Please Come Back

“Please come back” – this is what I find myself saying whenever a loved one passes away. Perhaps it’s the same for you. My initial shock is frequently accompanied by numbness, a sensation that nothing has changed, that I am exaggerating. My mind goes blank for a brief moment, and when it returns, it tries to figure out whether or not I'm dreaming. Devastating and overwhelming pain quickly follows. My heart feels like it's been shattered into a thousand pieces. My breathing becomes very rapid as if I had just been rescued from drowning. My chest aches. My legs weaken. I get dizzy and lightheaded. This is just the start of the long road ahead called grief.

In 1969, Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., published her seminal book On Death and Dying , in which she proposed the now-famous Five Stages of Grief: denial (continuing as if nothing happened), anger (at ourselves, at the person who died, at a higher power), bargaining (wishing we could go back in time and change things), depression (constant longing), and acceptance (gradually the pain eases). It's worth noting that the five phases don't appear in any particular order and that there's no time limit for getting through each one. We all have a distinct mourning experience.

The majority of people go through normal grief, which usually lasts for six to twelve months after a loss and then fades away. Persistent grieving, on the other hand, can become a disorder. It’s at this point that symptoms can have a significant impact on our bodies. Most common physical problems, according to Tulane University's Marilyn Mendoza, Ph.D. , come from the immunological, cardiovascular, digestive, and nervous systems. We can become more susceptible to colds, flu, and other diseases while we are grieving. The stress of mourning is linked to high blood pressure, chest pain, irregular heartbeat, and heart attacks. Changes in appetite, nausea, and heartburn occur. Our thinking becomes muddled and sluggish. Our ability to focus and pay attention is restricted. We are easily distracted and have difficulty planning, organizing, and remembering things.

Jan Warner's book Grief Day by Day explores some of the emotions that accompany grief. There is, first and foremost, sadness. The trauma of losing someone we care about does not occur at a predetermined moment. It happens every morning when we wake up and remember them. It happens during the day when events happen that we want to share but are unable to do so. It takes place late at night, just as we are preparing to go to our beds without our loved ones. As she says, they don’t pass away only once, every time we think of them, they die. Then there's the issue of loneliness. Even though we have a large number of people in our lives, missing that one person makes the entire world appear empty. No one can take the place of those who have passed on. Yes, memories exist, and we can recall them, but we can no longer recall them together. We get depressed. Our loss of hope is generally accompanied by a sense of doom and gloom as if everything is going wrong and nothing will work out. There is also a sense of fear. Without our loved ones, life is terrifying. When we grieve, we often feel guilty, sometimes because we believe we could have saved our loved one from death, and other times because we are still here while they are not.

Grief has an impact on our physical and emotional health, as well as our personalities. It has the ability to change us in ways we don't like yet can't seem to stop. When someone we love dies, Warner reminds us that it's typical to feel unsure of who we are. It's as if our life path has been ripped away from us, as if our own life has come to a halt. She notes that trying to figure out who we are is like putting together a puzzle that keeps falling apart. The puzzle will eventually fit together again, but it will be in a different shape than we are used to.

So far, I've discussed grieving as a natural emotion to the death of a person or a pet. However, I need to be more specific. Grief is a natural reaction to loss, especially when a part of our identity is at stake. We feel grief after a divorce, when we lose our job, when we become seriously ill, when we retire, or when we move to a new location. We also mourn the loss of a friendship, a loved one suffering from depression, Alzheimer's, and other debilitating diseases, or a spouse who has become a stranger. We lament the loss of our dreams, our success, and our sense of belonging. Giving up a piece of ourselves in order to adjust to a new circumstance can cause us to grieve too. Some of these losses might be just as painful as losing a loved one. I can assure you that I speak from personal experience when I say that it's especially challenging to deal with losses that are slow and gradual. I can only describe them as anxiously and helplessly watching a treasure slip through my fingers.

Enough grieving! This article is, in fact, about resilience, or the ability to bounce back swiftly after a setback. Let's take a look at some specific techniques to deal with grief. Harvard Medical School recommends doing yoga, eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, taking on new duties, and reaching out to our social circle as part of a mind-body program. It can also help us to do things that restore our sense of control. Volunteering is a terrific strategy to stay resilient since it gets our minds off of our own pain while also helping others and making us feel good. It's important to remember that even years after a loss, we may still be sad when presented with the many reminders out there. If mourning gets too overwhelming, the Mayo Clinic recommends that we recall only the happy moments, plan distractions, develop new traditions, join a support group, and seek help from a counselor or a mental health specialist.

Hope, in my opinion, is the most effective fuel for boosting our resilience after the death of a loved one. For some, reaffirming their faith in the afterlife, in whatever form consciousness continues to exist, is the way to go. Others may find hope in perpetuating the legacy of those who have passed away. We can, for example, make charitable contributions in their honor. Moreover, we have the ability to devote our time and energy to something that was essential to them. Through the stories we tell about them, we can also keep their teachings alive. It’s valid to honor their life and death in whichever way strengthens our resilience.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once said “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not get over the loss of a loved one, you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same.” Everyone has the right to grieve at their own pace and in their own way. However, we must also pick ourselves up, dust off, and adjust to the new situation. Take your time if you're grieving. While you're mourning your loss, remember how many times you've prevailed through difficult times in the past. You're much more capable than you give yourself credit for. You're going to do it again.

Author: Esteban Polidura, CFA. May 7, 2022