Grief and Loss
March 2021 – one year living in a pandemic. At this time last year, we were watching grim reports in the news about this novel coronavirus sweeping the world and forcing mass shutdowns in Europe and around the globe. On March 16, 2020 Pennsylvania effectively shut down, and life has not been the same since. We have faced loss in all areas of life.
This month, as a nation we have had over 28 million confirmed cases of Covid and have, sadly, passed the 500,000 death benchmark. Such loss seemed unimaginable a year ago. As of January 2021, the national unemployment rate stands at 6.3%, with Pennsylvania’s at 6.7%. Again, such loss of livelihood and meaningful work seemed unimaginable.
We have lost much – precious lives, spontaneity, joy, the chance to gather together and celebrate large and small moments in life, and the sense that we are free to live life on our own terms. With loss comes grief and trying to make sense of our new realities.
Symptoms of grief are wide-ranging and can be both physical and mental. Common physical symptoms include crying, having headaches, a loss of appetite, aches and pains, feeling fatigued and having difficulty sleeping. Mental and emotional effects include questioning purpose in life and spiritual foundations; feeling detached and isolated from friends and family; experiencing stress, worry, anxiety, guilt, anger; and sometimes acting abnormally.1
In 1969 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described five stages people go through when they are grieving. We go into denial, experience anger, try to make bargains and feel guilt, live with depression and sadness, and hopefully reach a stage of acceptance. Not every person experiences grief in the same way, and people cycle through the stages, often experiencing the same stage more than once.
Denial is the stage that often helps us initially survive and cope with the loss; it’s our body’s way of saying there is only so much we can handle at a time, so we shut down and pretend that our loss never happened. During this stage, people can be numb and avoid reality.
However, we do have to wake up from this stage, and when we do, we may experience overwhelming feelings of anger or depression, or desperately try to make a bargain (often with God) to return to the way things once were. Often we try to suppress these very natural feelings which does not allow us to grieve properly and move beyond the pain and sadness. It’s important to feel and experience anger; loss is neither fair nor easy. Once we can accept and use the anger as a path to this new reality, we can begin to move forward. Yet we should not be surprised if, out of the blue, the anger resurfaces. That’s okay, too.
Another of the stages of grief and loss is that of bargaining and feeling guilty. We so desperately want life to return to the way it was before loss that we make promises and bargains. We promise to change our lives and personalities if our loved ones can be healed or our jobs be returned or relationships restored. And if those hoped for miracles do not happen, we often feel guilty and head down the “what if” road. And when those hopes and desires do not occur, we often sink into depression.
Depression and sadness seem to be the most commonly accepted form of grieving. We expect people to be sad and empty, and we are often the most understanding of those who are sad and withdrawn. However, if this stage goes on for too long, it is important to seek help and talk about the overwhelming feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Otherwise, we will never move on to acceptance, the last stage of grief.
Reaching acceptance of the situation and understanding that life has changed forever but that we will still be able to go on is critical. What acceptance means is that we make our peace with our new reality. It doesn’t mean that life is now wonderful; it just means that there are probably more good days than bad days and that we can begin to engage in life again. There will still be sad days and angry days and days of denial and wishing we could change the past, but what acceptance means is that we find ways to be content with where we end up in life.
So as we look back at this year of loss and change, knowing that we have faced loss and that we are grieving is incredibly important. It’s important to go through these stages of grieving, to acknowledge what we have lost and know that the world may never look the same again. Then we can, with optimism, live forward into a new and different reality, using our memories and experiences to find peace and hope in the future.
1Five Stages Of Grief - Understanding the Kubler-Ross Model. (2020, September 23). Psycom.net - Mental Health Treatment Resource since 1996. https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html