By Dr. Jennifer L. Yocum, Licensed Acupuncturist

“Dad is actively dying,” my sister says to me on the phone, but I already know this. For the last two years, we’ve watched as dementia has slowly been taking my father’s memory, piece by piece, replacing it with confusion, delusions, and an inability to fully take care of himself. While he may live for another couple years or more, we will continue to see the man we knew fade away before our very eyes. It’s a slow process- one that is both cruel in its erasure of who a person is and kind in its gift of time to grieve that loss.

Grief is messy. It’s non-linear, fluctuating without warning in the chasm between overwhelm and numbness. It can feel never-ending, with days where the tears flow uncontrollably. Other days, you may question your own humanity because the tears never come at all. Grief has no time limit. There are no number of days, months, or years that go by after which it is magically done and has left for good. It is cyclical, unpredictable, and truly selfish.

We grieve and need to grieve many things, but it primarily revolves around loss – loss of a loved one, a relationship, or even a way of being. Culturally, expressing grief in a public manner outside of funeral or memorial services is unfortunately considered undesirable at best. We reserve the tears and wails for our closest friends, family, or mental health therapist, and then self-impose a limit on the number of times or length of time we can even show those people that we are still grieving. After all, wouldn’t it be unhealthy to grieve after so many months or years? (Answer: No.)

As a licensed acupuncturist, I bear witness to all of the guilt, shame, avoidance, and despair that comes up in the treatment room about grief. No one is perfect in their expression of grief because there is no such thing. I see the man who says his father died, but blinks frequently to hold back the tears and says few words, voice cracking, to get through the rest of the conversation. I hear the woman say that she shouldn’t still be upset about a breakup because he’s moved on, even though she hasn’t, and it’s been several months. The tears flow, even when his never came. I witness the single mother who cannot fight her tears in front of me as her life seems to unravel before her, but holds them back in front of her son, to “stay strong for him” because she doesn’t want him to worry about mommy. She just wants life to go back to how it was before all of the health and personal struggles – to have hope that things could be simpler again for the two of them.

Grief is universal. It is a human experience that none of us escape. The only way through it is to allow ourselves to feel it as it arises. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers when it comes to how to grieve “properly” because there is no such thing. No one can tell you how you can or “should” grieve, or if you should even grieve in the first place. It is a process that is solely yours to claim and execute in your own way. No one gets to determine any part of it for you. There is no therapist that can tell you you must be grieving the loss of your loved one on some level, when you don’t feel it. There is no friend that can tell you to “just get over” the person who dumped you when you feel deep loss and depression. There is no person who can say “everything happens for a reason” and make you magically be okay with the fact that you’ve lost your job, house, or health. You own your grief process. Only you know when you are expressing your grief appropriately, and when you’re pushing it down. Only you know when it feels like you’ve grieved enough for now, and when you haven’t. Only you know who or what you need to grieve, and who or what you don’t.

I’ll be candid; I’m not actively grieving the loss of my father. For me, the process started 25 years ago when his mother (my grandmother) was diagnosed with her own dementia. Over the course of about two years, I watched her fade away from the engaging, animated, and loving woman I knew, to a shell of a person. By the time I stood by her deathbed, where she waited, no longer speaking, and held on for days longer than she should have just so I could get there, I had long said goodbye to who she was. She died not five minutes after I left. I didn’t cry. I knew this disease would likely come for my father one day. Two years ago, it did. In my own internal way, I began saying my goodbyes to him then. Now that he doesn’t remember my kids’ names, or that I even have children, it doesn’t come as a shock. When he asked me during my last visit if I was his firstborn (I am), it hurts and is sad, but I am not surprised. Twenty-five years ago, I started a process of self-protection – one heavily rooted in realism, practicality, and deep acceptance of the likely inevitability of this moment. It is an approach and way of being that is deeply Jen Yocum and no one else. Only time will tell if the tears come when my father passes, at some time before that, or both.

Ultimately, the journey through grief is as unique as each of us, demanding only that we show up honestly for ourselves. Your grief belongs wholly to you – no one else can measure it, define it, or decide when it should be done. It does not need to make sense, follow a timetable, or unfold neatly. When we release the pressure to appear “okay,” we give ourselves room to breathe and feel what is real, however long it takes. In allowing ourselves to honor loss exactly as it lives within us, we give grief its rightful place in the story of being human—and in doing so, we rediscover grace, strength, and compassion for ourselves.

Note: This article was originally published in a local magazine for their November 2025 issue. For citation references, please contact Dr. Yocum at https://jenyocum.com/contact/