Okay this one is about to hit hard.
My grandpa died when I was in seventh grade, being the only caregiver I had until I was four years old, I was pretty devastated. At the time I had just learned the Five Stages of Grief at school, and as I was anticipating them, it didn't happen the way I thought they would. Don’t get me wrong, I felt all the stages, but they just came in a very non-linear process.
Denial wasn't so much of a "He’s not dead!" kind of thing, but more of a "Well his corpse really didn't look like him, so maybe it's a mix up and he’s actually alive somewhere".
I didn't really feel any anger at the time, at least not at the situation itself. I was angry about a lot of things, but it was mostly because I was 12. Since I already have a pretty aggressive personality, being a teenager made it worse. But I didn't find myself any more angry than usual.
Depression happened but again, it wasn't in the typical stage. I wasn't crying or anything. I just remember being really upset and almost frustrated at first, then these feelings immediately went away as I became numb. I have always avoided thinking about it, because the memory just prompts this painful, sick sort of feeling inside me. It feels almost like shame, or dread, or a mix of the two.
It took me several years or so to really come to terms with the death of my grandpa. However, every so often I'll get a bit of denial when I see someone who looks exactly like him walking around, or a bit of depression when I catch myself thinking "I should tell him that I made it into pit orchestra today", even though he’s been dead for four years.
The death of my grandpa will always be a part of me. I'll never forget the way my mother cried at the funeral. And although it's a painful memory to recall when I think of it, I would never have been able to move on if I hadn't taken the time to grieve it, process it, and let go, to make it a smaller part of myself as I moved on to become a bigger person. Change and impermanence is a part of life we all have to accept.
Change is something that most people have to learn how to overcome, and your story is a great example of how change is a part of everyone's life. Even through the hardest of times, you learned to process it and move on. I also liked that the word "really" was italicized as it focuses the word. This is a great story and very nice to have an important message to take away from your story.
ReplyDeleteWow, that was beautiful. The way you have been able to self reflect on the ime and break down each stage that you were going through. It must have been hard, and you must have thought of it often to have that deep of an understanding of what you went through. When I say “beautiful” I don't mean what you went through, that must have been terribly difficult, but the way you have emerged on the other side being able to be so in contact with yourself that you can break down each stage. That is impressive. That is beautiful.
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