Sometimes, Grief Hits You Like a Wave
How do you make room for loss in life? I once saw grief illustrated as a little black cloud that follows you around while you're doing the dishes, folding the sheets, laughing with a friend. Maybe for others, it feels like a tsunami hits you and, for a very intense, extended moment that lasts however long, you are drowning.
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How do you make room for loss in life? I once saw grief illustrated as a little black cloud that follows you around while you're doing the dishes, folding the sheets, laughing with a friend. Maybe for others, it feels like a tsunami hits you and, for a very intense, extended moment that lasts however long, you are drowning.
I took a clinical training on loss and grief that said we live in a death-denying culture. When I first heard it, I wasn't sure what it meant. Don't we all agree that we all die?
But it's not that at all. In my work with mothers who have experienced miscarriage, multiple miscarriages, stillbirth, or devastating loss in their lives, I see how lonely they are.
People often don't know how to show up for someone who has experienced loss. For some reason, it's easier to deny it than check in on the mom. We forget them on Mother's Day. We don't know how they suffer on the anniversary of what was once a due date. We feel relieved when she wants to try again.
There's actually a clinical term for this: disenfranchised grief. It describes loss that isn't fully recognized or validated by the people around us. It's grief that doesn't get the rituals, the casseroles, the bereavement leave, or the social permission to fall apart. Pregnancy loss, miscarriage, and stillbirth are among the most common forms of disenfranchised grief. The mother knows exactly what she lost. The world often acts like it never existed.
It's not your fault if you didn't know how to show up. Most of us were never taught. But knowing the term and what it means is the first step toward doing it differently. Here are a few actionable things to think about:
If you are witnessing someone's grief: say something, even if you don't know what to say. Show up, even if it's awkward. Remember the dates, the due date, the anniversary, the birthday that never happened. Don't wait for her to ask.
If you are the one grieving: what you're carrying is real, and it's heavy, and you don't have to have it figured out. If it helps to have some frameworks for what you're moving through, keep reading.
Framework 1: The Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
You may have heard of it. Initially developed for terminally ill patients, this model is now used widely for other forms of grief. When I say, "I see it through the lens of grief," I mean that I try to understand what stage the client is in. There are five: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It's not linear; we oscillate between these stages. Understanding and naming what stage you are in can help ground your experience. When the wave hits, having a word for it matters.
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Framework 2: Dual Process Model of Grief by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut
This is one of my favorite frameworks in grief work, because it maps so honestly onto what grieving actually looks like in real life. The model says we oscillate between two states. In loss-oriented coping, you are turned toward the grief: crying, feeling the pain, sitting with the presence of someone's absence. In restoration-oriented coping, you are turned toward your changed life: going back to work and feeling good at something, picking up a shelved hobby, laughing with your partner, slowly rebuilding.
We move back and forth between these two states, sometimes within the same day. The grief doesn't disappear. You are simply finding a way to carry it alongside your life, and that oscillation, that movement between loss and living, is the mechanism of grief itself.
Framework 3: Andrew Garfield on the death of his mom
I often think of this interview with Andrew Garfield on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He welcomed a conversation about losing his mother even as it brought him to tears. His perspective: grief is just love with nowhere to go. All that unexpressed love has to live somewhere. Grief is love.
I tear up, with a full heart, every time I watch this interview. If you haven't seen it, I'd encourage you. The reframe is so important.
Framework 4: Common Humanity (from Mindful Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff)
One of the three pillars of Dr. Kristin Neff's Mindful Self-Compassion framework is common humanity. It's the reminder that we are not alone in our suffering. It is the shared condition of being alive. We will all lose someone. We will all die. Death connects all beings on our planet. If you are isolating and feel alone in your suffering, talking about it with others might feel healing. It's a compassionate exchange. Please join a grief group or talk about it with someone who can hold the space with you.
If you are isolating in your grief, feeling like no one could possibly understand, a grief group, a therapist, even one honest conversation with someone who can hold the space, can be profoundly healing. You don't have to carry it alone all the time, and you were never supposed to. We all grieve in our own time, in our own way, with our own rituals and releases.
If your grief is not lifting, please find someone who understands this work to support you.
We are here if you need us.
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