Grief is not a linear process. Despite what we are taught about the ‘Grief Cycle’, individual experiences differ significantly. Grief is personal, it can be experienced for extended periods of time, and in varying intensities. Losing someone close to us that we love and care for can hit instantly or can come as a delayed response after the initial shock. Grief comes in waves; at some points it can feel as though it isn’t as strong, allowing you to carry on with your life for a short period of time and at others it can feel like a tsunami engulfing our life. It can linger beneath at strike when we least expect it; or can haunt us daily and feel like a continuous dark cloud of depression that follows us everywhere.

Grief isn’t entirely gotten ‘over’. It doesn’t just disappear one day; it may always stay with us, but perhaps in a different guise to when the loss of our loved one was so raw. We simply learn to live with grief and the pain becomes less frequent, or less severe, hopefully, both. The initial impact becomes something slightly different; it becomes a shadow that doesn’t necessarily bear sadness, but perhaps memories of those we loved. Although some days feel harder than others, over time those days will come hand in hand with cherished memories which will act as a reminder that our loved one would want us to carry on and try and enjoy life.

A friend of mine explained to me how she was feeling after a death of a loved one and related to an analogy she had seen online which helped her accept the grief she was experiencing. I will try my best to show you but do excuse my drawings; I am not quite Van Gogh. The original analogy was by Lauren Hershel on twitter (link).

Imagine that your life is a big box and inside the box is a ball which represents your grief and a pain button.

When you first experience the loss of your loved one, the ball inside (grief) is enormous and fills the box (your life). Every time you do anything, the box moves, and the ball hits the pain button over and over again, as it has nowhere else to go. It may feel uncontrollable and unrelenting.

As time moves on, the ball (your grief) gets smaller and therefore has more space to move around inside the box. Although the ball is still very much inside the box, it doesn’t necessarily hit the pain button as constantly as it did initially, it can bounce around a few times until the pain is felt. You can go through days without the ball hitting the button, but all of a sudden, the ball may hit the pain button when you least expect it (for example when a friend you haven’t seen for a while hugs you).

Eventually, the ball is small enough to bounce around the box and hits the pain button very rarely. You may be able to go about your life relatively normally and the triggers for your grief may bring a smile with lovely memories of your loved one, but every now and again the pain button still gets hit. Time allows us to view our loved one as the person they were rather than just the person we have lost.

If creating a memory book for someone you have recently lost may seem like an unbearable task right now, take your time, it does get easier once the initial raw emotions have calmed. Choosing photos and anecdotes that represent your loved one to create collage memory books such as within a life treasury book has been shown to assist with the grieving process(1).

Take a look at our Life Treasury Books here and at our post on why A Life Treasury Books is the perfect final resting place for your loved one here.

Finally, we’d like you to know that you are not alone. We have partnered with Cruse Bereavement and want you to know that they are there should you require any bereavement support and advice.

Cruse is the UK’s leading bereavement charity reaching over 100,000 people across the UK each year. They offer support, advice, and information to children, young people, and adults when someone dies and works to enhance society’s care of bereaved people.

For immediate bereavement support contact their national helpline on 0808 808 1677

Children and young people can:

Call the Freephone helpline on 0808 808 1677Visit their website designed by and for young people at www.hopeagain.org.uk or
Email them at hopeagain@cruse.org.uk

Williams, Tina. 2015 ‘Memory Book: A Journey of Healing through Scrapbooking’

A simple, yet effective analogy for grief