After my spouse died, I discovered there is going through grief and getting through grief. They are two different paths. At moments they overlap but overall, they take their own course to similar looking, but I would say very different destinations.
Getting through grief is a common occurrence in the West. It is filled with familiar thoughts and phrases: ‘just keep yourself busy so you can’t think’ or ‘when you miss them, remember all the good times you had together’. It is a process full of filling up moments until the feelings of grief can be moderated. If getting through grief had a tagline it would be “I will survive”.
Going through grief seems the road less traveled though I have no scientific basis for my assumption. It requires being with the pain of the loss. A monumental task and, like eating an elephant, it can only be done in small bites. It means intentional moments in the depths of despair not always certain you can leave when you need to. Going through grief’s brand would be “Going to pieces without falling apart”.
In fact, going through grief can be interspersed with moments of getting through grief–especially if they are driven by others. I would imagine the opposite is true as well, but the driver is most likely internal and happening separate from others.
Getting through grief allows the notion of completing the journey and arriving in a place much like the world as it is today without the lost loved one. Going through grief demands accepting we will never be the same, we cannot be the same, the world is not the same because of the loss.
In times of great loss–war, famine, genocide, pandemic–our culture overemphasizes getting through. Perhaps we believe there is too much loss to process, too many people grappling with a new world view at the same time? But, as individuals, no matter the cause of the loss we must decide will we let this loss change us or will we work to integrate the loss into our current way of being? Said another way, will we walk the path of chewing through the magnitude of the loss and, like the hungry caterpillar be changed by the journey or will we be immovable in our view of the world?
Most often I’ve chosen to go through grief though I have my moments of denial, distraction, desertion of my journey. I don’t think I would want to be the same person after losing my partner. It is painful and it can be lonely, but I’d rather start anew then try to be the same without her.
quietmomentswithdog 