Making Space for Grief

I took my time yesterday scrolling through the names + one-phrase tributes of 1,000 (of the 100,000) people we’ve lost in the United States to the pandemic (published in the NY Times).

I read about competitive athletes + adventurous spirits + faithful members of congregations + fashionistas + gentle souls + choir directors + purple heart recipients + artists + immigrants + survivors of cancer, the Holocaust, WWII, + 9/11 -- people who loved their families + had a zest for life + loved seeing the full moon rise over the ocean + possessed a mystic’s direct sense of wonder + oneness.

The day before that, I was at my grandfather’s funeral, listening to stories (most I’d heard, some I hadn’t), crying with my family, and saying goodbye.

Today, I’m thinking about how much grief matters (personal + collective) -- and all the ways it asks us to take our time + make room for memory + gather around story + be with the overwhelming magnitude of what we’ve lost + find ways to keep going.

Grief is equal parts devastation + awe.

It’s an experience of unbearable twistiness in the pit of our stomachs.

And it’s a vast ocean of relief.

Twistiness because the loss is agonizing + relief because we’re telling the truth about it.

Grief is a skill I need to be the human I want to be in this time + place -- a human who feels + loves + remembers + carries the echoes of the past forward, a human who’s an active participant in the cycles of life + death that are home for all of us.

I believe that grieving well is a spiritual imperative of a human life.

Because grief plugs us into love (the kind we feel in our bones rather than understand with our minds).

It supports us in becoming grounded humans + good ancestors.

It reminds us why we’re here: to love + feel + experience + not look away + take this weird human thing as deep as we can.

Grief is a power + vitality + truth the world needs.

And I hope we all find ways to continue to lean in to what it invites + gives + teaches + asks of us.

Reclaiming Grief

I really wish our modern, western culture was more accommodating and literate around grief. As it stands, grief seems to be allowed only under certain circumstances and only for predefined periods of time.

I think because of our cultural bias against “negative” thinking and feeling, grief gets cast as a less-than-ideal feeling state we’re supposed to move through as quickly as possible in order to get “back to normal.”

But as anyone who has experienced loss knows, grief takes its time and there is no “back to normal.”

And in my experience, allowing grief is the way to not end up haunted, thwarted, or derailed after a loss. Because it’s the catalyst through which we compost and alchemize whatever was lost so that we can keep going, growing, and deepening.

So I wish grief was woven into the fabric of our culture as a unifying thread.

I wish we understood grief as an essential process and inevitable journey into the fullness, realness, and depth of what it means to be a human being who lives, loves, and dreams.

I wish we were all taught from the beginning that living a big life means allowing grief and joy, success and failure, disappointment and celebration to coexist in our lives and selves.

I wish we knew that grief is both allowed and necessary, whether the loss was small or big, clear or ambiguous, chosen or not.

I wish we understood grief as evidence we said yes to love – and that love is far from finished.