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WHEN WHAT WAS... IS NO MORE
I looked everywhere I thought I may have placed it. I was desperate
to find it. “What could I have done with my ankle bracelet,”
I asked myself? This isn’t like me. I don’t throw things
away. I seldom, if ever, not put things back where they belong. In
fact, I find a place or create a space for my possessions to hang
out in while not in use... a place for everything and everything in
its’ place. So, where is it?!
Grief happens when things change and when we lose
something or someone. Whether it is animate or inanimate, we grieve
over the loss. Be it a dollar or a dime, a change in our situations
and/or circumstances, a dismantled relationship or the loss we experience
when a loved one transitions from this world to the next, the grieving
process will be the same.
This process is called the 5 Stages of Grief, acknowledged by Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying, or the
5 phases of Managing Change, like the loss of my favorite ankle bracelet.
And the stages are:
1. Denial – What’s the first thing you do? You try to
find the lost object. You tear up the place to locate that comb, the
brush, or the penny that rolled under the sofa. In my case, it was
the ankle bracelet.
2. Anger – “Where did I put the #@$%^ thing!” “I
should have taken it off before I went for that run, dang it!”
3. Bargaining – “Please God, just let it be somewhere
in the house. I promise I’ll never wear it outside again.”
Yeah right.
4. Depression – “Omigod, what am I going to do now? Oh
man, my ankle looks naked.”
5. Acceptance – “Enough,” I said. “Get over
this and move on. You can’t change what happened.” I had
accepted the reality of my loss, experienced the pain, adjusted to
my ankle without the bracelet, and reinvested in a new one.
Much to do about nothing, you say? I beg to differ with you. We grieve
over all losses whether we are aware of it or not.
Any change in circumstances can cause us to go through this process.
Why? It was ours, a part of us and with each loss we feel something
has been taken away from us internally. A void develops where that
attachment has been ripped away from us. It is an emotional tear that
makes us desperate to recover it and sad when we don’t. We feel
diminished somehow by no longer having that “person, place,
or thing” in our lives. Even if it’s only for a few moments
because you dropped the quarter, saw it roll and drop off the curbing
and fall between the grates that cover the sewer drain as you attempted
to place it in the slot designated for quarters on the parking meter,
we grieve. We don’t have to go through the stages in sequence.
We can skip a stage or go through two or three in concert. And, we
can go through them in different time phases. The ankle bracelet search
and rescue drama took about half a day. The intensity and duration
of our grief response is linked to how significant the change produced
loss is perceived. However, we don’t want to live in our grief.
We may have to visit from time to time, but we don’t want to
make this space our home.
Be mindful that major grief responses, which are not addressed, could
lead to mental, physical, and sociological problems and contribute
to family dysfunction across generations.
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