Three perspectives on mourning

As many of you know, my dad died earlier this month.

One thing that has become abundantly clear to me since then is that everyone mourns differently. Not only that, every experience of mourning is different. (When my mom died, I went through a different grieving process than the one I’m currently going through for my dad.)

I feel compelled to write about what I’ve learned about mourning over the past few weeks, because I think we talk about grief too infrequently and often too secretively.

I want to caveat: this is my very individual experience with grief, and you may disagree wholeheartedly with something you read here. Like I said, everyone mourns differently.

But we all do mourn. At some point in our lives, we all experience life-altering grief. And we constantly rub shoulders with people experiencing that grief—at work, on the subway, in the group chat.

So I’m writing today to share my perspective with my incredibly thoughtful community, knowing that mourning eventually unites us all, even if we all grieve and process differently.

Here's what I’ve learned from my own mourning experience:

1. There are two distinct grief periods after a loss, and I needed different things in each.

The first grief period is what I have been calling the “active” period.

This was when my dad was in the hospital, when I was figuring out with his doctors whether to treat his illness or transition him to hospice, and when I was saying goodbye. This active period extended through his death and afterwards, when I was making all the arrangements for him.

This stage involves a LOT of decision-making. You’re busy, many people are in touch with condolences, you’re receiving flowers, and you’re dealing with logistics.

These days felt thick with “plot.” That might be a weird way of phrasing it, but it’s how it felt. There were a lot of twists and turns with my dad’s health to relay to people.

And to be honest, I had a really hard time with that. I couldn’t handle questions like “What happened today?” or “What’s going on now?” I knew these questions were well-intentioned, but it was painful and stressful to answer. I was very lucky to have a dear friend who I could lean on to send updates to people—because I just couldn’t.

Once the active mourning period was over, I felt a lot more able to be in direct communication with people. In fact, I wanted (and still want!) people to reach out.

Because as the second period of mourning creeps in, things really quiet down. They get TOO quiet. Everyone leaves, your phone stops dinging all the time, you’ve received all the cards you’re going to receive, the flowers die, and you try to get back to work and put your attention back on everything you neglected during the active part of mourning.

Except…everything still feels incredibly hard. Because if anything, the grief is worse now. Or at least, that’s how it feels to me. Because there’s no distraction—the grief is just there. So, this is really the time to reach out. Even a simple “thinking of you” text is enough.

2. Statements are more helpful than questions.

I’ll be honest: Especially in the thick of active mourning, I had a really hard time with questions.

Simple questions from people that were incredibly well-meaning, like:

• “How are you?”
• “What can I do for you?”

Sometimes, I’ve even felt resentful of these questions. Of course, anger is part of grief, so it’s no surprise that I feel that way, but I think this is a common frustration for people in mourning.

Because you don’t have answers. You don’t know how you are (except unbelievably bad) and you don’t know what you need. And the thought of another decision makes you want to scream.

Now, I understand that it’s very hard to be the friend in this situation. You don’t know what to say, and you truly do have the best of intentions. I completely, completely get that. From my perspective, messages like these, versus the ones above, really hit the mark:

• “If you need to talk after you get back from the hospital, call me. If you need to take a break at any point, call me. I’m here to listen!”
• I just want you to know I’m thinking about you. I can’t imagine what you're going through. I’m here whenever you need me.” 
• “I’m around on Wednesday night and I want to make food for you. Will you be home?”
• “When will you be home from Tennessee? I’m sending you something in the mail.”
• “I know this really sucks—how are you today?” (Versus how are you in general) 

Also: sometimes, you might not actually have the bandwidth to do anything to help someone in mourning. I understand that. For example, you might be dealing with something of your own at the time, or geographically far away, etc. In those cases, it’s okay to just send your love.

3. There are times you will feel alone, despite an outpouring of love.

Mourning is very lonely. Even when you’ve received so much love from those around you, there are moments when you feel like you’re on another planet from everyone else.

That’s why I want to say to all the wonderful people in my life: if you’ve thought of reaching out but haven’t, I would love to hear from you. It would mean the world to me, and it’s not too late. Mourning is a long-term process, and I will always welcome hearing from you.

Thank you, thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past few weeks. I send my love right back to you, and I know this won’t be the last email I send on the topic of grief. I may also write more about my dad—we’ll see. Either way, I am grateful to you for listening as I process what I’m observing about loss in real time.