Subscribe to Posts
Subscribe to CommentsIndividual Entry: Grief
« “Caprica” and “Dollhouse” |
Main
| I Got Nothin’ »
If you read this blog, PLEASE sign in to my guest book on frappr.
No personally identifying information is needed, so this is risk-free. Just provide a name (even a nickname), your zip code, and any statement you want to make ("hi" is sufficient).If you want to know more about me, click here.
April 27, 2009
Thoughts : Grief
Grief
People in America don’t like to talk about grief. Love, anger, fear – they are all very public emotions; but grief seems to be a private matter, experienced behind the shutters of our minds; out of sight, where it is safe. People cry; but it is expected that they get over it and quickly move on.
Perhaps it doesn’t fit the American illusion of rugged individualism; for at its core, grief is about how interconnected we all are. Someone is a part of our life, and when they are gone they leave a hole that serves as a reminder that they were a part us, causing us to trip over that pothole in our soul from time to time.
I was very close to my mother and would regularly call her up to tell her new things that were going on in my life, particularly good thing. After she died my life went on, complete with yet more new, good things; but each such event became a reminder that I no longer had a mother I could call – adding a touch of bitterness to whatever joy I was experiencing. It was hard at first; but eventually it became another part of the complex taste of life – the knowledge that she was gone forever seasoning my experience of the world.
The individual bumps when we are reminded that someone is no longer in our life are the easy part of grief. The hard part is when we finally wrap our minds around the idea that those people will never be there again. This is harder to grasp because there are always times when someone is unavailable - we are used to calling people and not finding them home, or missing them at some gathering for one reason or another. It is easy for our minds to trick us into thinking that nothing is unusual, that we will catch them next time.
But there is always a point when we finally internalize that it is not just that they are not there now; but that they will never be there again. That’s what real grieving is about – realizing that not only is there a hole; but that it will never be filled. Sure, we may eventually establish some other relationship with someone else that serves a similar purpose; but the gap where the original person fit into our lives never goes away. Grieving is the process of embracing that truth.
I am reminded of the story Richard Feynman tells about losing his wife. While he loved her dearly, he initially didn’t feel much after she died. Then one day he saw a dress in a store window and for a brief moment he thought about buying it for her, and suddenly it all hit him – that he would never again buy another dress for his wife, or anything else; and there on the street he grieved.
As we grow older, our lives become more and more pitted with the absence of those people we have lost - family, friends, co-workers. Some holes are bigger (such as the place my mother used to fit into my life). Others seem larger because the suddenness or means of departure leaves a more ragged hole (I had an old friend who committed suicide). But everyone we are connected with who departs leaves some kind of gap. These absences tend to accumulate, until, finally, we all leave behind a collection of us-shaped gaps in other people’s lives.
It is all a part of the experience of life.
Posted by Steven at April 27, 2009 05:00 AM
Comments
Yup. Very well said.
Posted by: Anne at April 27, 2009 11:05 PM
