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.