If someone has told you that “you will heal,” or “it will pass,” they’re lying to you. Long story short, grief will follow you for the rest of your life.
But you can choose to accept it and make peace with it.
I, like many other humans–unfortunately–have experienced grief. And this is my take on it.
Right now, I’m listening to a song called Blue Crystal Fire while writing this in my dimly lit apartment. I’m drinking whiskey alone. Gently carrying the glass to my lips so I do not spill on my computer. My window next to me is cracked slightly open and there sits a bouquet of flowers that have been wilting for weeks. I can hear gentle rain and feel a slight breeze. My fireplace is overflowing with books that I hoard. There’s a cobweb in the corner that bends every few seconds when the breeze catches up to it.
I say all this because I feel like I have the perfect setting to finally feel and express what I need to. I’ve been avoiding this topic for a very long time. And my observations about my setting serve as a distraction too.
The song playing through my computer is an old country song (1978) by a man named Robbie Basho. You can’t find it anywhere on music services. It’s a gem. The lyrics, the melody feel like the perfect representation of grief. Bitter, slow, repetitive, deep. But there’s some underlying tone of hope.
Hm, maybe hope is not the word. Nick Drake is hope. This is more… ‘buck up. Keep moving. Because we have to.’
I used to reference the Sylvia Plath quote “I am half agony, half hope.” But for the past few weeks, I have been nothing but agony. And that is why I need to finally write and pull through.
I know grief is not about understanding why we have to feel it. It's not about understanding the reason, or cause, of the grief either. It’s about acceptance and surrender. The more you try to understand, the more you’ll drive yourself insane and into a hole with no bottom that you’ll never get out of. You will ask, “why?” over and over, but there is no answer. It just is.
Accepting the loss and the grief is the path to go through it. And accepting that it will be part of you for the rest of your life– something you will have to carry for the rest of your life– but knowing it is not you. Your grief is just an element to the life you are experiencing. It won’t always be this painful and there will be better moments. It is how we will go on. Don’t drown it.
We have to go on. I have struggled with finding a reason to go on, on many different occasions. I cannot see the possibility of life sometimes, or see how one can live a present, full life, carrying this kind of weight. But if the pain does not kill me physically, then there must be something more to be had. There must be more than this.
No, I do not want to talk about this. And no, I do not want this to be something I write about. I have just realized after over a year, it is time to acknowledge that it is there. So that I can recognize that it’s real. The longer I ignore it, the more it demands to be seen, heard, and felt.
I see you. I hear you. I feel you. I do.
So what will be remembered after all of this?
Simply, what we choose. We have to make a conscious choice to remember the good that was experienced and the love that was felt before the loss.
If we choose to acknowledge the love and the joy that was real, that is what will be remembered.
I know that it is easier said than done. But every day I practice this, I must believe it will get better. We did not come here to suffer. I don’t believe that, that is all there has to be. I came here for more. I remember.
And we’ll all wake from this dream someday, and maybe then, we can understand. But not now. Not here. The only thing we have to do is experience it. This life is not experiencing us.
I know now I will not fully heal. It is a wound that will need to be attended to as long as I shall live. But I will give myself grace. I will be gentle. I will nurture this thing that is there. It is there. It is there. It will not pass. But it does not have to be all that there is.
I choose more. I remember more than just this.