Making room for grief

a restful musing

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

“Perhaps by mingling my sighs with yours I may make your sufferings less, for it is said that all sorrows divided are made lighter.”

― Héloïse d'Argenteuil

Grief isn’t a popular topic. At least from where I sit. Whole sections of bookstores are filled with grabbing hold of your life now. Or. Establishing atomic habits. And the spiritual side of things tends to either make suffering in and of itself redemptive…usually with God trying to teach us something through grief. Years ago when my world collapsed under the weight of abounding grief, I found myself at a loss for words and resources that could help me. I was stuck in a liminal space between toxic positivity/spirituality and a depression so deep I couldn’t breathe.

Grief is for those who love.

Grief is for those who love and have been loved. It IS for the faint of heart. We can grieve many things, not just people. Lost opportunities, poverty, friendships that end, (please read this wonderful piece on grieving friendships by

Nova Reid

here.) hair loss (

Sharifa

on this topic is moving.) and more. I realize that what short circuited my grief processing was all of the moments in my childhood (and beyond) where I was forced to be resilient. Every “stop crying Rob, real men don’t do all that crying.” (I was a child.) When my parents divorce I wasn’t allowed to cry. I was told in an offhand way that things were done. When I was scared to go to school because of what I now know to be intense social anxiety…I had to man up. I still remember that visceral memory. I was dropped off at school and cried for hours. It was a new school and I was terrified. Embarrassingly, I had to sit near the teacher the whole day. I was a child who was unaccustomed to being able to embrace or even acknowledge my grief. One day that child grew up.

Making room for the griefs that we suffer is holy. At least it can be.

“Hard times require furious dancing.” Alice Walker

A few days ago marked a painful day for me. The birthday of someone that I buried years ago will forever hurt me and I was in a place again. I was numb because sometimes grief presents itself like that. The tears didn’t come that day…but they are today for anyone wondering. That day, I danced in my kitchen. Alone. My rage poured out as I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be alone…I had made plans that includedthose who have now been in the ground for some years now. “Why me? Don’t I deserve to be happy?”

So I danced.

The Difference Two Years Can Make

I just want to offer you this week the gift of recognizing your own griefs. Where does pain still reside in your soul and body? How can you give voice to those things that ache? Those disappointments that haven’t been acknowledged? I’m thankful for those like

John Onwuchekwa

and others who make spaces for their own grief and invite people to share their own. Perhaps we can’t *conquer* grief. Maybe acknowledging and bringing loved ones to share with us in our pain we make the world a bit less lonely. Perhaps that exhaustion you’ve been feeling is grief with nowhere to go.

“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”

― Toni Cade Bambara