Here's Grief - Have You Met

Anne Dumais | Sep 04, 2025

They used to say there are only 2 things we can’t escape in life – death and taxes. Since we now know the tax part doesn’t always apply to everyone, I am going to suggest a small revision: death and grief. Have you faced a great loss of a person or pet? Then you have surely had a run-in with grief. It may have arrived loudly and suddenly, crashing into you, or it may have crept slowly, like weeds along the edge of a garden. For some it roars for others it whispers. It can swallow you whole, or just nip at you again again. What is universal for all of us though, is that grief always shows up, it will not be ignored nor contained in a 3 day “bereavement leave”.  It is something we carry that re-shapes us, forever impacting how we move through the world. Another truth? Despite it being inescapable, we rarely talk about it. Leaving us to navigate a new path in the world alone, unsure of how to manage it, unsure of the “right way”, carrying its full weight.

Over the next weeks and months, we are going to try and change that. Take a kind and curious look at grief. Offering some small reflections, thoughtful research, gentle tips, hard truths, do some myth busting and resource sharing. Short. Thoughtful. Honest. Not prescriptive. Small pieces, like seeds, you can plant to continue to grow your knowledge, tuck it away for a rainy/grief day or pass on to someone else who might need them. Hoping perhaps we can use them to garden of our carrying community where we can all feel like we are always seen and held in our grief, that we know our way of carrying it is the “right way” and maybe make the weight a little easier to carry.

If you have a question you’ve carried, idea or topic to explore – please reach out.

5 Stages Myth Busting

Have you ever heard of the 5 Stages of Grief? Many of you are likely to have - and knowing about it may not have been so helpful. First described in1969 by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her Team, the stages were meant to describe the process for those facing their own death. Since there was little other research on grief, others took this and they ran with it, applying it to all grief, suggesting it was THE path you walked with grief in hand. There were always rumblings that it didn’t quite fit grievers and the Kubler-Ross Team did try to suggest it had been misinterpreted. In the late 90s it got louder and by 2005 the shared understanding by professionals, had evolved to be that even though the stages describe did represent real experiences and emotions in grief, they were only potential sign-post along the path, experiencing all of them was not universal nor was their a consistent order. What’s more there were far more stages you may encounter along the way.  The belief now is that it is more fingerprint than barcode.  

Why is this important? First, knowing that you may potentially face any or all of these 5 stages, may help some feel better prepared – a gift in the knowing. What is likely more important, is it invites you to reflect on how believing in the stages as rigid and linear, may have negatively impacted you or others, and what we can do to change that. With knowing better, we can change judgement, expectation and inflexibility into grace, patience, and kindness for each other and ourselves. We can move from trying to correct to committing to companioning. Turning our focused to how best we can make each new path easier to navigate and what may make the grief easier to carry along it. Check out www.grief.com  – The 5 Stages of Grief page and www.psychologytoday.com – the Stages of Grief: The Harmful Myth that Refuses to Die.

Can I put it down now?

How long do you think it should take to “get over” or put down the grief you are carrying after losing a person or pet you loved dearly?  3 days? 1 month? 6 months? 1 year? That was actually a trick question because the answer is….never. Though you learn to move easier over the new path of our lives, we know deep in our hearts, cell of your body and mind – that grief is still there. So why can’t we put it down? Because this kind of “grief is an echo of love- proof of its depth, its reach, and its permanence.” Unknown. It is your infinite love with no place to go and that love isn’t ever going to go away. So how does it get easier to carry?  It is your life – your connections, your moments of joy, kindnesses, laughter, light and love - that grows bigger around it (Tonkin’s Model of Growing Around grief) and you grow stronger with a little practice and patience. You will notice you no longer “need” to put it down, and knowing it is a reflection of your love, you no longer want to either.  

Anne Dumais runs Yellowpebbles.ca – counselling and navigation