At some point in my grieving journey, a wise friend (someone ahead of me in membership to the Dead Dad Club) introduced me to the concept of the “cost” of grief.

I suspect I was asking how to handle triggers at work…I think this was probably a year or two after my dad died. Was I doing the “right” thing by walking out of a room physically, or logging off zoom, when “ICUs” or “ventilators” come up, or brain scans are shown? Or when I instead react by freezing, by not allowing emotion to show up? After all, I feel like can face virtually anything at this point after what I’ve been through. And my friend gently asked: what is the cost of shoving aside any emotional reaction? What is the cost of sitting in the (physical or virtual) room?

I don’t remember the precise definition of “cost” my friend gave when asked, but now I think of it as: how does it feel in your body? How does it affect how you interact with others? How long does it interfere with your concentration, your ability to work, or to be present with family?

In acute grief, the cost of facing grief felt too high. Crying felt like it would never end, like I’d break apart. When, inevitably, my body would force me to stop because my sinuses were too full of mucus to breathe or simply because I was exhausted, the following hours would feel like an emotional hangover. I’d feel fragile, easily shattered again. And yet with time, I learned this was the only way - to dive into the wave of grief and let it roll over me, rather than flail at the surface trying to pretend there was no wave. And with time, the duration of the emotional hangover after release was less, the intensity was less. With time the periodicity of grief waves changed, with more breaks between them, lower average heights. And so with time I learned the simplest way to manage a wave of grief was to take a moment - or an hour or two - to feel it as hard as I could until the intensity lessened. Advice of another wise friend.

In this later stage of grief - not chronic grief, but integrating it into living as it evolved - I had to re-conceptualize cost. If the cost of facing situations that caused emotional flooding (known or unknown) didn’t derail my whole day, or week, perhaps it was time to start facing them. Some were easier, more predictable. Others, less so.

For example, for a year or two after my dad died, I burst into tears after every meeting in which I had to present to and get feedback from a group. This was a real disadvantage as an early-career researcher in academia, where we are expected to present frequently at “works-in-progress” seminars. I recognized this in September 2020 but it continued. For a time, I started to expect it and build in time for it.

Now four years later, I don’t burst into tears. The grief isn’t at the surface. It’s more subtle, entangled. I find I still have a small margin for presenting work to a group, where feedback can - and does - come from every angle. There’s a lot of filtering and decision-making needed to figure out which pieces you agree with, and which you need to act on. In the aftermath of the meeting I have this sense of being completely unmoored; out-of-control and lost. It feels like grief. It’s bewildering. And it can take me all day to recover. It’s a different form of cost, and I’m still figuring how to navigate it, perhaps by simply avoiding it.

Another evolving cost to navigate is trying to figure out where and how to engage with grief in my workplace. Since I have been openly talking and writing about grief, it also means people ask me to speak to it. I feel like I should know what to say, but I still don’t. I want to help. I want cultures to change to accommodate grieving. Yet conversations are often simpler one-on-one than in groups. And I’m learning even years out it can be hard to predict the cost of grief.