Grief Sayings Activity

Grief Sayings Activity
Grief has commonly been the natural response to the loss of someone or something which people consider important to them. Notably, people display various emotions such as loneliness and sadness when their loved one dies, a relationship ends, or lose their jobs (Fuchs, 2018). Although different individuals grieve differently, by taking time to understand their emotions, people can take care of themselves, seek professional support, and heal from the grief (Stroebe & Schut, 2015). Various sayings have been documented on grief to demonstrate the impact of losing close people and items.
I selected saying number 10 by Washington Irving which holds that tears have a specific sacredness. In particular, they are not a demonstration of weaknesses, but marks of power. The tears speak more eloquently compared to 10,000 tongues (Tesiik, 2001). They represent the message of overwhelming grief as well as deep contrition and unspeakable love (Tesiik, 2001). My understanding of this saying is that tears shed via grief demonstrate the love that an individual has on whatever or whoever has been lost. As such, the tears do no display weakness on the part of those grieving but are signs of the power of love that they had towards the deceased.
In my personal life, I have experienced grief by losing a person who was very close to me. In specific, when I suddenly lost PM, I could not believe that it had happened and was immersed in the grieving process for more than two weeks. When I read saying 10, I felt that it was talking about me and my grieving situation. The saying that tears are a demonstration of an unspeakable love seems to speak to me as I shed a lot of tears due to the love that I held for the deceased. Additionally, the part of the saying which holds that tears “speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues” relate to my experience because; although I could not say how much I loved the deceased, my tears showed it.
I think that grief manifests itself through denial, tears, and anger. In specific, according to Fuchs (2018), when people lose their loved ones and think about it, they feel shocked and numb and have a defense mechanism of denying the situation. In my case, I was in denial about the loss of PM, and my first reaction was “this isn’t happening.” Additionally, I cried a lot which was a way of demonstrating my love for the deceased and how much she meant to me. Moreover, grief is characterized by anger airing from the pain of loss. As such, people will feel frustrated and helpless as they know they cannot make the decreased come back (Stroebe & Schut, 2015). For instance, when I lost PM, I was angry towards other people as well as the deceased for leaving me. From saying 2, grief is “like that feeling of being hungry for something but not knowing what it is” (Tesiik, 2001).
In conclusion, people grief differently to demonstrate their displeasure with the loss of someone/something important. The saying I chose (saying 10) holds that grief manifests itself in tears which are a mark of power as opposed to a weakness. When I lost PM, I was overcome by feelings of denial, anger, and tears. In specific, I cried during the day and night for more than two weeks. Additionally, I was in denial that the deceased was no longer with us. Such feelings are manifestations of grief.

References
Fuchs, T. (2018). Presence in Absence. The Ambiguous Phenomenology of Grief. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17(1), 43-63.
Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2015). Family Matters in Bereavement: Toward an Integrative Intra-Interpersonal Coping Model. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(6), 873-879.
Tesiik, J. (2001). Grief: Theoretical Perspectives. D.J. Wilkie & TNEEL Investigators.