The mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap / May who ne'er hung there," wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his poem No Worst, There is None and there has never been a more frightening yet poignant description of the landscape that is the human mind in turmoil and grief.
Losing a loved one is the kind of personal loss that you can never get over, but you can learn to make sense of the period that follows, to deal with the hard fact that life ends and sometimes in ways that you least expect it to.
For some the journey of making peace with loss is a struggle that takes years, but it is the most important aspect of catharsis and it does happen. This month, three women talk of living through their grief and finding their moments in the sun again.
"My father had not been in the best of health for a long time. Even though I was extremely close to him I was not worried because that's how he was always," says 28-year-old psychologist Nishka Arora who lost him last year while she was away at medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
"When my mother called to inform me. I was so shocked that I accused her of lying and then caught the first flight home," She has vague memories of that day. All she remembers is crying, falling asleep exhausted and then waking up with a very strong urge to die. "It's a common phenomenon," she says ruefully adding, "The first thing that comes after the initial shock is over is the death wish. Grief is the last thing to follow."
All through her journey home, she was haunted with the same urge, the spell broke when she saw her mother and then the tears came hard and fast. The worst moment for her was when she realised that despite her hopping on the first plane home, she was unable to participate in the rites as she had arrived too late.
"I felt like I had shamed and dishonoured the memory of my father by not being able to be there for him." This was the prelude to many such fears that would assault her mind for the next year and a half.
For months she secluded herself from friends and wandered aimlessly around the town. "I could not bear to look at my mother's face. I had so many mixed feelings and the house felt too empty to turn to, therefore I took to the streets," she says.
It was her best friend who finally pushed her into the final circle of grief three months after the incident by literally slapping her out of it. "She walked in unexpected one day and came straight for me and slapped me hard. She said that I was being a selfish person and that I owed it to my mother to pull myself together. That's when I finally broke down for good."
For the next four months she cried at the slightest mention of her father's name, was depressed but trying to move on by talking to her mother about her feelings of guilt and anger. "I talked a lot, to my mother and family.
I gathered all the missing pieces of my father's life and tried to remember him for what he was. Talking about your emotions is important, especially when you are grieving. Sharing grief with people who feel the same way brings you closer and makes you feel that you are not alone in this and that is very important, realising that the loss is not your own."
It was a normal day for 23-year-old advertising executive, Navi Shergill, then 19. She remembers waking up in the morning and having a fight with her sister over a bracelet and then scowling to college. "Sukhman and I were constantly at loggerheads, over a bracelet, over attention, over boys and I just could never deal with the fact that she was just so stunning. It was unfair," she laughs while tearing up at the same time.
Dismissing her tears she continues, "I knew that Sukhman was prone to depression as she would sometimes offload on me, she talked many times about suicide and I talked her out of it. But not once did I tell my parents, not even friends. I think that is my biggest regret in life," she says. That night, Shergill was woken up with sounds of extreme retching coming from the bathroom. She rushed in to find her sister lying semi-conscious on the floor. She had swallowed potassium.
Not knowing what to do, she ran to wake her parents up. Even on the way to the hospital, she knew it was the end. The confirmation came when the doctors said their attempts at reviving her sister's blood-pressure had failed because "the patient had lost the will to live."
The next three years passed in a daze for Shergill. She was in denial. She refused to come to terms with her sister's death. Everybody thought of her as rude and immature when she smiled through the funeral. Her anger, towards herself and her family, surfaced after three years when her heart became too heavy for her to carry.
She realised that blaming herself was not helping. That is when she decided to undergo therapy. As she began feeling lighter, she convinced her mother to follow the same path. She understood the importance of talking about her grief in order to deal with it. Shergill's experience not only helped her discover the power of healing but also to pass this on to others who are grieving.
Today she volunteers for grief-counselling and helps other people deal with their loss. "I realised that what is done, cannot be undone. I cannot get my sister back, but what I can do is think about her and smile."
Like Joan Didion says in her book The Year of Magical Thinking, "Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We know that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks.
We might expect if the death is too sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes."
"I always thought that I would never be the exception but the rule. But the death of my husband taught me otherwise," says 35-year-old artist and photographer, Divya Sharma. Her husband died last year while sleeping next to her, the cause of death was cardiac arrest. "It took me a long while to get over the unfairness of it all. Why him? especially since he was athletic and healthy and had no medical condition that was life threatening," she says.
Sharma did not sleep for the first six months. "I was just petrified that I would wake up every morning and deal with the fact that he was not around anymore," she says. It was her family that helped her get through it. "There were people in the house all the time, they urged me to talk, they were patient and nice. But all I wanted was Neil," she says.
At a friend's suggestion she picked up the book Eat, Love and Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert. It helped her cope, in the sense, that it opened up the world of spirituality to her and slowly through meditation and chants, she found herself again. "I now realise that anger at death is in vain. As we are all part of a cycle and maybe this was all Neil had to offer me. I think of him as my angel and pray for his soul. At least he died in peace, next to me."
Books that help you cope with grief
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom is a tale of accepting whatever life throws your way
- A Grief Observed by C.S.Lewis are compilations of his reflections after his wife's death
- Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert teaches you that sometimes loss leads to self discovery
- The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonanno is brilliant and moving. It reveals the power of human resilience
- I'm Grieving As Fast As I Can by Linda Fienberg sensitively guides one through the normal grieving process
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is a mustread for any woman who has loved
5 Ways to deal with grief
- Grieve in your own way and take your time. But what is important is that you don't shut yourself out. It is important to mourn.
- If guilt is what is holding you back from moving on, consider group therapy or individual counselling. Stopping your life is not normal.
- Take time to hear the advice of others, but don't let anyone force you to do anything. It is important that you deal with this in a way that makes you comfortable.
- If children too have suffered a loss, be considerate to them and do not treat them casually. Talk to them, involve them in the grieving process so that they too have a chance to mourn.
- Do things that have helped you in the past to cope with tough situations. Read, listen to music, experiment with spirituality to feel like yourself again.
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