Grief doesn’t have an expiration date

Right after Kenny died, I looked up the stages of grief so I could familiarize myself with what was coming down the pike for me. I wanted to be “prepared”, as if there was really such a thing as that in this situation. I read about the stages, which are usually listed as five, but sometimes more, depending on what website you’re reading.

I thought that the grief process would be linear and I would move through each one of these stages in the order that they are listed on the websites. It made sense to me as I’ve always been someone who needed to do things in order. I soon found out that the grief process is most certainly not linear. It’s anything but that.

I also thought that the grief process would only last for a certain amount of time. It made sense to me, I guess, because doesn’t everything in life have a shelf life? I’ve since found out that grief most certainly does NOT have an expiration date. Don’t you dare let anyone tell you it does, either.

The first stage, denial, came even before Kenny died. The “He is NOT going to die….he IS going to live” was at the forefront of my brain for about two-thirds of the time he was in the hospital. That stage carried over after his death and when I saw him lying next to me in the bed that first night after he died the denial was the strongest it has been through this whole thing. “He’s not dead because he’s laying RIGHT here next to me”. Of course, that was not really him lying in the bed next to me because he was dead, but his soul did make his physical self appear to me to let me know that he was close by.

The anger stage overlapped the denial stage. I had fits of screaming rage at him for dying and leaving us and anger at other people, too. I had anger that he wasn’t here any longer to help me do the things I was having to learn to do myself. I was angry about a lot of things. I felt guilty for these feelings when I experienced them. I still do.

The bargaining stage started even before the ambulance came that morning. It came rushing in as I pleaded and begged him to please wake up and be okay. The bargaining stage rode in the car with me to the ER as I prayed so very hard to God to please save him. That stage was there every single second of the 30+ hours he was in the ICU as we all begged for him to live.

The depression stage moved in immediately after his death. I can remember feeling it padlocking itself over me like an iron suit as we walked through the hospital parking lot that evening after he died. We were leaving there without him….and that just was not fair.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months the seldom mentioned stage of jealousy creeped in. Seeing other couples together hit me hard…..and I do mean hard. It was so painful to see other couples together because why couldn’t that still be us? Why did he have to die, and it mean that our happy life together was over? Again, it was just not fair.

The jealousy spurned the anger to rise back up and the anger opened the door for the depression to take center stage again. The depression roped the bargaining in, and the bargaining called all the other stages to come right back in, which they happily did. It’s like an all day and all night screaming rave going on that I want to leave but I can’t find the exit.

I found that the stages of grief were definitely not linear. I wish I understood that in the beginning. I have bounced from one stage to another, back and forth like a yo-yo, and it’s made this unwanted journey all that much harder. I feel like I take one step forward and then I fall backwards a hundred more. It’s hard to see the top of the mountain you’re trying to climb when you keep sliding down to the bottom again.

I recently had someone tell me that it’s been over six months since Kenny died and that I shouldn’t still be depressed. Those words slapped me across the face and stung harder than I think any other words ever have in my whole entire life. Those words also delivered a razor sharp knife right into the center of my heart and left a gaping hole in it that will take a long time to heal, if it even ever does at all.

If there’s ONE thing I have learned during this whole process of grieving it’s that grief does not have an expiration date. I will say it again for those in the back of the room who didn’t hear it the first time–grief does not have an expiration date. Period. It does not.

There is no magical time frame that the grief goes away, never to be seen or heard from again. It doesn’t get placed in a lockbox where it never sees the light of day again. It stays as long as it needs to. It stays as long as it’s necessary for you to work through all the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, jealousy, and whatever other stages you may go through. That might be tomorrow…..or it may be never. But, you are the one who decides how long that grief needs to stay. You, and no other living soul, gets to make that decision. It’s your journey to take, no one else’s. You take all the time you need to work through your grief…..and so will I.