Ones’ personal attitudes can significantly influence the approach we take towards grief, loss, death and dying on both a personal and a professional level. The first experience I had with death was at the age of 9 years old. The loss was experienced during my elementary school years. In accordance to Erikson’s Developmental Stages, I was in the Industry vs. Inferiority stage. I should have had a better understanding of death at this age, but also would have experienced the death briefly (Christ, 2000).
However, due to the relationship being long-distance it was not close relationship. My paternal grandfather passed away in Mexico, whom I did not have the privilege to get to know well. The only memories I have of him are through old photos up to the age of 4. I experienced grief and loss profoundly during college. Grieving the loss of a friendship can be similar to mourning the death of a loved one. I was 21 years old when I lost a friendship that meant notably to me. Throughout my life, I’ve made friendships that did not last long as a result of moving schools. I expected that to happen and would not form strong attachments purposely.
However, during my time in college is when I developed meaningful friendships with people I learned to cherish, love and hold dearly. Before the loss of the friendship, I had had a friendship with my friend, Valentino for nearly two years. The friendship was complicated, but it existed. It was during fall 2011 while attending UCSB, where we had met. During spring quarter of 2013, I was aware that my friend was graduating from college and I was not, which meant change was coming. He was part of the class of 2013 and I was part of the class of 2014.
I was from San Jose, Ca and he was from Los Angeles, Ca. Even though, we came from different cities and our lives were going in different directions, I did not think the friendship would come to an end. I do not believe that distance ends real friendships. The last time I saw him before I came to terms that the friendship was over was the night before his graduation. My friend had texted me notifying me of the party and I knew this was the time to say goodbye until next time. My recollection of the brief conversation we had, hinted there was not much left.
Consequently, I did not bother to attend his graduation, because I realized the friendship was over. I did not attend his graduation and left back to San Jose. I remember crying during the long drive there while I thought about it being over. That was the moment in which I started grasping the loss. Nonetheless, it would be a long time until I would completely grasp what this meant. The five stages of grief and loss are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kubler et al, 2014). I experienced a disfranchised grief; a grief that is not normalized or validated (Attig, 2014).
I did not want to accept reality and stayed in denial for as long as I could, even though the warning signs were always there. I still acknowledged he graduated through a text message and his response left me with false hope there was still a friendship there. I interpreted his lengthy text in a way that allowed me to mold it into what | wanted, because I was not ready to face the truth. His exact words in the text were, “You are worth more than that; you are my friend. ” I read those words and chose to ignore the real message the remaining sentences were saying.
His texts were words of encouragement to keep going and rise to my full potential. He also thanked me for all the support I had given him and for making his college experience that much more rewarding. Frankly, he was telling me that the friendship was over, and those were his wishes for me. When I unexpectedly ran into him during that summer at his fraternity house I came to full terms it really was done. When our friendship finally ended, it was not a surprised, because there had always been mixed messages, but the pain was intense. In the moment, I was very excited to see him again. I could not believe he was back in town.
I had a bunch of emotions swirling around my head. I had all kinds of emotional grief reactions from anger to sadness to shock. On the other hand, it later hit me how what I had been trying to ignore was evidently true. I had been stuck in denial for quite some time. My reaction to the friendship ending had been expressed in the form of denial. For as long as I could, I wanted to hold on to that friendship so bad. Denial was my way of coping at least temporarily (Kubler et al, 2014). It angered me to know that I had been wishing he would return at least once, only to realize he did not care to let me know.
Slowly, things started to make sense, since we were still friends on Facebook. The posts about his life in LA were beginning to surface. Anger replaced denial as resentment sank in (Kubler et al, 2014). It angered me that I had been hoping to see him again and talk to him again for nothing. I remember being really angry with him and wishing I had never met him. I wanted him to feel what I was feeling and at the same time. never wanted to hear from him again. My feelings of anger revolved around him causing much more pain that he would ever know by not hurting me with the truth.
It felt to me that I had never been important to him and everything had been a lie. I let the anger run through me so it would not turn into bitterness. The sadness was secondary to the anger. I began to feel really upset as I reflected and regretted all I invested in this person (Kubler et al, 2014). I mourned the end of my friendship and remembered how much I had been hurt. I acknowledged my pain and cried it out at the beach. It pained me to hear someone even mention him. I experienced behavioral grief reactions during this time. I wanted to stay in bed all day and not do anything, but cry.
I did not want to socialize with anyone. People around me would still ask me about him not understanding how I felt. Anything small could trigger an emotional roller-coaster. It took me a long time to get over the end of this friendship. I originally had thought, I had gotten over it my senior year of college. It was very hard, because I never had the chance to express how I felt. I never received the closure I sought. The friendship came to an end to me, but we both had different needs. He continued to show me how his life was going through the Snapchat app unaware of how painful reaching acceptance had been for me.
In fact, nearly two years after I had last seen him, out of the blue I was invited to a goodbye party for him. By then, I knew that speaking to him would not help me get over the broken friendship. After everything it had taken for me to accept the end of the friendship, I could not bring myself to attend it. I had finally understood that his purpose in my life was over and I entered the stage of acceptance this time for good. By this time, I was in my first year of grad school. I made peace with the unavoidable ending and accepted I could not be a part of his life anymore (Kubler et al, 2014).
