On Loss, Grief, and Time
The past few years have brought more than their fair share of grief and loss to many of us. The death toll from Covid-19 currently stands at over 900,000 in the U.S. with nearly 6 million deaths worldwide. At least 72% of Americans know someone that has been hospitalized or died from Covid-19. And as much as we are all feeling done with Covid, Covid it seems, is not quite done with us.
Covid is also not the only thing that has taken people from us over the past few years. We have lost people to cancer, heart attacks, accidents, and many other ways. Each death impacts, on average, nine people, meaning the ripple effect of each death is significant. In addition, over the past few years Covid complicated the few rituals we Americans have to experience and process the death of a loved one. And let’s face it, we Americans are not great at expressing or allowing for the expression of grief. 89% of Americans agree that everyone should learn to talk about grief. But 70% of Americans say they don’t know what to say or do when someone is grieving. Perhaps, it is as basic as Lawrence R. Samuel says: “The notion of one day disappearing is contrary to many of our defining cultural values, with death and dying viewed as profoundly ‘un-American’ experiences.”
This profound discomfort with grief spills over into our workplaces. Alan Wolfelt of the Center for Loss and Life Transition tells us that, “[t]he U.S. has some of the most stringent social norms of any country regarding grief.” Bereavement leave granted by workplaces, if any, is minimal and often unpaid because it is not required by the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act. Only a few states require any such bereavement leave and it is an unpaid benefit. Is it any wonder that we don’t know how to handle and process grief—the culture prioritizes work over all and we embedded this disregard for grief it into our workplace laws.
Regardless of whether we are allowed the time and space to grieve, it has a profound influence on how we show up. Grief changes your brain and your body. Grief impacts memory, behavior, sleep, the immune system, and can cause other symptoms like inflammation and the dreaded “brain fog.” Studies show that a parent who has lost a child or a person who has lost a spouse are nearly two times more likely to die within the first 3 months of their loss. It takes most people at least 6-12 months to start to function better after a loss. And yet, we feel like we are expected to be “back to normal” after just a few days because that is how we designed our social structures. Anecdotally, those I know who have experienced a loss in recent years (myself included) have struggled with the expectations (including those we put on ourselves) that we should just be over it—whatever that means. We are not biologically wired to process grief that fast, and those expectations cause further harm to the grieving.
Grief remains a part of us when we lose someone we love. We adapt to its presence in our lives. With time and healthy coping mechanisms, grief doesn’t take a leading role each day. Instead, it becomes a piece of who we are. Tonkin’s model of grief tells us that our grief stays the same size, but our life grows around our grief and becomes smaller in relation to the whole. And that growth takes time.
So why did I write this? I’m not a therapist. I’m not a grief counselor. I am simply a person who has grieved and is still grieving a loss, but finally feeling that the hardest part is behind me. I want to help make talking about grief and its impact on us more “normal.” I see people around me who are grieving and feeling shame or feeling alone and unsupported in their grief. To those people, know that you don’t need to be OK. Give yourself time and patience to process the complex physical and emotional stages of grief. And if you are close to someone who has experienced a loss, instead of shying away from hearing about their pain or offering platitudes about getting through it, just sit with your loved one in their grief. Be there without judgment or expectation. Be uncomfortable. Keep showing up that way for as long as it takes, even if it takes a year or more. And for those of you who manage a team or have the ability to make workplace policy, know that your workplace will be impacted by grief and loss. Implement structures and policies to support the experience of moving through grief for your employees. The role of grief in our society has grown immensely over the past few years and will continue to grow as the Boomers continue to age. It is time we figure out a new approach to dealing with grieving that takes into account the reality of those experiences.