It was a cool October morning just like any other during my freshman year at JMU. I was walking back to my dorm from class when I got a phone call from my mom, which was extremely unusual this early in the morning. When I picked up I didn’t even hear an answer for a few seconds until I could quietly hear her sobbing as she told me that my cousin had passed away in a car accident early that morning. She couldn’t talk much more than to tell me she loved me and that she would be calling me later in the day so we ended our talk and I immediately headed for a bench to sit down. Something was wrong. As sad and heartbroken as I was, for some reason I wasn’t crying. I admit I’m not the kind of person who tears up easily but in this situation I would’ve thought it would be extremely easy to cry and let my emotions out. During the following weeks, I was emotionally down, but still I hadn’t cried and let my emotions out. I thought that there was something wrong with me and I thought badly of myself, thinking that I must be some kind of awful person to not cry about the death of my cousin who was only 3 days older than myself. In fact, I didn’t cry until I saw my cousin’s father at the funeral. When I saw him and thought about the pain he must be going through I cried for the first time and it felt good.

Grief is defined as the intense sadness following a substantial loss (McCornack, P.139). This was the first time in my life that I can say I had experienced grief because was the first death in my family that I can actually remember and because of this I didn’t really know how to handle it. I eventually used the concept of emotion-sharing to help ease my pain and release the pressure it was putting on me. Emotion-sharing is talking about your grief with other people who have similar experiences or who are trained to help you (McCornack, P.139). My girlfriend at the time became very supportive of me and was my outlet for my issues because there was no one else I felt comfortable talking to about it. The textbook talks about how just the feeling of being connected with others can be helpful in getting over these problems. This was especially helpful for me because I felt as if I was alone with no one to hear my problems.

Have you had any situations involving grief where you felt as if you were alone?

What did you feel was the best way to deal with it?

References

• McCornack, S. (2009). Reflect and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.