Finding Healing Through Memories After a Loss
When I lost my father, the first emotion I felt was relief. He had been battling cancer for some time and was deteriorating fast. My mother, who was his sole caretaker during his final months, could finally catch her breath and have a break. My father — who was always a very prideful man — could no longer feel the frustration and anger that came with having a failing body. He was free, and I felt it was a blessing.
However, as the day went on, the realization started to hit me: my father was gone, and I would no longer be making memories with him. The man who had taught me how to play music, who was at almost every event I had growing up, and who took me on vacations every year … his smile, his charm, and his laughter — all gone. The wave of grief hit me like a tsunami.
If, like me, you’ve lost a loved one at some point in your life, then you may be familiar with the heartbreak that accompanies that loss. Especially when it’s a parent, growing up and losing them feels like a horrible milestone you’re crossing. Yet, as a family member, you are there to pick up the pieces that are left behind. All their belongings, photos, old bills, and projects are left to you — whether to be purged or organized.
However, going through those memories is an extremely emotional project. Where should you even start? And how can you possibly tackle this when the grief feels so heavy? Our brains are an enigma, but grief is a universal feeling, so how could I prepare for this loss and find peace? For me, the process started with a song.
The Weight of Grief
Every relationship we have in our lives is unique to us; for my dad and I, we shared a love of music. Yet, because our relationships are all unique, experiencing the grief of losing a loved one can be an extremely lonely experience. The only one who could share that relationship with us — remembering the emotional and physical connection we had with that person — is now gone. Even though others may have loved that individual, there is no one that can share the exact same loss that we each individually feel.
I read this statement in an article that spoke on the neuroscience behind grief, and as true as it may be, the author went on to point out another truth: although we may grieve alone, we certainly don’t have to, but our society often glamorizes this idea of grieving in isolation. If we ask for help or reach out, we fear we might appear needy. Yet if we don’t, we isolate ourselves and potentially worsen our own pain.
In some ways, experiencing sadness, depression, and even grief can be extremely healthy: it allows us to pull back and regain our energy by providing us with time for reflection and introspection. However, prolonged loneliness and sadness can have other effects, often resulting in unhealthy levels of stress and eventually a deep depression, and so reaching out to those you feel safest with as well as avoiding extremely stressful environments can be an essential tools for helping you recover from loss. Additionally, validation of your loss and kindness can be a life preserver when you’re drowning in grief.
Of course, everyone also experiences grief in a different way. Culture’s common knowledge about grief is that it happens in stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, other researchers suggest that each person experiences grief not in stages, but in patterns. In addition, these patterns can experience the five stages at different times and for different lengths. Some people may suffer from prolonged grief, while others may recover faster or develop a resilience to it.
Just as each person has unique health needs, so does each person have their own mental health experience. Veterans, as well as those in war-torn countries, may see death more often, and thus experience grief — and additional mental health issues — in a different way. There is no one right way to grieve, and even those who are dying have to face their own form of grief.
In my father’s final months, his care shifted from finishing projects to finding peace despite his terminal diagnosis and coming to terms with his own death. His nurses with hospice provided both him and the family with religious and end-of-life counseling, informing us of all the things that may happen with his condition, and helping us finalize many of the necessary steps that accompany death. It wasn’t easy, and I could see my dad visibly fighting the idea of dying. He wasn’t the sort of man to spend his day in bed, but every day he lost a little more of his strength. By the end, he couldn’t walk at all.
But also at the end, he began to accept his fate, and he was at peace. After his passing, it was then my turn to go through my own grieving process. Along with my brothers, we all had to wade through our sadness, but we also knew we weren’t going to do it alone. We had each other, and although there were some hard moments ahead of us — his first birthday without him, a wedding without him, and Christmas — we at least had each other to call when we missed our dad most.
However, that first week after his death was certainly the hardest for all of us.
Finding Relief Through Memories
We decided to hold a celebration of life for my dad a week after his passing. Since he had been sick for some time, we had already done some of the work in preparation for this day. However, once he actually passed, preparing the final aspects of his celebration of life became much more difficult. There were photos to organize, and I had agreed to make a slideshow that would feature a song he sang with his band in the ’80s. What I didn’t realize is that hearing my dad’s voice again would be both cathartic and heartbreaking.
My mother also had heaps of photos with my dad and his family, and she had to find a way to convert those photos to digital so she could share them in the slideshow at the celebration of life. However, it was easy for my mom to get overwhelmed — there were at least 3 decades worth of photos in boxes, and neither she (nor my dad) had ever taken the time to organize them, let alone convert them to digital files. Many parents get fed up with organizing photos digitally, as it just takes too much time and requires some technological know-how.
Even with the help of her sons, my mom simply gave up after a few hours of sorting. We picked out the best photos that signified memorable occasions and saved the rest for a later date. I’m sure once my mom has the time and emotional capacity, she will go through them all, label and organize them as best she can, and save them in the proper air-and-moisture-tight storage containers.
But I don’t expect she’ll do it anytime soon. Sorting through memories can often bring back the grief — remembering the moment you were with that person and then realizing they are no longer here with you now. Although there is something cathartic with organizing and remembering, your mind may let slip some of the very grief it’s been trying to protect you from.
However, some of the best advice I’ve received since experiencing the loss of my dad is this: allow yourself to feel everything. It’s always much easier for us to push away emotions and tell ourselves “not now, deal with that later.” However, doing that day after day, without actually allowing yourself to process the emotions, only can lead to heartbreak and further mental instability. Your mind needs to be given the freedom to process, or else it could very easily break down all its protective barriers. Think of it like a dam: your mind is holding back the grief, but it has to let it out sometime, or else it will overflow and crush you.
I took this advice to heart, and although it was hard to hear my father’s voice in the recording of his song, I allowed myself to feel it all while I worked on the slideshow. I cried, I got angry, but I listened and trudged on. Once the song was over, I felt like a weight had been lifted. “I can do this,” I told myself, “and I’m going to be alright, even if some days it feels like I’ll never recover.”
Taking the Time to Heal
It’s been a month since my father’s passing, and it’s still difficult, but I’m healing. I’ve read up on what loved ones should do when they’ve lost someone to a terminal illness: seek out counseling or support groups, find solace in memories and art, taking care of myself with sleep and good food, spending time with friends, and allowing myself to have time to grieve.
For me, I’ve found a counselor to help me cope with my loss and find healthy ways to manage my associated depression. I’ve also started working on a new music project, as a love of music has always been something I’ve shared with my dad. In some ways, I feel like we’re tackling this new project together.
Death is hard to reconcile with, but it’s also an inevitability of life. Take care of yourself when you lose a loved one — find a therapist, reach out to those you know will help you, and don’t beat yourself up. Avoid stressful situations, and allow yourself to feel every emotion as fully as you can. Don’t bottle it up; allow it to flow out of you. Eventually, each day will get a little easier as you give yourself permission to heal.
