Grief is like a hurricane
Going through grief is much like surviving a hurricane. We don’t see many hurricanes on the Prairies. But on television we see the damage and destruction they cause.
One scary thing about a hurricane is that it is absolutely calm at the centre of the storm, called the eye. People who have been caught up in a hurricane and have taken such a vicious beating from the wind and rain, suddenly experience the storm ending. This change is startling. There is no wind in the eye of a hurricane.
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The calmness is short-lived and deceptive. Since a hurricane is always moving along, it doesn’t take long for that eye to pass over any particular spot on the ground. And what follows that calm is just as terrifying and damaging as what preceded it.
People going through grief are caught up in a hurricane of painful feelings, emptiness and loneliness. Things often happen much too fast for them to manage themselves or their grief. They have a hard enough time sensing where they are, let alone what they are going to do.
Thankfully, when they begin to grieve, they have lots of social supports, such as friends or relatives, who help them find some anchor in the confusion and pain in which they find themselves.
People who are going through grief experience the “eye of the hurricane” as well. It can occur anywhere from many weeks to many months after their loss. Things seem to become calm in their lives again. They seem to be able to get along better with living, although it is still quite painful and lonely without the person they love. And, because things have settled down, they often think or hope they are out of the storm of grief for good.
The calm doesn’t last forever. They are just getting a break. Just when they are starting to feel comfortable, they re-experience the pain of grief, almost as strong as when they first faced it. Not only are they unprepared for what happens, but much of their support group has disappeared by then.
When a death first occurs, everyone responds. If they don’t bring a casserole, they bring their presence and concerns. But after a while, family and friends get busy doing other things. So when the other side of the hurricane hits a grieving person, he or she doesn’t have the same support as earlier.
If grieving people have been working at understanding what has been happening through their grief, they will be better prepared for the second part of the storm of grief. They will have reached out to other people in grief or to helping people in their community and will have that support they will need to get through the second half of the storm of grief. And most of all, they will have themselves, someone who is stronger and more able to cope than they thought they could.
