Elle’s Edit: Is There a Right Way to Mourn?

Life as you know it is short and going through loss is different for everyone.

This past week was a hard one. We found out some devastating news at work about a leader in my company that we worked with every day passing away. His health was on the decline for only about 2 weeks (crazy how fast life changes) and received the worst news imaginable on Tuesday morning. It has been a rough couple of days and especially going through this in a pandemic and not being able to be with your coworkers during this awful time makes it that much harder.

I met up with my friend Kelly Tuesday night to just have someone who knows the situation to talk to and I think it helped us both. We spoke about happy times, how we are still in shock, and where we go from here. We spent a majority of the time talking about mourning and if there is a right way of going about it. We both agreed that everyone is so different and each situation is also different too. Whether it was a sudden event or if it was something that you see coming / the doctors tell you to expect the worse, it is all so different.

There isn’t a correct way to mourn the loss of a friend, family member, or coworker so please don’t think you have to act a certain way based off how other people are acting around you. For me, I am always in utter shock for a decent period of time, my emotions can’t really come together and comprehend what happened and I tend to be emotionless for a bit. I used to feel so guilty for being like this because I know people have questioned me and wondered if I had a heart because I wasn’t crying or I just didn’t have any expression on my face, but this is how I mourn. The next stage for me is realizing all the happy moments I’ve had with that person and then it is a sudden rush of emotions thinking about who they are leaving behind. This is a rollercoaster of emotions because it tends to be positive where I laugh about the funny moments but then those funny moments turn into a sob fest where I just think about no longer having those moments with that person. Then I just go into a downward spiral when I think about their family and it takes me a while to get out of that stage because I get so sad for them who are even more affected than I am. I then go into a stage once again of emotionless and still in shock and unable to accept what is happening. Then the final stage unfortunately for me is anger. This is not the slightest bit healthy, well aware, but I am just angry on how and why did this happen to THIS person? I keep questioning myself and life at this point to help me comprehend why this happened to them. Not going to lie, this is the hardest part because it just consumes my mind which is a shame because the happy moments should be taking up my mind, but it is something that I am constantly trying to work on.

Moral of the story is that there is no way to properly grieve. My heart breaks for everyone for going through this and unfortunately it is something that we will have to continue going through. Life is one giant cycle and it is inevitable that it will happen to everyone. That is why it is important to talk about it and think of how you mourn to see if there is something you can do about it. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough but everyone mourns differently and know you can mourn in your own way. In addition, take your time in feeling this way and allow yourself to have these feelings. Whether you share them or not. It is important to do this for yourself.   

Thanks for reading Elle’s Edit. If you have any topics that you would like for me to discuss, feel free to email me at elizabeth.lane.dooley@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you! xo