How Long Does It Take?

How long does it take? If you have experienced significant loss of any kind you know what I mean. It’s the very question I found myself asking most frequently years after losing my husband. Will I ever be happy again? When will I stop crying because someone offers their condolences? When will I stop feeling alone, alienated, and not of this world? Will my relentless aches and pain ever go away? When will it end?

Ever felt like you are stuck in a loop of self-doubt, confusion, anguish, and fear? As a widow or griever going through the motions, questions such as these will undoubtedly resurface repeatedly after loss for a while; and for many, it may even last for years. So, to address the questions above, the answer is “YES" and "YOU WILL”, but only in your own time and in your own way: faltering, falling, getting up, and going on again, in no sequential order whatsoever.

The first year after losing my husband I was coping with a capital ‘C’, perhaps to my own admiration; I was keeping as busy as I possibly could, caring for the kids, always on the go and spending much of my time de-cluttering and packing the contents of the last 20 years of our lives into boxes, for the big move with the family minus one. However, the second year I realized coping was not a temporary measure and I was not coping well - he was really gone and never coming back. That was the reality.

In society, time circumscribes all events. There is a specified time allotted for giving birth, attending school, recovering from surgery, or healing a broken bone; at least we know that it will happen within a specific time frame. But for grief, that is not the case and it is also not a sure thing you’ll recover. Often times we get judged by family, friends, and acquaintances, despite the best of intentions, unable to understand and wonder why we can't “just get over it and move on.” But who is to say how much and how long is appropriate when it comes to individual grief?

You may be asking ‘What about the stages of grief we hear so much about?’ Surely we can use that as a marker to predict recovery as long as we carefully go through all the stages right? Unfortunately, I beg to differ, since these ‘stages’ were never intended to become the blueprint for dealing with and recovering from grief, but merely an observation of responses to personal loss.

We are all unique. I am sure you’ve heard this many times before. So, handling the death of a loved one or any loss for that matter, really depends on your personality and your own response to crisis. Don’t expect to go through a generalized depiction of the healing process after loss. Learn to discern what is true for your own unique experience of grief and know that what matters is finding compassion for the person you were and have become from this experience.

How long does it take? It is a silly question actually. Truth is, the answer lies within you yourself. Only YOU have the answer. Know that it will happen for sure, in your own time and in in your own unique way.

Love, peace & light,