Conversations in Grief Blog: Your Right to Your Grief

Grieving the Right Way

by Laura Wessels

Your life has been turned upside down and inside out because of the death of your loved one. It’s hard to gauge how you are or where you are.

In your grief, you feel so low and immobilized; you begin to believe you’re doing something wrong. Friends, family, even acquaintances, may also communicate that you are grieving wrong or that you are grieving too long.

The truth is that you are grieving the right way for you. This is your unique grief, and you know how to grieve your loss. Most likely, you are grieving beautifully. As bereavement counselors at Rainbow, one of the main things we do to support the grieving is to affirm that they are grieving appropriately. Talk to your loved one’s picture and kiss their face. Visit the cemetery regularly. Save the voice messages so you can keep hearing their voice. Send them emails or text messages. Each of these actions is a creative and common way that grievers stay connected to the person who has died. Post quotes on grieving on social media to express your grief and help others understand what your grief feels like.

We often return to the topic of possessions in Rainbow’s Morning Joe Grief Support Group, which meets Monday mornings at Rainbow’s Inpatient Center in Johnson Creek. Some immediately empty the drawers and closets, boxing up clothes and other possessions to give to family, sell, or donate. Others choose to hold on to the clothes, leaving the shirts hanging in the closet and the reading glasses remaining on the nightstand. Is one way right and the other wrong? Both ways honor the griever’s personality and their way of honoring their loved one and how they need to grieve the loss, by letting go or holding on.

In his book After the Storm: A Guide Through Grief, Loss and Living Again, author Farid Jafarli writes, “I needed someone to sit with me in the strange country of loss without trying to give me a map home. I needed someone to say: Yes, this is what it’s like. Yes, you’re not doing it wrong. Yes, love this deep leaves marks this permanent. I needed witness, not advice. Presence, not progress.”

Jafarli captures what the bereaved need most: people who will bear witness to your grief, who will listen well without fixing you or correcting the way you are mourning.

As the bereaved, you have the right to:

• Trust your instincts; you know how to grieve for your person.
• Know when you are ready to do the things you need to do, like sorting your loved one’s belongings.
• Find supportive people who will accept you as you are and who will listen well without trying to fix your grief or stop your grief.

Only you know what you miss about your person, why you miss your person, and when you miss your person. You don’t have to be okay for other people. Grieve as you need to grieve.