grief is this funny strange thing - a thing that everyone provides anecdotes and resources and well intentioned advice about, and still it’s a thing that no one understands. not a soul on earth can possibly relate to another’s grief - each individual grasping to relate to their very own. grief is fundamentally individual. it changes by the month, week, day, hour, minute. and one’s solutions for their grief today could prove fruitless the next day, week, or hour. and that - that fluidity of something as singular as grief - is what creates an inherent loneliness. is what separates us all in our grief. it’s what leaves us all recipients of anecdotes and resources and well intentioned advice on grief, and leaves us still without the tools to fundamentally manage or deal with that grief. those tools we need to discover on our own. to work within the space where grief exists.
i experienced grief. and I still experience grief. and I falter and fumble and gawk at grief. and I worked my hardest for a long time to avoid my grief - but it held tight.
it wasn’t until I acknowledged my grief - turned to it, and looked it in the eye as though to say, ‘I see you. we’re in this together,’ - that I was able to observe my experience. no longer punish myself for not feeling the ‘right’ things. or for feeling the ‘wrong’ things. instead, just exist. and observe in that existence what grief had shifted and moved and faded and grown within me. and the more I observed, the more I respected, and the more space there was for it to just happen.
and the more it happened, the more I learned. about myself. and people. and humanity. and how we relate to one another, when we observe grief in another.
I learned that we are all constantly feeling; and sometimes trying not to feel. and I learned that I will constantly be learning about grief.
I learned that it feels different on different days. some days it’s a laugh you can’t stifle and you laugh alone in your car at the memory that won’t let go, even if you know it’s making you historical. and that some days it’s the inability to speak without crying - a quiet pain behind your eyes, and an exhaustion that weighs down your limbs and burns your eyes and compresses your chest and you cease to exist as a human - because it takes everything you have just to walk, and breathe and sit and to keep from collapsing.
that some days it will be be alleviated by pretending you have nothing to feel grief about. by focusing (often over enthusiastically) on your food or your creative project or your work. and people give you strange eyes at your enthusiasm but they let you go on your way and sometimes include a a soft, sympathetic smile.
that some days it means waking up in the morning and feeling happy. waking up a bit earlier than your alarm and feeling energized instead of exhausted and finally starting your morning with yoga, and crossing 16 things off your work ‘to do’ list, and following your healthy eating regime, and finding joy in the sun and the rain and everything - and then you stop. and you remember you should be sad. not happy. and did anyone see you smile? you hope not because you’re supposed to be sad. and your guilt follows and weighs down on you throughout your day - your feelings of guilt over moments of happiness and joy - until you forget to remember to be sad, and you feel happy again.
that sometimes all you want to talk about is them. their observations of the world and their voice when they said your name in exasperation. you want to talk about how they would feel about a situation or book or movie or meal you made. you want to incorporate your memories of them into every conversation. you want to talk about their thoughts on your 85-year old fashion sense and their knack to combine fridge ingredients into a meal that they are proud of, and they smile at you while you eat their masterpiece (bite by - painful - bite) and you comment on your appreciation for the meal that would typically be inedible, and yet this time you managed. you want to talk and talk and make sure you get it all out, and make sure no one forgets.
and sometimes all you want to talk about is everything other than them. you want to talk about your mail; your plans to build new gates; your new job; the meal you made for dinner last night. anything, but them.
and whether you want to talk about them or avoid talking about them, you don’t know how to do either.
that sometimes you just need a day in bed to cry, and that you don’t tell anyone because people have expressed concern over your ‘sadness’ and you know it isn’t that you’re ‘too sad’ but just that life gets to be too much sometimes.
that sometimes looking through old photos of them is the only thing that can help you remember and in that moment, the guilt of lost memories is worse than the pain you feel from the void of them.
that you will look for ways to satiate the grief - healthy eating, activity or sports, hard work, fast food, binge watching tv, stillness and overactivity. and they all provide a moment of relief. but behind it all, the grief sits in wait, and bides it’s time to huddle up again. and sometimes the very things that you seek out to alleviate the pain, circle back to remind you of the very grief you are attempting to escape.
that you will find success, by throwing yourself into everything around you, to channel the energy of the sadness. you throw yourself into your personal development and your own mental health, and you make great strides. you throw yourself into work and your motivation creates a success you’ve not seen in a long time, and the hours and hours of overtime get loud applause and accolades from colleagues and clients and you even feel good about your own professional accomplishments. you throw yourself into your physical health, and focus on fueling your body with the best of the best and dedicating time to yoga and weights and the things that make you feel strong and happy and in control. and ultimately, they all help you feel that. in control. and you’ll hold onto to whatever moments of control you can, because you’ve also learned that grief has made you feel so out of control for so long.
that there are moments when you think grief is fading and you are healing and that you have a handle on grief and you’re one of the winners - one of the ones who made it out the other side. and then you wake up one morning, and you pull out a certain shirt to wear, or you open a box of photos, or you hear a song or see a commercial, or you pick up a shampoo bottle that you’d only actually seen in real life in university. and grief hits you like a 2x4 and you’re back to square 1. and it hurts. oh it hurts so badly.
and I’ve learned that grief doesn’t go away. it teaches you things you didn’t think you needed - or ever wanted - to know. and it makes you human. more human than you ever wanted to be - ever wanted to show people you were. but in doing so, it lets people in. and it lets you out.
and I’ve learned that it exists. for everyone. and it will never cease.
