The Art of Mastering Grief

There is no such thing as “The Art of Mastering Grief”. Every time one experiences loss, the grief that it brings kicks you in such a way that you couldn’t be prepared even if you experience it again and again. Sure, it feels familiar to the point that you can even say, “I’ve been here before, I know how this works.” However, with all its familiarity, you can never prepare for grief’s blow, nor can you ever become desensitized. Every time we experience grief, we go back to the very first time we experienced such terrible loss in our individual lives and we get to experience it again---like a motion picture played backwards. Every time I experience grief, I go back again and again to my 20 year old self, to that humid March morning when a simple text message had made me experience my first loss, which had shaken me to my very core and made me realize that we can lose the people whom we love anytime and sometimes, when we least expect it. 

And, whoever introduced the theory of the stages of loss and grief was actually subtly suggesting that there should be a time limit for your grieving. No, you don’t jump from one stage to another as clearly and as clinically as they are explained in almost all psychology books. No. You become this ball of emotions that couldn’t be easily described as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You become this ball of emotions that you couldn’t even understand yourself no matter how you clearly understood your DABDA lessons way back in university. Because, the thing is, we could never ever understand grief, not even if how much we try or how many times we have dealt with it. Understanding grief is way beyond our capacity as human beings. We won’t even come close to doing so, we can only learn how to deal with it---with no time limit or conscious effort of hurrying it as suggested by the society, as suggested by our Psychology books.

Maybe, we learn lessons from our loss. Maybe, there is really no lesson in them. However, loss, in any form, becomes a reminder of our own mortality. It becomes a reminder that we won’t be in this place forever. It becomes a reminder that we are just here as passersby.