a collective season of grief

Grieving has been acquired by everyone this year. When we hurry along the street or pick up groceries, we pass strangers all walking their own roads of loss – this year, everyone seems to be struggling with something. As someone who speaks openly about grief and hopes for compassion, I was surprised by my knee-jerk reaction to conversations I’ve been hearing about   struggle and feelings of loss this holiday, the simple absence of normalcy and commonplace. My initial reaction, was to be angry. I’ve been broken hearted for years, I’ve been struggling with a Christmas soaked in tears since my son died. I’ve been on my knees asking for grace feeling like no one heard me – and now everyone wants it. Now, everyone wants help with these unfamiliar feelings, everyone wants to talk about this holiday season of newly felt grief. I’ll admit, reading words about adjusting to change this holiday from others who haven’t lost a loved one made me upset, because if you’ve grieved through a season of cheer before, you become protective of it. You know the work it takes to face sadness and shape it into something that resembles a new tradition. My grief isn’t new. My grief is baked with years of seasoning, my roots of healing are already curling in the ground with growth.  What I’ve done to survive joyful seasons with a broken heart is sacred, hard work. And now, I feel watered down by the collective sigh happening around me. And yet…

 I am taking a breath, and asking myself why I felt so inclined to be combative with my sadness.

 I thought I was past the point of protecting my grief, of wanting it only for myself. In the early days I hoarded Lochlan’s loss, I allowed no one near it, I gripped it so tightly it ended up strangling me for a very long time. It can be necessary, and dangerous to clench heartache. Mine was the shape of a child in my arms – precious and perfect and easy to protect.  No one walked me through how deep loss would change me, I had to fall through many cracks before I found any semblance of gratitude. But as I look around me with a back pocket full of experience, and see so many hearts now unsure of the weight they carry, I feel I was too rash with my reaction. Part of me wants to turn my head and let them learn how to swim just as I did, but I’ve felt too many years of sadness alone, I know too well what it is to be peering through a glass window fogged with happiness from the other side, never able to quite see through.

So I asked myself, what would I have wanted, that first year I lived through the holidays without Lochlan, without my dad, that first year of acute grief. Because that is what everyone is feeling; loss that is new and sharp at the edges. People are wandering, unsure of what is ok and what isn’t, confused by the highs felt one minute, and the incredible lows felt the next.

 My friends, this is grief.

 When I was lost in those first years of sadness, what did I need people to know, what did I need them to hear? What perspective could I give to anyone currently walking through the loss of… well, everything. When I close my eyes and let my anger slip away, it seems so clear to me, and I know that kindness, is what I would have wanted.

 This year, we all grieve, and we will all do that in very different ways, for very different losses. Loss of jobs, loss of family gatherings, loss of routine and loss of friends. Loss of ceremony, loss of security, loss of physical connection, and always, the loss of loved ones.

The grace I can offer to each and every one of you who is new to this feeling, is with acknowledging that you are swimming in uncharted waters of isolation. I can meet you where you are, sinking into a shade of blue you haven’t known before, with an outstretched hand that knows better than to judge anyone in vulnerability. I needed a reminder, because I’m human,  and because I’m forever cracked at the core, that the shaky step at the start of grief is frightening. The height of incline ahead of each one of us is immeasurable, because not matter what we are grieving the loss of, in our own eyes, the uphill battle we face is the size of a mountain.  The strange benefit of time when I was deep in my own kind of suffering, was that I had the ability to wrap myself in loved ones, I had the ability – If I chose – to lean into the embrace of friends and strangers alike. And today, we are unable to tangibly console each other. There is a physical aspect to our grieving that has been taken away this year. Ceremony, whether that is a memorial, a celebration, or a simple gathering of people who love you, plays a large part in settling our grief into our bones. The act of touching loved ones, wiping away tears, being held and being physically comforted acts as a way to calm us, to smooth our sadness from the surface of our skin, deep into our bones where it can settle. When I think of this, and think of how many people are adjusting to a holiday season without loved ones near, I soften at the edges and understand why these conversations are happening.

There is deep loss this year, and many people don’t know how to channel it.

 We are weary, we all so incredibly tired, and it isn’t completely grief that drains us, but obligations and commitments wrapped in strange times and uncertainty. We want to rest; we want to settle and allow our breath to exhale in a gust of stillness. We want to lean in, push up against another person who might be feeling a semblance of the same. Any yet, that too has been taken from us, the luxury of leaning on each other physically, and it might seem as though you are absolutely alone with your loss.

 The intimate nature of how we are grieving right now is not our choice, but I do wonder if it’s possible that we will find an even more beautiful approach of honoring this season, this year, in the simple ways available to us right now.

The space we give to our feelings of loss will help mend our hearts, and allowing those feelings of sadness to exist as much as the happiness is how we will feel full again, how we will get through this difficult season. It might feel strange, but there is truth to the idea that your heart can sit balanced on laughter as well as tears.

The way we will heal this year will take on a new strategy, instead of connecting in person, we will bridge the gaps of our loss through the collective strength of everyone just out of arms reach.  My hope, is that we can begin to heal with the small things around us; letters, voice mails, notes left on door steps and grand gestures made up of tiny details. Perhaps we will go back to the basics of kindness with warm deliveries of food, phone calls that last longer than minutes, singing at doorsteps. And maybe, the opportunity of new traditions will take root; late night walks with friends across the street, writing notes to family we can’t be with, starting meals with memories. This will be a difficult season for us all, for many different reasons, but the commonality of it all will be naming the loss, and deciding how to move forward with it.  If I can offer anything, it would be to simply sink in, whatever the sadness is that grips you, let it be there. Consume you, no. But allow it space. This part of grief, the early, truly devastating months of loss is rarely talked about, and until we recognize this very real, very necessary stage of living with grief, we can’t outgrow it. 

 Yes, there may be hard days ahead, the heaviness of grief mixed with joy in this season is new for you, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take courage to balance it. Any change is hard, but the kind of change that emerges through grief is a wrecking ball that brings about the deepest transformation. Friends, this weight we sit with, this sense of loss of everything that was certain and solid, in due time will bring forth a re-shaping of mind and spirit. In a way, I feel as though I am finally drifting on the opposite side of the canyon from almost everyone I know. I am, for once, the one who is sure of her path. There is something ahead of you that I can’t explain, I can only plant a seed and let you know it’s coming, but there is peace ahead for you, I promise.