Grief, Loss and Understanding

There’s nothing more confusing then abrupt life changes. Loss, grief and bereavement is so incredibly personal for each individual. How we process the change, how we adapt to holidays and seasons is forever altered.

One thing I’ve learnt over time is that we don’t just grieve a life ending. We can grieve loss for people, places and things that hold important memories of joy & love.

I watched my eldest daughter grieve for a father who was alive but lived in another country, their connection was sporadic over the years with no real consistency. As she grew, entering different stages in her life, I seen her grieve time and time again. The theory behind this is called disenfranchised grief which was theorised by Kenneth Doka. Understanding this, helped me understand her pain and better prepare myself for the next stage of her development and understanding how this parental separation impacted her.

I grieved along with her, I felt her pain and it was hard as a mother to see her so hurt.

I don’t grieve the life lost in death, i grieve through the memories. It feels like a mass realisation of change, of times gone by and that I myself, am getting older.

I grieve the laughter once shared, the stories and the childlike joy I felt when with those people. A longing for those times once more. Sometimes I grieve for old friendships from my youth, often wondering what happened, how did we drift so far apart?!

And….Sometimes I grieve for me, the once dare devilled child who rebelled against all authority without a care in the world, the feeling of invincibility, childhood ignorance and zero thoughts of responsibilities or consequences. What felt like genuine freedom before adulthood.

Today I learnt one of the most beautiful, funniest and caring women in my life has lost her battle to cancer and has crossed over. My Nan’s sister, my Aunty Val. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of her, she made me laugh, like hysterically laugh where I couldn’t breath lol. She was so much fun. The type of woman who believed in god, would party hard on a Saturday and go to church every Sunday to confess her sins from the night before. Or the time she was singing (she has a very nasally Aussie voice) she tried to convince me she taught Leann Rimes everything she knew 🤣

I cried when my dad told me that she had stopped treatment, apart of me just expects all those amazing people to stay around forever and before you know it, we are all getting older and people leave this world. It is what it is, life is short and goes in what feels like a blink of an eye.

We all grieve differently, there are so many stages of grief. women are more intuitive and men more instrumental. Women express their emotions and want to talk about it, men prefer to keep themselves busy, take on a new project, aren’t as outwardly emotional in front of others.

Since living a more spiritually dedicated life, my grief is fleeting. There’s an understanding of the soul, soul contracts and I know I’ll be seeing them again. A lot of people have lost that spiritual connection and grief can become quite debilitating for some. Time is the only healer for this. You can’t put any measurements of time on how and when to grieve.

Quite a few years ago I helped facilitate a Loss and grief support group for one of my student placement tasks. I was taken a back by how many people supress their grief in order to be strong for others in their life and how doing this inadvertently came out in other ways, often impacting one’s health. Grief is such an important part of processing change, it is necessary. It’s perfectly fine to be a mess, cry or scream if you have to. Just Let it all out! Allow yourself to be completely vulnerable and surrender to it so you can work through the motions. Creating a ritual helps, I love tree planting ceremonies. Tying ribbons on the branches at different times of the year in remembrance, nurturing the tree and watching it grow into something beautiful. As much as grief is painful it is also a beautiful time of growth, it represents the love you had that was so strong it impacted your life significantly and shaped you to become the amazing person you are today.

Like most witches, I keep an altar specifically for my ancestors. It’s become an important place in my house, I have Quan yin the Chinese mother goddess on my ancestral altar. I inherited a statue from my grandparents as my grandfather practiced Buddhism. I light candles, give offerings and light traditional Chinese temple insence. I have filled it with belongings I’ve inherited over the years, old perfume bottles, Greek pottery, antiques, make-up mirrors, jewellery and statues.

Something to journal on…

• What do you do to process loss and grief?

• Are there special rituals you do?

• How do you keep your memories alive of those no longer here?

• Do you suppress your grief or let it out?

• What are your fondest memories of those who are no longer here?

• How do the changes of the seasons impact the grieving process for you?

• Have you celebrated any pagan holidays like Samhain or day of the dead to honour your ancestors?