grieving is a continuity that never ends

what someone experiencing loss may actually feel like

I remember the first time I lost someone I care about and care about is a really different word for me because it encompasses people that I love and people that I respect or both. It was about 8 years ago, I was still young but prolly not too young. This was someone I wasn’t so close to but someone I respected a lot. This was also the last time I played the keyboard properly at any outdoor event. I’m not sure if it was the wave of emotions of the day or something else (I really don’t like psychoanalysis, so I avoid it) yet, what I know is I changed a lot from that day onward and I’ve only more recently attempted finding myself again.

Loss is a big deal. As someone who hasn’t lost a parent or sibling, I don’t think I can properly describe the pain. However, I have lost friends to the cold hands of death and my personality being the way it is, handling that loss is always a hard thing. In a sense, I think my valuation of a person also changes depending on how they react, or in some extreme cases handle the sight of my loss. I think that sounds selfish but as someone who never really changes a person’s valuation, I think that much is enough.

However, as much as this is true, I find that I’m, not alone on this. We all deal with grief differently but inherently how we see things change due to that period. This was also described by Dr. O’Connor, a neuroscientist who said:

Brain imaging studies show that grief activates regions associated with pain, craving, and emotion regulation. Among bereaved individuals, 71% report changes in how they perceive their environment, with ordinary objects and locations taking on new emotional significance.- Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor

From what they said, it may be clear as to why when grieving, there’s an increase in pain felt, craving intensifies too with some folks spending and buying any and everything. And not just this, emotions just flood in with no brakes. Ordinary objects now hold sentimental values, some locations become pilgrim sites and well certain actions become too hard to perform. I recall how in 2023, I purchased a Barca jersey not because I like jerseys or support Barca or even love football (or soccer) rather because I lost a dear friend who absolutely adores Barca. This jersey became a memento, a reminder of him for me. July all through to September 2023 was the worst of times at this point. Somehow I scaled through, lol.

Maciejewski et al sometime in 2016 also said reported profound that I’ve found true as well. Tbh what they had to say is no different from what Dr. O’Connor also said but there’s more light, more information on what’s actually happening:

Over a two-year period following loss, 82% of bereaved individuals reported at least moderate changes in their worldview, with 47% indicating substantial or profound alterations in how they understand themselves and their place in the world.

I remember how that some few years back when speaking with some of my friends who lack sufficient experience in dealing with loss, and are now having to relate with their other friends dealing with loss, I would mention how delicate they (the ones who are grieving) are delicate in that moment. More recently, I’ve come to realise one almost never leaves that state.

Loss through death is one thing but we experience loss in so many ways. Regardless of the ways in which we experience it, we have to grieve and that period of grieving actually never ends. It’s a continuity. Why’s this? Well you see when you love someone, you never really stop loving them. You may learn to love another person more, but to stop loving a person you once loved is almost impossible. Unless you never loved them to start with. And this never ending state of love itself is due to what love really is, a rollercoaster of experiences of giving and being given, of receiving and being received. These experiences never fade off. They never leave the mind. These experiences regardless of the pain the other person may have caused us is exactly why grieving never ends.

Sometimes, no actually, many times, I try to imagine how I’ll handle the loss of my parents, my uncles and aunts, friends and possibly siblings. It is without a doubt after all that all of life ends in death and perhaps that’s why it’s even more painful. I can’t say.

In my short time on earth, I’ve had so many people who have influenced me in one way or another. Life is hard, these ones have made it a bit better to live. The thought of one day loosing them is a burdensome one and no one is ever really prepared. I for one know how much hurt I experienced in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. Each of these years came with a loss of life so close and so beautiful. And each time I noticed I always take a rather drastic step afterwards.

I do think and believe that support is needed for those experiencing loss. Therapy isn’t so bad either. In whatever it is, the most important thing is to not undermine the rollercoaster of emotions of that period. To seat with these ones and just be. I do think everyone needs to experience loss early on though. If it doesn’t break you, it will make you.

That’s it for today, until next time.

Jhoe.