The Many Faces of Grief: How We All Grieve Differently
Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash
"I write to process my grief, what do you do?”
“I play video games.”
“What do you mean? To escape? That’s different than processing.”
“No, to process.”
“Really? How?”
“It depends on the game, but like today, my horse in the game died. I was really attached to him, and I didn’t expect him to die. I’ve been caring for him for a long time, and today I lost him.”
“Oh, so you mean you connected the loss of your video game horse with the loss of our family dog?”
“Yeah, it helped me to grieve and to process my feelings.”
“Wow! That’s certainly a different way of looking at video games.”
“You’ve always looked at them negatively.”
“Well, this actually might change my entire perspective!”
“I think I’m going to post something about our family dog on Facebook. It’s been a week, and I feel like I need to tell people that he died. I want to honor him and acknowledge his life.”
I asked my husband and my kids if they wanted me to post the message on their Facebook timelines too.
“No, if I want to post it, I’ll do it myself. I don’t really want to announce it. I just want to be alone, can you respect that?”
I felt hurt, confused. Why wouldn’t my kids want the entire world to know that our family just lost our beloved dog who had been a part of our family’s journey for sixteen years—since our first days in North Africa?
“We’re all grieving differently. Give everyone the space they need. You need to talk about it with everyone to process. But some of us just want to be quiet and alone in our grief," my husband said.
That stopped me dead in my tracks.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
Not Like Me?
How could the six of us—me, my husband, and our four children—all live the exact same experience and react, respond, and grieve in entirely different ways?
Why wouldn’t everyone want to talk about it to process? Why wouldn’t everyone want to write about it to process? Why wouldn’t everyone want to approach every dog they pass on the walking path, pet him, and share our story with the dog’s owner? Why wouldn’t everyone want to get a new dog today to help heal the wounds?
Why wouldn’t everyone want to be like me? Why wouldn’t everyone want to grieve like me?
I guess like any journey, everyone moves at a different pace. We may even go on entirely different paths to get to the same place of healing.
Maybe that was what was happening before my very eyes as I observed each member of my family experience and process the death of our dog.
Some of us were writing alone and crying in our bedroom. Others were screaming and shouting over their video game challenges. Others were watching movies to escape and not feel the pain. Still others were running frantically around the track, lifting heavy weights, and pumping their muscles.
There seemed to be many different faces of grief. I guess some like to be silent, some like to shout, some like to scream, some like to cry, and others may even wear a smile until the grief is over.
“There are no quick fixes to grief. Every expression of grief that wants to be felt and honored and given its space, must be allowed…in order to heal.”
— Tom Zuba
The Grief Factors
Some of the factors that affect the way we grieve include:
1. Causation or Situational Factors—What is the loss? Is it a loved one? A relationship? Physical ability? A job? A home? Rights? Identity?
Was it an unexpected loss, perhaps due to an accident or natural disaster? Did they have advanced warning about the impending loss, resulting in “anticipatory grief”? Unexpected loss may lead the person to have trouble accepting the loss, and he or she may find himself in a state of denial.
Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, clinical psychologist and professor at Yeshiva University, said, “The cause of the grief has important implications on the grief process. Losing a loved one to natural causes might elicit different reactions than a loss caused by crime or injustice.”
2. Personal Factors—A person’s resilience levels, ability to manage emotions, the importance of the loss in the person’s life, and the support they have with family and friends at that time all influence their grief.
Someone’s level of emotional intelligence may also play into their ability to cope and handle the grief and loss they are facing. Also, for those of us living in North Africa, on the other side of the ocean from our family and friends, it can be especially difficult to go through our own losses alone and isolated. Grieving losses from a distance, such as when we lose family members and cannot be present, is also especially challenging for those of us overseas.
3. Cultural Factors—In some cultures, grief is a private affair. In others, grief is expressed and discussed with others openly. I can remember when our dear Moroccan friends lost their 5-year-old son suddenly to meningitis, his mother wept uncontrollably. Her friends and family kept repeating, “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” It was obviously not culturally acceptable to cry over the loss of your child. Her culture was dictating that she be emotionally strong, but she was incapable.
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
Our Personal Situation
In our family’s case, the different reactions weren’t due to different causations or situational factors. We had all experienced the same loss—the death of our family dog. Our dog was old. We had ample warning as we all watched him quickly decline over the course of several weeks.
There could have been cultural factors, because my husband and I are from different cultures. As an American, perhaps we talk more openly about grief, process it verbally, and make things more public. In my husband’s European culture, deep, personal experiences are private and discreet. My boys are a mix of both cultures, so it was perhaps normal that they were swinging in both directions.
Each of us was grieving differently, probably due more to personal factors than anything else.
We are all unique individuals, all created differently, with different personalities, different perspectives, and different ways of processing and expressing emotions. For example, I’m an extrovert and my husband is an introvert. I like to face my emotions head-on and feel deeply, whereas my husband likes to process, think, and take things slowly.
Yes, we had all experienced the same loss at the exact same moment. We were all on the same grief journey; however, we were all moving at different speeds and directions through the various stages towards healing.
I needed to accept everyone’s differences and not judge my husband and my children for not grieving like me. Just because they weren’t talking about our dog all the time or they weren’t crying, didn’t mean they weren’t grieving. I needed to let everyone go at their own pace and not expect them to be where I was on the grief journey.
As I looked around the dinner table that evening, I saw the many different faces of grief. They were all beautiful—just different.
Later that night, as I reached the top stair landing, ready to walk into my bedroom for the night, I heard the faint, muted sound of my son’s video game. His bedroom door was closed. I started to knock and then stopped myself.
“Nope, I’m not going to interrupt him. He’s grieving.”
Works Cited:
Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.
You can find Marci and her books on her website.
"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com