Am composing this..as I am waiting for a bus to go to Hyderabad. I get this call from a friend carrying a bad message that one of our close friend's mom expired.
She was a friend of mine too. Just a couple of days back this friend and I were discussing about her life long illness and thought, the sooner she passes away the better. Two days later, I get this news around 2:30 PM. I was at office. My initial reaction was, nothing. Absolutely. Calm. Slowly as the news sunk in, I went mad. I had no clue what I was doing. Asking someone out for a smoke, chatting, blabbering, cursing myself, then others. All sorts of thoughts were running in my mind. It was as if, you're drowning in a sea, gasping for air, then swimming for a while, then drowning. At some point, I din't even want to go and see him. Why? Am I scared that I wont be able to console him? Why did I ask someone to be there with me for sometime or ask them out for a smoke and later have a guilty feeling? Am I so emotionally weak or does it happen with everyone?
Then I recollected, Longaker's model of managing change, I was in the first stage, Shock! Then, I wanted to check how humans feel when someone close to them dies, According to David Gershaw, people / mourners tend to:
1. Self blame, question one self, criticise one self
2. Blame others
3. Find relief that the person expired
4. Numbness
According to Mark Pettinelli, thought, action and feeling can occur in any order. So here, emotions (negative) were empowering thoughts and actions.
According to Oral Cancer Foundation, grief has several dimensions. It may last for more than an year and slowly the mourner carries on with a radically altered experience of life.
Next time, you see a friend (mourner / one who lost a dear one) behaving this way, realise, that they'll need their time and not to force them out of it but help them to overcome it.
As a persian proverb says, "This too shall pass!"
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