Dear Grief,
It’s 2019 and I’m grieving. Well, technically, I have been for the past year—as a psychology major, I’ve studied you. I know how you affect people and all the typical steps. In theory, I should understand you better than most people. However, like everything else, you present yourself in a multitude of ways and it doesn’t matter how much I studied because I never would’ve been prepared for it. Because of you, I’ve grown so much in the past year. You’ve also taught me a valuable lesson, even though I had to learn in the hardest way possible.
As you know, Grief, on June 24, 2018, I lost a friend to cancer. I found out two days later. I’m not going to lie and say it was unexpected. This was his third or fourth battle with cancer, but this time the doctors found it in his brain. They tried to treat him for two years with no luck. So, no, it wasn’t a surprise when I got the text on June 26, 2018, from my old youth pastor telling me the news. It also wasn’t a surprise to find out that my best friend had known two days earlier and didn’t say anything because she “didn’t want to ruin orientation” for me. That didn’t stop me from being mad at her and not talking to anyone about it. It also didn’t stop me from nonchalantly making the announcement to my family and refraining from showing any emotion for the next year.
I hadn’t seen this friend in three or four years, and we weren’t even best friends. I spent months convincing myself I wasn’t allowed to feel as sad as I did about him dying—that it wasn’t my place. Other people knew him better and loved him more and deserve to grieve him, but I was not one of those people. I refused to let myself fully mourn him because I wholeheartedly believed that I wasn’t worthy of those emotions. I put the grieving process on pause and let my emotions fester for months until I reached a breaking point.
You taught me my lesson the hard way on February 14, 2019. It started at the beginning of the week when I saw an online post about my friend—apparently, a year prior was when the doctors had decided to stop treating him. Seeing that post made all the feelings of grief that I ignored come rushing back. It was like you had come back with a vengeance. However, in my stubborn nature, I pushed those feelings back down because I felt like everyone around me was relying on me and I would rather help them than deal with my own issues. Two of my roommates were dealing with personal issues from home and I wanted to stay available to them. My best friend was in need of relationship advice and I was in charge of a Valentine’s Day surprise for another one of my close friends. The week was so hectic, I almost managed to make it to the end. Unfortunately, my grief led me to a breakdown.
On Valentine’s Day, I cried for hours because of how overwhelming all the emotions were. Luckily, I wasn’t alone when this all went down, but my friend was quick to mention how worried about me they were and other things I should’ve noticed sooner. They expressed concern for my mental health and well-being, and after what happened, I understood why. Because of them—and you—I scheduled an appointment with CAPS at UCF so that I could figure out how to help myself. My counselor put the lesson you taught me into words and over time, I began to feel better.
It’s safe to say I learned a valuable lesson about holding all my feelings in and will (hopefully) never do that again. So in a way, thank you for what you’ve taught me, no matter how hard the lesson was.
Sincerely,
Someone who has grown from you.