Column: No wrong way to grieve

Death is an uncomfortable subject for the living. It’s terrifying, intimate and mysterious all at once, making it a taboo topic of discussion.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with loss, I can tell you this — grief is so much more than being sad. It is a physical and emotional experience more painful than any injury I’ve ever encountered.

On Friday, March 6, 2015, I received a phone call from my mom. She told me she was at my dorm and had loaded my things into the car and that I needed to get there as soon as I could. At 11:52 that night, I watched my dad die after a six-year battle with cancer.

In the following months, I felt more lost and alone than words can express. Friends, family and acquaintances looked at me with expressions full of pity and started acting uncharacteristically nervous around me. It was painfully clear that no one knew what to say or how to act because none of my friends had experienced the loss of a parent.

I became scared to express my feelings about losing my dad, resulting in huge breakdowns at inopportune moments, and was constantly paranoid about how I was making other people feel. So I taught myself how to fake a smile to avoid discomforting others and made it seem like I was perfectly fine. I wasn’t. Putting on this act was not only exhausting, but extremely self-destructive.

There is a senseless stigmatization behind grief that can disturb the mourning process and inhibit healing. There are preconceived notions of how one should grieve, who it’s acceptable to inconvenience when talking about loss and how much time is appropriate for mourning.

Everyone experiences grief differently; there is no wrong or right way to mourn. But there is a correct and incorrect way to support a friend who’s grieving.

To those who haven’t experienced the death of a loved one: First and foremost, tell the people that matter to you how much you love them every chance you get.

Secondly, if a friend is experiencing grief, try to empathize with them. Just making an effort to put yourself in their place, letting them know that you want to provide a safe space to be open about their feelings and offering support wherever it’s needed can make a world of difference.

Truthfully, I don’t know if I’m done grieving. I’m not sure that I’ll ever really be done. But, one year after my dad’s death, I can finally say that I’ve found peace. I no longer measure the passage of time by how many days it’s been since he died, and I smile when I think about him more often than I cry. Time alone cannot fully heal, but it helps. It has allowed me to go through thousands of my dad’s pictures, listen to some of his old voicemails and bake a Key lime pie (his favorite) to celebrate his birthday.

I still have a long way to go. But I couldn’t have found this place of healing without those who made an effort to empathize with me and never stopped asking how I was feeling.