Narrative on Overcoming Grief - the Homicide - Stage of Grief Models: Kubler-Ross

The Homicide

        For the most part, my life has been pretty simple. The only events I could have possibly gone through was constantly moving around from place to place. I moved so frequently, one would call me a nomad if they had the chance- but moving was not an issue to me because I am one to adjust quickly. As I stated earlier, my life was simple and I rarely had any troubles. Until January 21st where I faced my first challenge as an adult. On January 21st of 2017, my father was shot and the head and later succumbed to the injuries in April.

        I can remember the day I got the news vividly. It was a Sunday night, and I planned to spend one more night at my sister’s house before going off to school in the morning. My two sisters, Niara and Niya, and I were all in the living room watching television, until Niara got a phone call from our grandmother. We found it odd because our grandma would never call us this late at night. Anyway, after asking my sister where she was, she asked to be put on speaker as she broke the news, “Your father got shot in the head”. All of our jaws dropped. My heart dropped, the room instantly got hot, and I got what felt like a lump in my throat as the tears in my eyes started to form. Niara told our grandmother that she would call her back, and the second she pressed the end button, all hell broke loose. Our screams and hollers filled the air for a while. It took us forever to get ourselves together. A few hours later, we were on our way to Central Florida Regional Hospital.

        Driving to Florida usually takes about 14 hours, but when my sister drove that night, it seemed like four. As soon as we made it to Sanford, FL, we went straight to the hospital. The minute I saw him, I broke down. My heart shattered into millions of pieces. I have never seen my father so vulnerable and fragile looking. I could not believe this actually happened. This was a drastic change. This unfortunate event caused me to miss two and a half weeks of school. Then, three months later, my father passed away. After his death, I was in a depressed-like state. Throughout this catastrophic situation, it did not occur to me that I was going through the five stages of grief.

The first stage is Denial. The loss seemed so surreal, it was hard to grasp the fact that he was actually gone. It felt like a horrible nightmare and every time I would pinch myself, I could not wake up. The second stage is Anger. My father was murdered by his step daughters boyfriend. Anger was an understatement. I could not believe someone my dad helped raise and trusted would be an accomplice to his murder. I was so angry to the point where I started having unimaginable thoughts I know I could not actually do because it would just make matters worse.. The third stage is Bargaining. This phase of the stages of grief is what I did not go through. Even though I could be in denial at times, I knew for a fact that he would never come back. Next, the fourth stage is depression. This is where I slowly started to accept of his loss. Throughout my days, I would cry on multiple occasions and my sleeping habits drastically changed by sleeping often. All of my friends started to notice that I was distancing myself. I did not mean to distance myself on purpose, but I just wanted to left alone and unbothered.

My immediate family and close friends were genuinely concerned about my father’s well being. I was more so concerned with my two older siblings because they were my father’s legal next of kins. I watched them make life or death decisions for our father seeing them distraught and being unable to help them legally always left me with uneasy feelings. All I could do was take in the feelings from everyone and register them as my own. An example would be the great pain I felt for my grandmother. My father was my grandma’s first child and I knew for certain that she was hurt. The pain I felt for her ran deep. Usually, my grandma is a strong person who I thought would never break. I thought so because she has been through so much in her lifetime, I figured her skin grew thick. At the funeral, she cried so hard. Watching her break down broke my heart and it made me cry all over again. What made the way I feel worse was that I could not do anything to ease the pain. There was absolutely nothing I could do.