On Grief

Grief is disorienting. Something is missing. The world is off-kilter, like Earth's axis is tipping. It is not the same as sadness, though sadness often accompanies grief. Sometimes it's like shock. Numbness. Emptiness. Other times, there's a rush of memories, flashbacks, and the desperate thrashing feeling that something which was always there is now gone forever.

Grief is messy. It often produces tears and snot, and throws life into disarray.

Grief is not a disease. It's not an illness for which there is or isn't a cure. You can escape it for a while, but it will always return to run its course. Like a cloud, it hovers above, momentarily forgotten, until it starts to rain.

Grief isn't a bad thing. It helps us adjust to unwanted change.

Grief can be silent. It can be very loud. It can be lonely or it can be shared.

Grief lasts longer than most people think it should. When life calms down into a version of normal, others act like grief should be over. But you don't snap out of grief. There's no set amount of time and then it's over. It doesn't occur in five even, synchronous stages.

In fact, it could be argued that grief never totally ends. It may lessen in intensity, ebb and flow a little further away, but when that anniversary comes, or that reminder of the loss, the cloud hovers again.

Grief may slow us down, but it doesn't stop us permanently. We go on because we have to.

If we grieve, it's because we are capable of love. Love continues beyond grief and finds renewal in its wake.