Grief

What feels like the end is often the beginning.

- Anonymous

Loss. It is part of life. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Book of Longings, she writes: “Let life be life and death be death.” Loss is not a flat, one direction, sequential journey. Each loss…each death…brings with it a host of other losses. Some losses are acknowledged by society and other loved ones. Some are not. Some of the grief and losses are expected. Some grief and losses hit us with the force of an expected freight train.

We grieve and experience loss at every life transition. Yes, we face loss with the death of a loved one. We also face loss when our child moves away to college. We grieve and face loss when our children leave the baby and toddler stage of life. We face loss when we get married…and when we get divorced. We grieve and face loss with life events that are considered joyful and with life events that are full of remorse and deep sadness. We face losses that are unseen and often unacknowledged like those of miscarriages and infertility. 

Grief cannot be rushed. It is a lot like that old chant the kids learn in preschool, “Going on a Bear Hunt”. In the story, the kids are going on a bear hunt and have to cross a sticky peanut butter river and a sludgy jello swamp. Grief can feel just as sticky and sludgy. It can feel slow and sluggish. It can feel scary. In the story each time they come to the river or swamp, the children will say: “Can’t go over it. Can’t go under it. Can’t go around it. Guess I’ll have to go through it.”

Grief is like that, too. You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go around it. You have to go through it. There is no other way. Clinicians at Unstuck will do the “through” work with you…right through the sticky, sludgy places of grief and into the new normal..the new LIFE…waiting for you on the other side.

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