It’s time we talked about grief

I am the current Chair of Mindful Margaret River, but have no expertise, qualifications or skills in talking about grief.  However, like many people my age, I have experienced various stages of grief in my life and the different ways it can affect me.  As a lawyer dealing with deceased’s estates for more than 50 years, I have also seen quite closely how grief has affected others. 

With the recent losses Margaret River has suffered, I wanted to start the conversation regarding grief, in the hope that those of you who are suffering from grief, or even some discomfort because you are affected by the grief of others, will feel it is ok to think and talk about your feelings. 

There are so many different ways we experience grief.   

The first and most obvious is when we lose someone very close to us, often a family member, but also close friends.  That is probably the rawest kind of grief anyone can experience and everyone reacts differently to it.  For me, I have often described it as a ‘white pain’, much like the ‘white noise’ which they say comes from wind farms.  You can’t see it, but it certainly has a physical impact on your mind and body.  Whilst everyone will tell you it’s only time which heals, that time can go on endlessly for some and the pain may never lift.  Because there is no real physical evidence, it is not easy to talk to anyone about it and the longer you suffer, the harder it often is to talk about it, because you feel as if you should be coping, when in truth you are not. 

Another type of grief, which is one many of us will be feeling right now, is what I would loosely term ‘vicarious grief’.  We feel grief for people we care about who have lost someone close to them.  We can also feel that we have no right to experience any sort of grief because it is not as if we have lost a family member ourselves.  We just know there is an emptiness or perhaps a pain somewhere in the body or mind we are feeling and which, when we try to look at it reasonably, should not be justifiable, but be assured that it is. 

Sadly, in Margaret River, there have been some major incidents which have devastated the town.  The Gracetown cliff collapse, the 2011 bushfires and the Osmington tragedy touched everyone’s lives and understandably many members of the community grieved.  Whilst it may have been what I have called ‘vicarious grief’, no one could feel any guilt about experiencing grief at those times. 

Under the term ‘vicarious grief’ I would include the grief one feels when someone very close to them suffers a loss.  For example, maybe your partner loses a parent or a sibling.  You may have also known that person for years, but it is obviously your partner who is grieving and you might question your own entitlement to grieve, again, I say that grief is justifiable. 

We do not need to lose a person to experience feelings of grief.  Losing a friendship or a relationship through an argument can cause immeasurable grief, particularly if the rift endures for years without any sign of being reinstated.   

We can also grieve for a lost way of life.  Many of us in Margaret River are migrants and have left a certain culture, or lifestyle behind.  Whilst the new way of life may be perfectly acceptable, exciting or challenging, there can be an amount of grief felt for what has been left behind. 

Of course, many of us were affected by grief for a way of life lost during the covid pandemic.  We lost our right to travel and visit family and friends.  We lost so many things we had taken for granted, like simply going out for a meal when we wanted to.  We lost the community shared in our workplaces and children lost the community shared at their schools.  Those losses caused a grief which we may have been unable to even identify as grief in ourselves or in our children, but it was a loss.  It is still a loss for many people who regret that nothing is the same since covid. 

It is not always easy to identify symptoms we are experiencing as grief.  Anger is a very typical symptom when we have lost someone.  That often doesn’t seem justifiable when a person died through no fault of their own, but there is nothing logical about the way grief can affect us.  There can be physical symptoms.  Grief can affect us so badly that we literally make ourselves ill, or we do not look after ourselves and become unable to cope. 

I have seen people who have suffered a loss busy themselves and show no signs of grief.  That often upsets other family members who are almost unable to operate and cannot understand how their family member is carrying on in a business-like manner.  Everyone experiences grief in a different way and at different times in their lives.   

We talk a lot about ‘getting closure’ these days, but what does that really mean.  Holding a funeral or a celebration of life is only the starting point, not the closing.  For those of us who have migrated and missed being able to experience those funerals or celebrations of life, particularly during covid, there is not even a starting point.  There is just no time line to work to unfortunately. 

So how do we address this grief.  As I said above, I have no qualifications or expertise, but I can share one important tip and that is to talk to someone about how you are feeling, rather than putting your feelings to the back of your mind.  Or, if you are concerned that a friend or colleague is not doing well, asking them how they are feeling with all that is going on and having a discussion about how you both may be affected by some level of grief is a starting point. 

For that very raw grief, that ‘white pain’, naming the feelings when they wash over you and acknowledging them can help.  If the pain continues way longer than you think it should or you think other people think you should be getting over it, never be afraid to talk to someone about it or to seek professional help. 

Mindful Margaret River has an excellent website with links on how to deal with grief.  If you feel you cannot deal with the way you are feeling right now, there are numbers to ring on the website under our support pages.

What I hope most though is that you will use this short article to start some conversations with family, friends or colleagues about how you are feeling or, if you are concerned about how they are, to open up some conversations.