The less noticeable part of grief...

The Joy

I was listening to a podcast the other day and it made me think about the role of joy in mourning, in bereavement, and even, weirdly, in grieving, even the result of traumatic death (suicide).

Ester Perel remarked we need to find joy and to let the body experience pleasure in finding our ways back from trauma.

Elizabeth Gilbert, recently on a podcast, commented on the role of joy in grief. I have heard it said that grieving is love that has no place to go, because that person is no longer there, whether that is from death, break up, estrangement, dementia/Alzheimers, mental illness, whatever.

But the point is that the joyful memories of that person, and all the warm that comes from love of those times together, is important, in remembering.

It is perhaps a less noticeable but important part of the complex grieving process.

We mourn, we grieve, because we loved.

In my case, I found the trauma of my brother and father’s suicides, from gun shot wounds to the head, horrific because they were my family members, my blood relatives. And though I had complicated relationships with them both, I still loved them. They were my father. And my brother.

While not fun, and perhaps it doesn’t make the process any easier, as I move through different stages, I think about how important that role of joy and gratitude is in bereavement.

I think about that with my mother, who I miss so much that there are some days where I simply ache for her.

But, in acceptance of their deaths,—or at least as much as we can ‘accept’ with some tragic deaths—we do get to a place of acquiescence that a loved one is no longer with us. In this grief, if we’re lucky and perhaps at a larger stage, I hope we may all get to a point of gratitude.

Thankfulness that they existed. That they were here. That they loved and had joy. That you loved them and that you had fond memories with them too. Appreciation that we had them for the time we had, that they were a part of our lives, that they loved us and we loved them.

After all, what else do we have from the departed? But the imprints that they left on us, in the form of beloved memories.