Loss & Grief

Recently, a very close friend lost her battle with cancer and died; she was 76. Everyone probably knew she would likely lose that battle at her age, but it still comes as a shock when it happens. We console ourselves by saying things like, "Her pain is over" or "She's in a better place" if you subscribe to religious philosophy, but no amount of consoling statements will shorten or ease the sense of loss for any of us and some experts caution against those kinds of remarks.

My wife, Gale, and I have discussed death many times over the years. With 80 years of age squarely in our sites, we know people will be making these comments about us one day. There can be no life without death. We neither fear death nor encourage it to come any sooner than necessary, programmed, or ordained depending on your point of view. Neither of us is "religious." Gale does embrace much of the Buddhist philosophy but is not a practicing Buddhist, whatever that might mean. ​

​ As for me, I probably come closest to being a Humanist. I don't believe in an afterlife in the traditional sense. I think that I am made up of elements that were in and around my parents when I was conceived. I absorbed the energy and elements of life from them and the world around me through my mother as I lived in her womb. Throughout my life, I have continued to derive my energy and my being by consuming food, water, oxygen, all the elements of our earth that permit and sustain life. And, when I die, those elements that I really only borrowed for the duration of my life will be released back into the world to sustain other life forms after I am gone. That is my version of an afterlife.

Regardless of what you believe about life and death, when there is a loss, it hurts. Losses can come in many ways. Death is the most obvious, but as a child, your best friend might move to another town, or your family is the one that moves, leaving all your friends behind. Your parents get divorced. You can have a breakup with a friend or partner that results in the sense of loss. Friends at work leave or you change jobs and leave friends behind. You can lose a dog, cat, bird, horse, or any number of non-human friends that you loved, and that leaves you miserable with a profound sense of loss. There are no shortages of losses in a person's life.

While talking about loss and grieving, and trying to understand what is happening, it occurred to me that we are not grieving for the person or animal that is gone - they may or may not be aware of anything - but rather we are grieving for ourselves. The pain we are feeling is that we have lost them in our lives.

If you have followed my writing on several topics, you know I'm a visual person. I see the world in pictures. Imagine that your being, the person that you are, is full of circles that represent the many elements in your life. A partner, a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, your closest friend(s), workmates, dog or cat, casual friends, your job, your car, local bartender, server at your favorite restaurant. All of these people and non-people fill your life by being present and filling your memory with an encyclopedia of events, mostly happy ones, we hope.

​Some of the circles are larger than others. The larger circle means that that person is involved more heavily in your life. You interact with them often, and their emotional impact is high. The best example of this is probably the parents of a child. For the parents, the child is an all-consuming part of their life. For the child, the parent is critical to guiding them to adulthood. Others, perhaps a coworker, can also be meaningful, but they occupy less space in your life. Partners and siblings also typically play a significant role.

The grief we feel when there is a loss is relative to the role the person or animal played in our lives. Significant impact, major pain. When they are lost to us, it leaves a larger or smaller void in our hearts, in our minds, and in our so-called souls. Something is missing from our lives, something that was important to us on an emotional level is gone.
 
I say so-called soul because the soul in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a living being. In ancient Greek, the soul means "to breathe." It comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. As religion evolved, the soul became a central part of religious philosophy, particularly in the Christian-Judeo philosophy, where it was concluded that only humans are permitted to have souls.
 
Another way of visualizing this 'loss' and the accompanying distress is similar to something Gale went through to quit smoking years ago. I had quit cold turkey a couple of years earlier. But, because of some personal trauma in her life, Gale needed help to break free of the habit. We tried a hypnotist that a boss and a good friend of mine, Terry Clow, had tried and enthusiastically endorsed. The instructor of this approach applied self-hypnosis. I had already quit smoking, but I asked to audit the class out of curiosity, and he agreed. In describing the anxiety one feels when stopping smoking, or any habit for that matter, he explained that the subconscious mind manages our day-to-day activities without us thinking about it.

For example, you don't have to think about how to use a fork to eat, or how many times to turn the steering wheel on your car when making a turn. You learned all these things when you were young, and that trained the subconscious mind to do these tasks for you, leaving the creative mind free to create. You learned how to form individual letters when writing and how to spell words. You learned sentence structure and the basics of grammar. Now, when you write something, you do those things automatically while your conscious brain creates the message you want to write.  

 In our case, smoking was a learned habit that the subconscious mind took over after you have learned the habit, and smoking became a part of you. You begin to associate smoking with a cup of coffee, fishing on a boat, after sex, any number of activities that you do while smoking, and enjoying the act.   The teacher, David (the last name is lost), explained that it might only take three minutes to drink a cup of coffee. But, if you smoke a cigarette at the same time, it might take a total of six minutes.

​When you quit smoking, there will be a three-minute gap of unoccupied time in your subconscious (like a gap in an audiotape) as you drink that cup of coffee. The subconscious does not like to sit around with nothing to do, and that gap in your subconscious will make you anxious. That is the panic smokers experience time and time again when they first quit. In time, the subconscious is reprogrammed for all the activities you associate with smoking, and the gap and anxiety go away as the mind reforms around that gap.

I believe grief over a loss of any kind is much like that. The loss of anyone who has played a significant role in your life leaves "gaps" in our lives, in our hearts, and in our minds. Time and interaction with others will eventually fill that void, but it will take a little time. You will never forget the loss or the person or friend, but the grief of loss will diminish as that void in your life is filled with other people, events, and activities.
 
How long that takes will vary with the individual. It will depend on how much support and love you have around you, how interested you are in life, or how engaged or isolated you may be. And, your particular belief system may also play a role in your healing.
 
Grieving is not unique to humans. We have all heard stories about a dog sleeping by its owners grave, or we have seen wildlife shows of everything from elephants to penguins and crows mourning the loss of one of their members or a mate. While we don't know exactly how animals process information in their brains, it seems evident to me, that, like us, a member of their group can become a big part of their life. When that member is lost to death or other causes, they suffer from grief in a way similar to us. In time, other members of the group help fill that empty place in their heart and mind. The mere act of living tends to make us move on.
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Knowing this, and assuming you understand and accept my premise, will not reduce your grief or shorten the duration of that grief. But, knowing why you feel as you do and that everyone, even animals go through a similar process can help understand the experience. And know that, in time, the emptiness will be filled with the love of other people, animals, and activities that lets you know there is an endpoint to the pain.