The Ball and The Box

I found this pictorial description of the journey of grief on Twitter last night. It is an unusual but very accurate illustration of anguish after the death of a loved one. Initially I planned on sharing this just with my present group of GriefShare participants, but then I thought it might help CandyceLand readers to understand why intense sorrow hurts so much and lasts so long for their family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors after the loss of someone very dear to them. Most importantly, though, if any of you have ever experienced a traumatic grief yourself, this might explain why years later the intense pain can unexpectedly resurface.

(Credit goes to Lauren Herschel who posted this analogy given to her by her doctor.)

So grief is like this:

There’s a box with a ball in it. And a pain button.

In the beginning, the ball is huge. You can’t move the box without the ball hitting the pain button. It rattles around on its own in there and hits the button over and over. You can’t control it - it just keeps hurting. Sometimes it seems unrelenting.

Over time, the ball gets smaller. It hits the button less and less but when it does, it hurts just as much. It’s better because you can function day to day more easily. But the downside is that the ball randomly hits that button when you least expect it.

For most people, the ball never really goes away. It might hit less and less and you have more time between hits, unlike when the ball was still giant. I thought this was the best description grief I've heard in a long time.