03/21/2024
A Confusing Year Of Change
I’m always talking about “throwing you a life ring” to help you survive grief. The problem is you might need more than one!
Grief is always changing and shifting. You’ve heard a lot about grief in the first and second year, but what about the third year, what does that look like?
Most of the challenges you face during the first year after the death of a loved one could fill a whole book, so I won’t go into them. But in a nutshell, it’s all you can do to cope with the seemingly endless emotions like, shock, pain, confusion, anger, regret, and of course, sadness. You name it, you’ll feel it, so grab that first life ring!
Sometimes the first anniversary of the death is almost a relief because you managed to survive the worst year of your life, but then you wake up to the second year, and find a whole other set of challenges to meet.
In the second year, you’re trying to understand where your loved one went, how you’re going to go on living without them, dealing with all the grief, finding a way to create a new life, and dealing with how much you miss them. There are other challenges, of course, some unique to each individual, but all the challenges are dealt with the same way, by continuing to feel the pain. It’s exhausting, so grab that second life ring!
Once the second year is over you begin to realize that life is going on, whether you want it to or not. Your loved one is still dead, and now you have to begin to move away from your pain, but you also feel like you’re moving away from the person you love. This is difficult because sometimes this feels like a betrayal of your love, like how can you continue to live when life on this earth was denied to them? It’s a confusing year of change, most of which you never wanted in the first place.
So what about the third year?
The third year of grief seems to be a year of transition with only one new challenge, beginning to rebuild your life. You still have times of sadness, still miss your loved one, still yearn for them, but these feelings are not as prominent as they once were in the first and second year.
You may no longer feel that moving forward is a betrayal of your love, because you understand that you had no choice in the matter. You had no control over the death, and you have no control over the fact that life keeps going on. You’re still trying to figure out who you are now that the person is gone, so grab that third life ring!
Although this transition between your old life and your new life seems to be a time of being stuck, you’re still rebuilding your life day by day, becoming who you need to be, which is a sign of hope for the future, even if you’re really not yet feeling hopeful.
Here’s the thing…whatever the challenges are you have to deal with in the third year of grief, you’ll meet them as you did all the other challenges in the first and second year, with courage, perseverance, and strength.
Because…you have no other choice...right?
Gary Sturgis – “Surviving Grief”
