On Grief

My dearest incurable humanist,

When we think about grief, we automatically think about losing someone to death. However, grief is far more complex than we realize. One time during the COVID-19 lockdown, I was in a Zoom therapy session, and my doctor told me that migration is a form of grief. At the time, as I’ve told you before, I was living alone in New York, to which I had moved only a few months before the pandemic hit. She explained to me that the biggest losses a human being experiences are the loss of a loved one (death), a breakup, migration, and a job. This stayed with me. I felt that, in a way, I had accumulated loss and pain for years in many ways, and didn’t address it or recognize it. I have been in therapy for years because it is an invaluable tool not only to heal but to get to know myself, grow, let go, and move forward. Taking care of your mind is as important as taking care of your body.

So, as I was saying, when we think about grief, we automatically think about losing someone to death. Yet, grief is a much more ample concept than that. According to the Cleveland Clinic, there are six types of grief: anticipatory grief, abbreviated grief, delayed grief, inhibited grief, cumulative grief, and collective grief. Each type of grief feels different, and every person’s experience with it is unique. We often don’t realize that something we’re experiencing is actually grief, and I believe that understanding it and putting a name to it tends to ease the pain. At least for me, it has. The more I understand about it and read about it, the better I feel.

Understanding that grief equals loss in the broader sense, we see how we can grieve people who are very much alive but who are no longer in our lives; people who had a huge impact on us, old colleagues, bosses, friends, and even family members. We see how we can grieve a pet, a city, a place, a stage in our lives.

When I moved to Mexico City, I was grieving more than I knew ( failed friendships, heartbreaks, the exhaustion of law school, my grandfather’s death, the ache of leaving Caracas, the life I had begun building in New York). And then, shortly after, my father suddenly and violently died. I was emotionally blocked, yet my body cried for help. I started to have the most terrible migraines, where the right side of my head would ache unbearably, and my eye would twitch. I would have a belly button secretion, nausea, I would have nightly night terrors and uncontrollable fear.

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.” That is the opening line on C.S. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed (1961). He wrote about his experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, who died from cancer after just four years of marriage. He shows how grief invades the body and mind with emotional paralysis. His faith is challenged as Lewis questions the nature and benevolence of God, wrestling with doubt and anger. He presents grief as a response to loss that includes fear, confusion, pain, and spiritual questioning; all part of a nonlinear journey toward healing. Ultimately, Lewis reaches a transformed understanding that love transcends death and that grief, as difficult as it is, can lead to growth.

We have all heard about the five stages of grief, first coined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (DABDA). With the caveat that these stages are not necessarily sequential nor experienced by everyone. I do agree with this in a way, and I believe that for some losses, this does apply.

Overall, I have come to realize that yes, there are some types of grief that we accept and can fully move past, but there is also deep grief that we never fully recover from, but live with forever.

Things that have worked for me in this journey:

• Therapy! Therapy! Therapy! Cannot emphasize this enough.

• Taking long walks alone. I try to hit a 20,000-step mark every day, although this is sometimes not achievable due to weather or work, but I try.

• Exercise. I started doing Pilates and Barre a little over a year ago, and it has helped a lot. I’ve never been a big exercise person, but I must admit this really works.

• Talking to people who have gone through something similar. It will never be the same experience, but find someone who understands your situation with empathy.

• Going to a museum alone with my headphones on and wandering around seeing art.

• Listening to music.

• Crying.

• Good food. Food is art. Either cook something yummy at home or go out and enjoy a nice meal.

• Watching a movie.

• Reading. I love memoirs, learning about someone else’s journey, and how they made it through. I have also turned to books on the subject of grief.

If you are grieving someone or something, I invite you to do some of these things or come up with your own list. Hope it helps!

Until next week!