Healing Tip March

By Clinical Director Michelle Graff

There is no right or wrong way to grieve. We used to believe that grief was a linear process that happened in stages and that by the first anniversary of a loved one’s death we would go back to our old lives as they were. What we know now is that grief isn’t wrapped in a neat package that begins at the time of death and ends abruptly at the one year mark. Immediately after the death of someone we love grief is very heavy, like a boulder you carry on your back. The weight of your feelings seem too heavy to carry. Over time, not when you expect it, or anyone else’s expectations force it, that boulder that you have been carrying on your back becomes a little bit smaller. You are now able to carry in under your arm. As more time passes that very same boulder becomes even lighter, fitting in your hand, and finally, in your pocket. We know that you can never “get over” grief, or “move on,” we just learn how to live with and cope around. As life moves forward, so do we, never the same, but nevertheless on a forward trajectory towards finding some kind of comfort and compassion for ourselves.