I experienced grief before I lost Murdock. I have lost loved ones, been divorced, lost jobs and friends. I thought I had it all down pat. You know the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. You just move through those stages, and maybe you skip some, check off the others, and done!

Yah . . . that’s all baloney.

Maybe I shouldn’t dismiss the Kubler-Ross model so quickly. But I have found that when experiencing profound loss, like of a furry soulmate, having these “stages” as a guide can be confusing and unrealistic. I very quickly learned that throwing all of that, all of my own as well as society’s expectations, out the window, and letting the grief lead was freeing and comforting.

I am left-brained and analytical – I relish completing tasks. I would have loved to have had a grief chart to move through – four steps done, one more to go! But when I moved from anticipatory grief (a topic for another blog or ten) to deep grieving, I didn’t have feelings of denial or anger or bargaining. Did that mean I was almost done? Murdock left 11 months ago – so if there were only two steps left, I should clearly be near the end. I am not.

Once I realized that some stages didn’t apply this time, I questioned whether there were stages at all. My answer was no. Stages mean there is a process and a process means there is an end. There is not an end, there is a new way of living. Stages mean once you are done with one, you move to the next. Here I am, 11 months after my loss, and only recently have I had thoughts of denial. And is acceptance really the end? I “accepted” my loss immediately – it surely was not the end.

Having thrown out the “guide” we always hear about, I didn’t know what else to do but let the grief take the driver’s seat. (It will eventually anyway, don’t you think?) I began to think of it not as something to suffer through, but as an honor. It’s a way to honor my boy, to honor our life together, to honor myself. And with that, I don’t even want it to go away. I will grieve Murdock for the rest of my life, and that is okay.

Now, freeing myself from my understanding of grief and instead letting it lead does not mean I spend my days sobbing in a corner, or my nights lying awake lamenting my loss (although I do both, sometimes). It means that when I have those moments – or when I cannot comprehend that he is gone, or am angry that he had cancer, or I beg him to visit me in a dream – I just give in, even if they are out of order, even if it seems far too late to experience them. And that is okay.

How has your grief experience surprised you?