The Glass Bowl of Grief

For those who have yet to experience grief, I hope you have a strong support system in place to help you through your time of need. For those who have experienced grief, I extend my hand out to you. Grief is something I think people tend to overlook. The social norm is that we all acknowledge that grief exists, but we don’t talk about it. Most of society tend to think grief is physically losing something. That something could be anything: a loved one, a beloved pet, an old friend, or an elder. The kind of grief that tends to be overlooked are the ones that people can not see. A memory from someone you once loved, an inside joke, or even someone who you put time into for them to only walk away. While walking away is physical, their words are what leave an impact. The old saying is true: words hurt. Period. Grief may be one of the most overlook emotions a person can have. Everyone has heard of the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These emotions do not always happen in this order and can happen more than once. But does anyone ever fully accept what they are going through?

You could be sitting in your car on your way to work and a song comes on the radio that you once listened to during a time of your life takes the smile on your face and turns it into a frown. Maybe worse, you feel pain in your chest, a tug at your heartstrings, make it makes your stomach turn over. When this happens, have you moved on?

I imagine grief as a glass bowl that has gotten a ding on it after you set it in the drying rack. The next day, you drop it. Because of the Initial chip, it then starts to crack. Now there are two ways you can handle this glass bowl. One way would easily be to throw it away. Bowls can always be replaced. Or the second way would be to fix it. Maybe this is the bowl that your grandmother gave you as a family heirloom. now there's been months, years, decades, and maybe even a century put into this bowl. You can take super glue and patch it up, but it doesn't mean that it would be the same. You always be able to notice the crack. Other people that you show the bowl to might not even notice. what if you're at a family event and you bring the bowl full of food, and the next thing you know you notice yourself staring at the bowl. other people might question why you’re just staring at this glass bowl. You can clear as day see where you patched up the crack, it's almost become an obsession. now imagine yourself as the glass bowl. You notice your imperfections. You live every day with your grief. it's something that eats you up inside. Some people are the person that stares at the glass bowl to notice, to check up on, to even obsess over the crack. Others might use that crack to be the fuel to their fire to get a new bowl and start over.

I strongly believe some people live in the middle of these two sides. Those people who wake up every day and notice the crack and go on living their daily lives. Some people blatantly ignore it, hoping that maybe it'll go away. Slowly, they start to notice other cracks too. Eventually, this one solid bowl is now beaten and almost unusable.

Grief can break a person down just as easily as someone can break a bowl made of glass. Grief does not need to be a stigma or the social norm everyone ignores. While grief affects everyone differently, grief affects everyone. Man, woman, child, teenager, and the elderly. As times change, being there sometimes is the best thing you can do for a person.