In grief, we often become overwhelmed by intense feelings. This experience is called being triggered by our grief, and the ‘thing’ that causes these feelings is known as ‘grief triggers.’
Triggers, as the name suggests, are all the sights, places, things, sounds, and smells that remind you of your beloved. And when you experience them, they catapult you back into intense, negative feelings because they remind you that your person [or pet] has passed. Said another way, you could be moving through your day with relative ease, and suddenly the pain, the anguish, or the anger comes flooding back to you all over again.
Triggers can sometimes pop up at special moments—like seeing photos, hearing a favourite song, or smelling a delicious food or coffee. They might also be more subtle and harder to notice, such as seeing someone walk in a way that reminds you of a loved one, hearing a laugh that sounds familiar, smelling rain, experiencing the change of seasons, or noticing your child’s gestures that mirror your loved one’s. These familiar sights, sounds, and feelings can bring about powerful memories and emotions, making each experience unique and meaningful.
Here are the most common types of grief triggers
Calendar Days such as birthdays, anniversaries, all the standard holidays like May 2-4 Weekend, Labor Day, Christmas, Kwanza, Chanukah, Ramadan, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, Purim, Earth Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, News Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day/ Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, Victoria Day, Memorial Day, Canada Day to name a few.
Milestone Events such as decade birthdays (21st, 25th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, etc.), weddings, anniversaries, school graduations, births/ adoptions, retirement, starting a new job, a professional promotion, receiving an award, getting your first apartment, buying your first home, moving away [out of province, the country], and adopting a pet.
Smells such as their skin, fragrance/cologne, soap, shampoo, or their favourite foods.
Sounds such as the sounds of children playing, someone else’s voice/ laugh that sounds like ‘them’, or a joke you heard that you know ‘they’ would have enjoyed, or a song ‘they’ loved, or the theme of your wedding dance/ first date, lyrics of a song/ poem that reminds you of them or your love for them, or their last message on your cell phone that you have saved to treasure always.
Sights such as thinking ‘you see them’ in a crowd … Or, someone wearing their favourite/clothing/ coat,/their favourite colour; seeing them in your dreams; the trinkets or treasures we cherish of them or of use together – such as pictures, clothes, their wallet, their slippers, PJs, their side of the bed, their favourite spot on the couch, their favourite park/ restaurant/ coffee shop/ movie theatre/ hair salon/barber shop/ mall/ toy/ book of theirs, or the school they went to/ or university—the empty chair at the table, the empty ‘favourite spot’. Invitations are now addressed only to you. You are no longer getting school notices. Signing birthday cards with just your name, and the need to acknowledge them with cards and acts of kindness.
Lost Opportunities: such as special routines, cherished patterns, family day, father/daughter or mother/son dances, father-of-the-bride dance, ‘family’ vacations, seasonal routine outings [favourite park to walk on the first long weekend of the summer], being invited to dinner with married friends, the BBQ for the family that you and yours hosted every July 4th, these all tend to call attention to your loss.
Memories are where our loved ones continue to live in our hearts after they’re gone; this is why we are so precious about their trinkets and treasures that we have of theirs.
They live on to remind us of them and go to help us get into those spaces in our mind where we feel near to them -safe, comfort, joy, tears.
True, when someone we love dies, we are at risk of their memory triggering aftershocks of pain in us. But also true is that grief reflects your love for this person. And in time, the hope is that memories will fill us with more warmth, comfort, and smiles than with pain and angry tears. In time, you may even find that the very “grief triggers” that once caused sorrow can now fill you with a sense of love and warm, happy/sad tears of remembrance.
