I recently came across the term, incomplete grief. The definitions of incomplete grief vary widely from not confronting or not willing to confront feelings of grief to feeling stuck in time and unable to grieve properly.

I feel like a lot of us compartmentalize grief—put it up on a shelf so we can attend to all the other things that need attending to. Especially with the death of a loved one, the living are forced, sometimes within hours of the person’s passing, to deal with legal and other matters.

I’ll never forget totally spacing that Mario had elected to be an organ donor through the DMV. His passing triggered an alert in their system and within an hour my phone was ringing. I was not exactly in a state to talk to anyone and I left it go to voice mail. They called several other times. Let me just put out there that Mario successfully trashed all of his donatable organs, so I did not feel bad taking a couple hours to collect myself before calling them back. It was nonetheless a painful, hour long conversation where they ran me through probably 100 questions (some rather personal).

I certainly was not expecting that and I’m sure that call takes a lot of people by surprise, but it’s just one small example of how we’re forced to deal with various things immediately after a loss. And those things continue, sometimes for years. As such, it’s very easy to see how grief may not be “properly” faced and be incomplete.

Incomplete grief also implies that there is complete grief.

Almost all of us are familiar with the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) from personally going through them. We also know that grief is not linear as there is no order to grieving and one can jump around from stage to stage.

It seems odd to me think that there is an actual end to grief. There may be times when you feel like you may be done grieving the one that you lost but then days, weeks, months, or even years may go by and suddenly you find yourself feeling sad or going through any of those stages all over again. It may not be as raw or as strong as right after your person passed, but you still go through it.

Grief having a “completion” is not to be confused with forgetting about your loved one because I don’t think any of us really forget. The emotional attachments may lessen over time, some memories may fade, but I think those you shared a special bond with in life are never truly forgotten.

I’d actually be interested in talking to anyone who has determined that their grief is complete. How do they personally define “complete”?

The life I shared with Mario will always be a part of me. And I feel like there will always be a part of me that grieves his absence. And most of all, I think that’s normal.

I think as time expands from the day of Mario’s passing, the thing I notice most is that I have more fond memories than I do bad memories that are tied to heavy grief emotions. Maybe complete grief is when all of those emotions are replaced with happy memories? Maybe it’s when the ache in your heart stops and all you can remember is the love you knew and the happy times that you’ll forever cherish?

I’m four months away from being four years into this whole being a widowed person thing. There are some who consider the last stage of grief to be acceptance, but I don’t think that makes it complete either. You can have acceptance that your spouse is no longer here at any point in time, but that doesn’t mean that you’re done grieving.

I really don’t want to forget all of the griefs of my life. I think it’s part of being human. Knowing loss, while sad and often tragic, is part of the human experience.