Some people say it will take a few months.  Others think it’s about a year.  But even years after a loved one’s death, there are days – or hours or moments – when the pain comes back.  How long does grief last?  Does it ever go away?  Grief, which is part of the bereavement process, is a pain that often surprises us.  It’s a common experience that most of us don’t understand.  Today, I want to share more about the pain of grief.  Perhaps this will be helpful to you or someone you know.  Thanks!

The following is a written version of this blog.

One day, as I walked down the hospital corridor with one of the other chaplains, I met a member of the hospital staff whom I didn’t know.  I was new, just starting as a chaplain. My colleague was a well-seasoned hospital chaplain who became an important mentor for me.  After introducing me to the woman, he asked her how she was doing.  She broke down crying, literally sobbing.  She spoke of her deceased son and did not know how she’d live without him.  I stood silently while my colleague offered words of support and comfort.

Later, after he and I were in a private office, he asked me my impression of the woman.  I told him that I wasn’t sure why she was at work when her son just died.  He paused a moment and then said, “The thing is he died about ten or twelve years ago.  She’s experiencing complicated grief.  Every day, it’s as though her son just died.  She’s barely able to make it through the day.”

That incident happened more than forty years ago.  At that time, we used words like complicated grief and pathological grief to describe that woman’s experience.  We had thought that bereavement went through a series of stages and when a person was done with those stages, bereavement was done.  We thought it all took about a year.  That’s not how bereavement is understood today, but sometimes people continue to use the language of the past.

Bereavement is a process that occurs after a loss.  Grief is an intense emotional experience that’s part of the process of bereavement.  In bereavement, we’re adjusting to the loss of someone or something important in our lives. 

In March, the American Psychiatric Association announced a new definition for what is called prolonged grief disorder.  The woman I met forty years ago would have fit into this diagnosis.  Key symptoms include a pervasive yearning for the deceased, a preoccupation with the deceased, intense emotions, an inability to accept that loss occurred, and an inability to engage in activities that are normally pleasurable for the person.  It’s important to realize that without this definition if someone wanted mental health treatment related to bereavement, the diagnosis would probably have been something like depression.  This isn’t depression. 

Probably less than 10% of people need therapeutic support to get through bereavement.  Bereavement is a normal process.  To put it in very simple terms:  if after six months or a year, the experience of grief is pretty much the same as it was the first day or two after someone dies, then a person probably could benefit from seeing a mental health professional.  It’s not that a person is crazy.  Instead, the person has gotten stuck in a very painful process.

What about the rest of us?  How long should bereavement last?  What’s normal and healthy?  If you think that bereavement lasts only a few weeks or months, then you’re wrong.  But as for how long it should last, there’s no accepted answer.  What should occur over time is that day-to-day, the emotional intensity lessens and a person can get back to doing things they used to enjoy.  For some, that may be six months.  For others, it may be a year.  It also could be longer. 

Here’s the thing to understand:  even years after the loss of a loved one, or someone truly significant in our lives, the emotional intensity can come back.  It may be on a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary, hearing a particular song, being in a certain place, or any of several things, but something will be a reminder of the person and relationship you once had.  The pain of grief will return.  It may catch someone off guard.  This is all part of bereavement. The emotions of grief reoccur.  It’s referred to as grief from continuing bonds, deep bonds that we have with the loved one who is no longer with us. 

Grief and bereavement are difficult for people to understand.  We often think we should just get over the loss and move on.  But it doesn’t work that way.  However, if you truly loved someone and shared important aspects of your life with that person, would you want to just forget them like they never existed?  Of course not.  The bereavement process and the continuing bonds that bring us grief are reminders of how important our loved one was in our lives.  They are reminders of that love and, in my opinion, they are gifts that help us reclaim those who have been important to us.