Well-acquainted with Grief

Grief Expert?

I sent an email today to a colleague who had just lost a newborn within the family. She was explaining that she was still grieving, if she seemed ‘off’, from this tragedy that had happened within her family last month.

I wrote a response, wanting her to feel seen and validated, assuring her that I would hold her family in light and love, and that it was okay not to be okay.

I also tried to affirm her message where, written between the lines, she seemed to suggest that the upcoming holidays are going to be hard.

I have another dear friend who recently buried her mother, and I frequently consider her current reality, with the holidays looming. (I intentionally use that word, because for those who have experienced losses or who have no family the holidays require a verb such as “looming,” forecasting a shadowy future. Not a happily anticipatory one.)

For those who have recently lost someone, the holidays are often a terribly sad time. Many don’t understand this, unless you have your own losses that have happened recently, and this is the first holiday season that you will spend without your loved one.

I recall the first Christmas without my Grandma Donelson, in 2006, felt especially sad. She was the quintessential grandmother, loving and maternal and generous, living simply by being happy to love her family and dote on her grandchildren. I cried that Christmas, keenly feeling her absence. Though we had her for a good long ninety-one years, with our loved ones it is never enough.

Looking back, little did I know just how minor of a loss that that would be for me, in the grand scheme of it all, by the time I turned forty.

I know I’ve said similar things and lest readers think that I am throwing an endless pity party, rather—

Part of trauma is the shock—I frequently have to pinch myself that this is ‘real life’, So I try to put my life experiences into words, for me, to try to make sense of them, to validate them, since I lost so many people in such a short period of time.

But it’s true that even one loss usually entails shock and legitimately requires a process of acceptance. My friend who lost her mother just keeps writing, “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

I am sure that she cannot. Her and her mother were close. I get it and I felt the same when my mother passed.

And though neither of which was surprising deaths, nothing—and I mean nothing— can adequately prepare you for that feeling that comes when they are really gone. And then you spend months and years trying to make sense of it—that they are forever gone and are never coming back to this earthly realm.

I read Marisa Renee Lee’s memoir, where she talks about grieving her mother. The book is lovely and she discusses grief at length. The book has been frequently lauded and she is often now referred to as “the grief expert.”

I am not denying her title.

But I think I could take on that role as well. (I’m working at taking Luvvie Ajayi Jones’ words to heart. As a founding member of her book academy, as I work on my book proposal and memoir, she reminds us that we are the experts on our own life experiences and that we need to throw humility out the door since it is not serving us.)

I wrote in the email to the above colleague that “I am well-acquainted with grief,” and I certainly, certainly am. I know losses and death and grief. Though all losses are unique and I have never experienced the death of a still-born (just two miscarriages), it is important to validate all losses as unique.

And yet. Also.

There is a unique solidarity that happens among those who have lost someone that they never imagined losing or someone they feel that they cannot live without. And until you feel that loss, really feel it in your bones and soul and essence, you simply won’t get it.

Even those of us who are compassionate and empaths, try as we might, if you have never lost someone unexpectedly or that “made your world”—a loss that brought you to your knees, you’ll never know exactly how it feels.

It’s an excruciating life experience to have.

It’s compounded, made even harder, around Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years season.

I leave you with these words:

Jeder hat ein Päckchen zu tragen, manche tragen es sichtbar, andere nicht."

(Everyone carries some kind of burden, some visibly, some not).