Grieving on Multiple Levels: Understanding Different Types of Grief
I had disenfranchised my own grief before I even knew what the clinical term for it was.
Gisella is the founder of GTC. She’s also a mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and overly curious human when it comes to matters of life, thoughts, space, and the overall universe.
Humans are simultaneously incredibly simple and super complicated creatures. It shouldn't come as a surprise that how we grieve is both of those, and more, as well.
Today is the twentieth anniversary of my maternal grandmother's passing. Twenty years is a long time, a substantial amount of time. I still remember the day she passed and how I learned the news. I was with a couple of my other school friends, I was 17 at the time, a senior in high school about to start my college applications. We were going to visit another friend home from surgery for a ruptured cyst. My dad picked us up when school ended, and when I asked if he could take us to visit our friend post-op, he gently smiled and said, "Ok." When we were outside my friend's house, he calmly stated, "We have to go to New Jersey. Your grandmother died this morning."
My instinctual reaction was feeling bad for my friends in the backseat. I wondered how awkward it must be for them, the pressure they might feel about what their role should be. We went ahead with the brief visit. After a few minutes, I politely excused myself, explaining that my grandmother had passed and I needed to leave. My friends stood by silently while I smiled timidly, reassuring them it was okay and not to worry about me.
As I walked towards the car, where my dad patiently waited for me- I remembered a thought from earlier that morning: "Today is such a good day." It had happened after homeroom- I was walking to my locker and thinking how "good" of a day it was. Nothing particularly great happened; it was just uneventful compared to the intensity of the previous weeks. I felt a pang of guilt- as if my brief moment of contentment had somehow expedited her death.
Once home, I packed my mother's black dress and my own black clothing. My mom had been staying in Jersey for the past few weeks ever since my grandmother was diagnosed. A month prior, a "routine" gallstone removal had turned into major surgery, revealing fourth-stage cancer across multiple organs (including her gallbladder and liver). The doctors had advised the family to prepare ourselves for her passing- she would have about six months left given how advanced the cancer was. She died a month to the day of that original surgery.
The ride to Atlantic City was long and silent. Just me and my dad driving to meet my mom, and my aunt, and my uncles. Our family dog, Tracy, had died the year prior… our family continued to get smaller, and that realization was resoundingly loud as we drove down 95.
I remember at the funeral feeling the need to be stoic- shaking hands, thanking people for coming to the service, and clenching my fists occasionally so I wouldn't cry. I felt that because my mom and her siblings had just lost their mother, the right to mourn was solely theirs. I thought maybe my brother might belong in that category too, being 14 years my senior and the first grandchild, surely he had more of a right than I did. My younger cousins would not understand what was happening due to their youth- their pain was understandable; they were allowed to be sad and hurt.
I was 17, and I had decided my grief ranked below everyone else's. I had disenfranchised my own grief before I even knew what the clinical term for it was. Disenfranchised grief (a term coined by Kenneth Doka) refers to mourning that isn’t acknowledged or that we don’t feel entitled to experience.
I know I must have cried from time to time throughout that day and the days leading to the burial, but my main memories from that time are of just trying to be helpful and useful. Did people have enough coffee or hot chocolate after the service? Did everyone know where the location was? Were the younger cousins tended to while the adults grieved the loss of their mother?
We live in a culture that talks about the “stages of grief” as if they’re a guaranteed roadmap. What is less commonly understood is that these stages were originally observed in individuals facing their own terminal illnesses or in hospice care. Sometimes the part of our humanity that wants to simplify things and sort them into neat, organized boxes, demands we follow the "steps" or "stages" of grief accordingly. It can become frustrating when the steps don't flow as seamlessly as we'd hope.
The Dual Process Model by Stroebe and Schut, indicates that grieving involves two alternating states: an emotional grief state and a restorative state. The emotional component is the part where you may feel the need to cry, scream, and experience the turmoil of loss. The restorative state is where you carry on living life and occasionally find joy again. This can be difficult to navigate because guilt and shame may come rushing through, making it feel like we are moving on without that person.
I didn't allow myself to enter that emotional state until many months later. It happened while I was asleep. I dreamt I was a small child trying to reach for something in the kitchen cabinet that was out of reach. I asked for help, and my grandmother showed up to reach it for me- but then she disappeared. And in that moment, in that dream, the little girl in me wailed because she realized her grandmother was gone. I woke up in tears in the middle of the night.
It was the first time I truly allowed myself to be consumed by the grief, and it happened while I was unconscious.
As a child, my maternal grandmother was the only grandparent I had. My dad's mom had died when he was 10, my mom's dad wasn't really in her life, and my dad's dad had never come to the US, so I'd only met him a couple of times. Like many first-gen kids growing up in the 90s, my grandmother was one of my first and main caretakers while my parents worked. She babysat me throughout much of my childhood, as she did with so many of her other grandchildren.
I lovingly called her "Lalita" because I couldn't say "Abuelita" when I was smaller. She gave me my first teddy bear, which I still have to this day. She would tell stories about her life that felt enchanting and always joked, "If I wrote a book about my life, it would instantly be a New York Times Best Seller!” She shared stories about her paternal grandmother who raised her and mostly spoke Quechua to her. I always longed to know more about our indigenous roots and was saddened that this part of our heritage was lost- ironic given Ecuador's strong indigenous resistance movement. It always pained me to think about how we have connections to our indigenous ancestors who may be alive now, yet we have no idea who they are or how to reach them.
Another type of grief that we experience, but don't always know how to name, is the mourning for something that never came to be. Throughout life, we face times when things don’t turn out the way we had envisioned. Maybe we didn’t get into our dream school, or we didn’t get the job after several interview rounds, or perhaps- as comes up in therapy a lot- we have to grieve the childhood we never had and will never get. In grieving my grandmother, I also grieve the culture and heritage I feel a longing for but cannot access.
I lament something I know exists but cannot reach- a loss that hits especially hard knowing my grandmother, my primary link to our indigenous roots, died on October 12- a day globally recognized as "El Día de la Raza." This year it falls on the second Monday, which is also Columbus Day- more recently recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Year 20 is now upon me, and although I am grown now, with a husband and kids of my own- I still find myself having a hard time accepting my right to grieve. In my last therapy session, I mentioned being irritable and cranky all week; my therapist asked if perhaps it was tied to my grandmother's anniversary and how it may feel easier to be angry than sad.
Twenty years later, I am still learning about myself, about my mourning process, and about my needs. I am still learning how to understand the different types of grief I experience.
We said “goodbye” to her in the hospital a few times before she died. In my farewell, I had promised I would graduate with honors and go on to be the second grandchild to graduate college (in the States, my older brother was the only other grandchild to complete university), but in turn, she had to stay alive and make it to my graduation. She smiled and said she wasn't sure if she could be there physically, but she'd be there.
She wasn’t physically present when June arrived. As I delivered my salutatorian speech, I thanked her for being the matriarch who led me to where I stood that day. I still carry all the lessons, stories, and memories of her with me- I hope that in seeing the woman I have become, I’ve made her proud.
It’s possible to feel gratitude for what we have and also feel pain and sadness about what we wish would have been.
If you are struggling with finding the words to name your grieving process or even understanding what your process looks like, reach out- we can help you get there.