Stages of Grief

My grandpa was like a father to me when I was a kid. He always knew how to make me laugh. He had nicknames for me like “spaghetti girl” because that was all I ever ate and he liked to pretend that my tummy was a guitar. My grandpa was the sweetest guy I’ve ever known and I had no idea that he suffered from an addiction. When he passed away I remember walking into his house and the living room being overwhelmingly packed with his family and friends. There someone told me that he had passed away and I didn’t believe it. I ran upstairs to his room with my brothers expecting him to just be asleep but he wasn’t there. I blamed God for taking him away and I didn’t understand how such a loving God to do that to me and my family. I was originally told that he had died from a heart attack until I was about 19. It was then I learned that he had died from a heroin overdose. After learning the truth, I came face to face with the stages of grief all over again but this time it was different.

Denial/Isolation

When I learned the truth about my grandfather’s death I thought there was no way in hell my grandpa had a drug problem. He was the sweetest guy I knew and did his best to make the people in his life laugh and smile. People with addictions aren’t usually portrayed as nice and caring so my grandpa didn’t really fit in the “addict category”. I isolated myself from my family and friends. I wanted to know why he did drugs and I wanted him back.

Anger

My denial soon turned to anger when I found out that my grandpa did indeed have a drug problem. I was angry at my grandpa for doing drugs. Didn’t he know the potential risks? Didn’t he care about me enough to take care of himself? I felt like I didn’t know who he was anymore and I felt like everything I knew about him was a lie. I was angry with my parents for being dishonest with me. Why wouldn’t they just tell me the truth in the first place? I was angry with myself for not knowing and not being able to help and to cope with all of this built up anger, I started smoking cigarettes and it’s still a bad habit I struggle with to this day.

Bargaining

The anger I felt toward myself led me to bargaining. I thought that if only I knew he was suffering I could have helped. I wished that he would have just told me so I could have saved him. Bargaining like this kept me from the reality that he was actually gone. Slowly the anger and bargaining came to a stop and I faced a deep sadness that impacted my life in harmful ways.

Depression

I ended up getting severely depressed and getting out of bed everyday was nearly impossible. That resulted in me missing work and making risky, unhealthy choices. I was so broken over the fact that my grandpa had suffered in silence and nobody could save him. I was depressed over the loss and that I would never have him back. I was depressed because there was nothing I could do to change what had happened.

The denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and depression all built up inside of me until I reached acceptance, but before I reached acceptance I had to overcome each step. Overcoming these stages wasn’t an easy task and it took me about a year to accomplish. To overcome the denial I had to learn that nobody’s perfect. My grandpa was a great guy that suffered from an addiction but that didn’t change who he was. I realized that isolating myself only made me feel worse so I started to reach out to friends and family. I decided to stop being angry at my grandpa, my parents and myself. My grandpa suffered alone because he didn’t want to worry me, my parents waited until I was ready to know the truth, and I couldn’t have done anything to help him so I also stopped bargaining. I worked past my depression because he is in a better place now but I still haven’t fully recovered in that area. I still miss him from time to time and I think about him every day but I don’t let it affect my life in the way that it did before.

Acceptance

After his death I felt like a huge part of me changed. The truth is that now he’s in a better place and he doesn’t need to suffer. Now I’m at peace with my grandfather’s addiction and his death. It wasn’t about me. There’s nothing I could have done to save him. He was sick and that was nobody’s fault. The only thing we can do is be supportive of our loved ones with addictions and be the love that they need. I learned that having a drug addiction doesn’t necessarily make someone a bad person. We’re all addicted to something and that’s because we feel empty or broken. Having a drug problem didn’t change the fact that he was my playful and caring grandpa that I will always look up to. He will always have a place in my heart. My goal in life is to be with someone that is as loving and special as he was. He touched so many lives and made the world a better place. He will always be loved and missed, but I know ill see him again someday and that simple fact keeps me going.