Remember the “Gilmore Girls” episode where (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it yet) Dean breaks up with Rory? At first, the emotion hits her, but the next thing we see is her waking up Lorelai at 6 a.m. on a Saturday with a to-do list three miles long. Lorelai tries to get Rory to “wallow” for a while and really feel her emotions rather than just trying to skim over them and “shake it off.” She tries to tough it out and just move on without grieving. But, at the end of the day, she realizes that she really does need that “wallow” time. Her mom joins her on the couch, lets her cry, and orders a pizza for them.
Sadly, we don’t all live in Stars Hallow where “wallowing” is not only okay, but expected. We live in a society where even if a family member dies, most employers give you a day, or even less, to take off for their funeral. When a friend is down, a lot of times they get labeled as a “Debbie Downer” and after some time, others don’t want to be around them because of that. People who are grieving, depressed or even just sad are often left to themselves because others “don’t want to deal with that,” when at this point in their life, they need support more than ever. In the 1600s and 1700s, people wore special jewelry to let others know they were in a time of mourning. They would place a wreath on the door so everyone who came to visit knew that this was a sad time in their life, and this lasted more than one or two days like we give people now.
People are social creatures, and this is a time when we all need that social support, even if that just means sitting on the couch together eating a pint of ice cream in silence. No matter the kind of grief, death of a loved one, parents divorcing, even death of a pet are all times when that silent (or not so silent) support should be given out heavily and not held back. The recommended time frame for grief is six months for a parent or a child of the person who passed, three months if it was a sibling or grandparent/child and other family members or friends are only “allowed” 30 days. After this point, it is considered unhealthy to be grieving or extremely sad anymore, but who are we to say what people should feel and for how long? If someone had been married 50+ years to their spouse and they pass, six months isn’t that long; they spent most of their life with that person and we give them less time than a semester of school to be deeply torn about them being gone.
Our society thinks that the “go, go, go” mentality should be applied to everything and I am guilty of doing that myself, but I also truly believe that we should give people time to “wallow” and not make them feel guilty about it! Unfortunately, sad things happen in this life, but we can be supportive of our coworkers, friends, family and anyone we come in contact with who may be struggling with any kind of grief. Be that listening ear, make a casserole and deliver it, or even make a phone call to check on someone, even if you feel like it’s been “long enough” for them to cope with whatever they’re going through. Wouldn’t you want someone to do that for you?
