Grief

By Jan Rondeau

 

  My friend is dying, and I am grieving.

 

  In western societies, we grieve for many things, not only death.  We grieve for the loss of relationships, fortunes, jobs, physical health, and even the loss of mental health.

 

  When I grieve, I find myself going through the five stages of grief as described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, author of the book On Death and Dying.  I have found, over the years, that in all my losses I have always gone through her five stages in coming to acceptance and closure with my loss.

 

· Denial and isolation.  I initially denied that my friend was dying.  “It just can’t be happening!”  I also found myself withdrawing into myself as a defense from facing the truth of an impending death.  I even withdrew from my friend as I felt that I was being abandoned.

· Anger.  I was angry at the whole world, my higher power, my friend’s medical staff, and even my friend for depriving me of a peer, a friend, a companion, and a very good DBSA member and facilitator.  I was even angry at myself because I felt powerless to change the situation.

· Bargaining.  I found myself bargaining with my higher power.  “If you save my friend, I will always be compliant, be more religious, read the religious texts every day, give more of my time to charity, and pay back as best that I can do to my fellow man.  Just tell me what I need to do to save my friend!”

· Depression.  I became depressed.  For a while, I felt that life just wouldn’t be worth much without my friend.  I felt depressed for my friend having to go through the dying process, and once again I felt depressed because I could do nothing to mitigate the situation.

· Acceptance.  Given time, I have come to the point in my grieving process where I have almost accepted the inevitability of my friend’s pending death.  I try to be supportive and regularly visit my friend.  My friend is now in Hospice and mercifully not in physical pain.

  I still live in hope, because hope is what sustains me from day to day, that somewhere, someone is developing a cure for my friend’s condition.   However, deep down I know that there really isn’t a cure.

 

   Now, these are the classic stages of grief with the goal of acceptance and closure.  You don’t necessarily have to go through them in this order.  Anger can come before denial and isolation, and depression before bargaining.  It is possible to go back and forth from stage to stage, such as:  going from denial and isolation to partial acceptance and closure, to becoming stuck in one stage or another.  I myself have lost a child, and I will always grieve the loss.

 

  The question of “How long does it take to normally complete the grieving process?” often arises.  Grief, and the grieving process, appears to be highly personalized and affected by many factors.  Some of these factors are length of relationship, depth of relationship, emotional investment, ethnicity, creed, social and cultural influences, the presence of social stigma, and even feelings of self-worth.

 

  So where is my friend in the grieving process?  My friend appears to be progressing in the grieving process.  However, my friend is having a rough time moving on.

 

I will surely miss my friend when all is said and done.