The yearly calendar begins with January marking the days of our lives. Our journey through grief can be described in seasons. Understanding our seasons of grief can help us endure unbearable loss with self-compassion and strength.
“Every season is one of becoming, but not always one of blooming. Be gracious with your ever-evolving self.” — B. Oakman
Winter represents a beginning season of grief and offers ways to cope. When death takes your beloved, you may be plunged into darkness, despair — your world becomes barren and lonely. The winter of grief is about survival — focus on basic needs. It is a time to take exquisite care of yourself even though you may feel alienated from the you of today as you yearn for yesterday.
You might want to withdraw, sleep more, avoid heavy meals, go inside away from harsh elements of the outer world as though you were a hibernating animal. In spite of a pull to isolate, we are not the kind of animal that can go alone into a cave and withdraw. We need others for emotional warmth and help with our simplest tasks of survival.
In winter you need warmth — comfort, love, caring whether it be from family, friends, support groups, therapy. You are in need of a revised comfort zone so you can eat, sleep and engage in daily living tasks. Winter is a hard season but does offer blessings. It is a time you are most vulnerable and able to experience your deepest self and find your resilience.
Your winter of grief can be lengthy, seemingly unending with any signs of moving into spring unwelcome. You may feel uncomfortable when you begin to feel stirrings of tiny internal buds —times of longing for moments of joy, small delights in the longer days. You might begin to notice leaves returning to barren trees and flowers beginning to bloom.
“Just remember in the winter far beneath the winter snows
Like the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes the rose.” — Lyric by Amanda McBroom
The Spring of your grief is a time for opening up, letting in beauty, noticing your desire to move beyond the narrow confines of only surviving. You are ready to take baby steps forward. It is a good time for walks outside, letting in the healing balm of birds, flowers, sweet air. Spring beckons you to choose activities that take you deep into your senses such as music, dance, drama, painting — any of the arts. The spring of grief invites you to say yes to being with friends for simple pleasures together.
It is normal to have some feelings of guilt as you are starting to let in pleasure. Remind yourself that going forward does not mean you are leaving behind your beloved one. The love is forever within you.
Spring is an invitation to come back to life, expanding your comfort zone. As buds turn to leaves, flowers bloom, days are longer, your journey from survival to thriving is calling you.
“Summertime and the living is easy…” — From Porgy and Bess
The Summer of your grief can come months or longer after the death of a loved one. You have survived the harshness of winter and let in a breath of spring by moving forward as you go beyond surviving to seeking the fullness of living.
Your life is now more manageable. Perhaps your support system includes new friends, a grief group, stronger relationships with loved ones. Maybe you are traveling or pursuing new hobbies. Your spirituality might go deeper. You may fall in love again.
This season of grief is often described as a “new normal.” Some people who know you might assume you are no longer grieving. In reality you deeply feel your loss and always will. You have learned to live with grief in your heart while at the same time being able to have good times with love and laughter in your days.
As is true of every kind of summer in your life, not all days are happy, easygoing, sunny. It is easy to feel something is wrong when you have cloudy, gloomy days in the summer of your grief. It is a normal part of your life journey to have tough times in all seasons.
“Autumn leaves shower like gold, like rainbows, as the winds of change begin to blow.” — Dan Millman
Fall is the last season in a grief calendar not because there is an ending but because fall embraces all the seasons. It can be cold, snowy or extended summer. It can be sweet and mellow or filled with storms. It has incredible beauty like our memories, including the sadness that comes with knowing that color and beauty can fade, drop away. Fall embraces the memory of our sweetest days and the pain of our deepest grief. Beauty may surround us yet days are shorter and light is fading.
Winter is a metaphor for the depth of our loss especially in the early days. Spring and summer represent our journey from survival to finding ways to live again and thrive. Fall is the crown, embodying all of the seasons.
Our seasons circle and move. We thrive by living in the now, reaching out to others and inward to our deepest needs. We will always long for our loved ones who have died, keeping them in our hearts while finding our way through the changing seasons of our grief.