Last Friday, January 26th, my grandma died. But I'm not here to ask for pity or anything like that. I want to use the opportunity to talk about something, that we probably need to normalize: delayed grief.
Shocking news
When a neighbor called me on Friday evening and said: "Grandma has died", - there was just a short moment of tears coming to my eyes. Just mere seconds and then - nothing. Well, not really nothing. My head was ringing as if I was hit by something heavy. My thoughts were racing, and I dived into work, even though I was planning to log off already. Luckily we had a new semi-urgent ticket, that was not that complicated, but still required some time to check a few things. Essentially, that's how I spent that evening, aside from also notifying my grandma's nephew: thinking of work, and nothing else, as if my mind was avoiding the subject.
The weekend was spent by reading, what do I need to do now, what's the process, and whether I can handle things remotely. Some may say, that's disrespectful, but it is risky for me to go Russia, until the war is over, and I am not ready to risk my life for a crazy person "ruling" the country. I mean, if I die as well - that's it for both grandma and me. Even if I do not die, there is still a huge risk to not be able to return to Finland, which would also mean losing the job and whatever "investments", that I have here, both financially and in the form of things.
Either way, it is possible to do things remotely. it's been possible since the pandemic, and as per the person who was assigned to me from the ritual service company, the processes were improved a lot in the past 2 years. So, we agreed on most of the things, with the rest being discussed a bit later, on Monday. Till that point, I still have not felt anything, that's expected from a grieving person. Still have not.
Emptiness
Even though, I was not feeling anything that would indicate grief, I still took a week off at work. There were 2 reasons:
- I know already, how I can get too much into work, essentially avoiding my own thoughts. Get focused on some task, and stop seeing anything around me, unless it's related to the task. Essentially, hyperfocus. While it may be required in some cases, when you do have an important, life-changing task - this was not the case.
- Not sure how to properly describe it, but my head felt empty. Not like I did not have thoughts or anything, but everything felt... Muffled? And despite the internal desire to focus on something, to be productive, I was not really able to focus on anything for too long.
Which was, actually, good, and part of why I wanted to write this all down. Grief is complex. You probably heard about "stages of grief". Some say there are no stages, though, all those emotions exist at once, it's just that at certain points in your thought process one feeling or the other becomes more prominent. For your long-term mental health, you need to face those feelings. Focusing on work or anything else, really, may prevent you from doing that, because you will be using that as an excuse to avoid the feelings.
But as alluded before, I still was not feeling a thing. Something that was too familiar to me.
Recurrence
Back in June 29th, 2009 my mom died. She had intestinal obstruction, but essentially, it was the returning (for 3rd time) cancer, that was killing her. The doctor tried to remove it little by little every day, and at some point she just gave out. It took me almost 2 years before I actually felt grief, though.
It was the time of change for me. I think i still had some exams left for 3rd year in university, I just started my work in Citi, so I needed to focus on those things. Then a bit later, my father showed his true colors and thoughts about me, which was another source of stress, to put it mildly. It was the time when I got the closest ever to suicide, but it was never mom's death, that was pushing suicidal thoughts into my head. I did have some unjustified guilt towards her death, but it actually came much later.
Yet, there was this one moment, that made me overflow. I was talking to someone from university, and somehow conversation prompted me to say, that my mom died, and I was reminded, that it's been almost 2 years. Those simple words just broke me, and I feel tears gathering up even right now, while I am writing about remembering that moment. All those emotions, that you are supposed to feel through the grieving process just flooded me. I think I cried for half an hour if not more.
And it happened, because I felt safe.
Safety
If you think, that I am just imagining this - no. Not only can you google for similar cases, but there is even a popular fiction book, that has described similar thing: Frank Herbert's Dune. Don't think any adaptation has even touched this, but Paul had the same experience, and in the book it was cathartic.
To be as spoiler-free as possible, he lost someone close to beginning of the book, a loved one, and he did not cry even a single tear. It was even justified as Freemen do not waste body water, and even crying for the dead is considered very special. Paul had a huge task (or maybe even tasks) before him, he focused on it for literal years, until he reached the point in his journey, which was to change not only his life, but lives of billions and billions of people and even generations to come.
At that moment Paul felt small, yet... Safe. He has reached the path, that would change the world for better, even though it would be not be all sunshine and rainbows (if you ever bothered to read beyond the 1st book). His future was, essentially, locked and thus he felt safe. He felt, that his burden of living is over, at least to an extent.
Grief's complex and vivid emotions make us feel vulnerable. If we don't feel safe, it's only natural to try to avoid those emotions, to suppress them. I, personally, do not feel safe right now. I can't feel safe until the war is over, because, if something happens and I am forced to go back to Russia, even if I am not kidnapped as a cannon fodder right away, I will be living of fear of happening that at any moment. Unless the war is over or I get a permanent residence (which still does not protect me from all angles) - I won't feel safe.
It's normal
So, yes, my lack of grief at the moment is normal. It's not that I am missing emotions entirely, like some kind of psychopath. I do feel a tinge of sadness, at times, when I instinctively expect some message from grandma, and then remember, that it will never happen again. There is even a level of denial, because she died too suddenly, even considering she had kidney failure last summer: food poisoning just does not make sense to me. But all of it feels small, like feelings on a backburner. My life has not changed really. My routine is absolutely the same. I probably would even want my death to be as unnoticeable for lives of others, too, even though it may sound alone, sad and fatalistic.
You may think, that I am just justifying myself being heartless, but that's not the case. I watch movies and play games, and I do feel the emotions at certain moments. I was playing Cyberpunk 2077 last Sunday and there was a quest, that starts with a character, whom I saved earlier, taking one's life because the character was not able to continue living with memories of horrendous stuff done to the character, and it hit me good. It was painful. And yesterday, in finalization of the same questline, another character was leaving, and I was both sad and happy for that character. But these emotions are kind of "external", so feeling them, does not make me feel vulnerable, and they pass quickly, since they are not really mine.
Even if you still think I am a psychopath, there is actually 2 terms for the kind of grief I am experiencing - delayed grief and inhibited grief. Delayed grief is, essentially, when you delay grief because of some practical matters, and only after they are finished - you start "the stages". Inhibited is when you consciously or subconsciously deny yourself to grieve. Personally, I think both are the same, with only difference being the time it takes to start the grieving process.
The point of all this text is that such grieving process is normal. We have been conditioned, that a grieving person is constantly crying and breaking things, and tends to be depressed. But it's not always the case. If you do not feel something, that you are supposed to feel, or you feel only a fraction of the expected feelings - you are not automatically a bad and heartless person. You can still turn to be one, but not just because of this.
That's why I think we need to normalize this. Don't just judge a person by one's reaction to loss. You have no idea, what may be going in their life, and the best thing you can do is to not judge and make them the person feel safe, at least around you.
