as well.
- Be Happy for Those Who Don’t Understand: And forgive them. Inevitably, there will be people who say things that leave you dumb-founded. You cannot fathom how they believe their statements might be comforting. Don’t waste your energy trying to analyze their intentions. Just come up with a predetermined set of answers that you can pull out when these awkward situations arise. Prepare for the more mundane answers as well. If you have other kids, decide how to approach the question of how many children you have. Some like to say, “I have (5) kids at home”; it’s ambiguous enough yet still honors the child lost. Or there is the more direct, “I have (3) kids I can see and (1) I can’t.” Decide on a response that works for you and have it ready in your back pocket to retrieve in a pinch. This is especially true around the birth of any subsequent children. People may feel relieved that now ‘you are okay’ and you are bound to meet someone who will express this. Kindly explain to them that while you understand the great blessing of each child even more poignantly now, children are not statistics and one does not replace another.
- There is a Science to Grief: We all know psychology’s five stages of the grief process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. However, if you go deeper, there is a science as to how this works day-to-day. As someone newly bereaved, your most frequent question may be, “How am I ever going to get through this?”
The first 6 months: In the beginning, you might feel as if someone has tied a huge boulder around your torso. The pain can be at its worst and you will likely view the world around you as if in a daze. You will wonder how – even just physically- you will ever have the strength to drag this weight around with you forever. Remember, you have not yet built up the emotional muscles to better carry that burden. That’s okay. You will. Trust that the path to those muscles, in the first months, means just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and getting through the day. You might feel as if you hardly recognize yourself, internally or externally. You may come to appreciate those physical changes as battle scars that testify to what you have overcome in life, and you might even begin to seek them out on the faces and eyes of others, as a sign of those who can understand you. More than anything though, it can utterly confound you how six months have gone by without your child.
Between six to nine months: The depth of the black hole you find yourself in may lessen slightly. You might feel like someone threw you a rope, and you’ve been able to take a few steps upward. Don’t worry if your exact timeline is a little before or a little later. In most cases it will eventually come.
At nine months: A pit might form in your stomach as you wonder how you will make it through the first-year yahrzeit? Most people dread it intensely for weeks or months, but then make it through, in some ways, better than they expected. This may be a result of how they personally chose to mark the day in a meaningful way. The commemoration can be comforting and create a momentum that could be continued.
- The Relationship is Still Dynamic: Doing something in your child’s memory is often one of the greatest sources of comfort while grieving. It need not be big, nor expensive. Why do people find these acts of memorializing so restorative? Through them – and likely for the first time since your child passed away – you can feel as if your relationship with your child has resumed and is a dynamic relationship. By doing good deeds in their memory you feel as if you are actively doing something for them as their parent. Having a renewed route through which to channel those maternal or paternal instincts can feel wonderful. It may also create a dialogue and sense of partnership with your child. You may once again be filled with a familiar sensation – pride as their parent! And it can feel great to feel close to your child again. The Talmud’s description that the separation between this world and the next is only as ‘thin as an eyelid,’ may suddenly feel true to you. Similar to someone standing around a corner, whom you know is there but can’t see, they won’t feel so far away anymore. You will begin to realize that this connection can be perpetuated through the sustained acts and influence that the child creates in you and your family.
- Don’t Fear Forgetting Your Child: Suddenly, you have a moment where you may feel a sense of positivity again, a sense of elation! And that terrifies you. “What if this means I am forgetting my child?” you wonder. You may feel it as an affront to his memory. Don’t admonish yourself. For better or for worse, you never have to fear that you will forget your child. Our children will not feel any further away as a result of our happiness, and you do not need to hold onto the pain as a means of proving your love. Any alleviation of the intense pain of grief is only indicative of the hard work you’ve done and the emotional muscles you have built up. Allow yourself to evolve with it and conversely, don’t allow your pain to hold you back.
- The Club of Superheroes: Other bereaved parents are the best people to talk to. Being bereaved is like being put in an ante-room of life. You can learn to interact again, you can even learn to smile again with the rest of the world, but a part of you is always ‘other.’ You can gain so much from the support of other people who have experienced a similar loss. We are likely the only ones who will truly understand you and will become your new best friends; very much an integral part of the New You. We can also teach you how to use your new superhero powers– the ones we all wish we hadn’t been gifted. Begrudging as it may be, they are superpowers. Bereaved parents can provide comfort in situations that might feel uncomfortable to others. While non-bereaved may shy away from sharing someone’s grief, this may now be the wavelength on which you feel most comfortable.
- Be Empowered: Additionally there may no longer be any level of emotion that scares you in life. When you have already made it through the worst, what’s the worst that can happen? You can use this to be bold and to be a leader. For many bereaved parents, experiencing the death of their child was intensely spiritual, as they figuratively accompanied him or her right up to the heavenly gates of the Next World. From that vantage point, you may view the world through the holiness and light which fuels our physical existence. Once you see the world in that way, you can’t unsee it. Use this insight to shape your future life. Don’t just come back down to earth. Allow yourself to serve as an ambassador to remind the world of what is truly important and what our goals in life ought to be, which is likely what your goals will become.
At the end of the day, being a bereaved parent is being a part of Hashem’s Legion for Moshiach. For us, the longing for Moshiach is a daily, physical ache, not just an esoteric spiritual concept. It represents our longing to be reunited with our children, and we will stop at nothing to accomplish this. It is therefore up to us to lead the way and help bring the world back to its Final Restoration. May our personal and collective salvation come today, and may all our children be proud of us for helping make it happen.
Ziva is happy to be in touch with anyone who reaches out. You can email her at [email protected].
Originally published in Our Tapestry #28