Making space for grief

Thoughts on grief and moving forward

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go. - Jamie Anderson

Before I begin, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your kind words, your gentle notes, and your patience with my need to be quiet and private for a bit. For those who may not know, we lost our sweet dog, Moses, two weeks ago. I won’t tell his entire story today since I’m writing it to share, but I will say that for the last eleven years, he has been my daily joy bringer, always close by if not directly on top of me. No dog has ever loved as goofily and demonstratively as Moses McGee. Without him, I laugh less and can’t seem to enjoy being home alone, typically my favorite place. He was as much a family member as any person who lives in this house, and our grief is as deep as the ocean and as wide as time itself.

This week my goal is to begin cobbling my daily habits and priorities back together rather than indulging every whim which has included daily ice cream-often in lieu of a meal, daily naps and daily hikes since I no longer want to be alone in the house. Maybe I’ll keep the hikes. I’ve binge watched entire seasons of Ted Lasso and Severance and thrown myself into reading even more than usual. For the first week, I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning since my typical morning routine revolved around Mo’s care: feeding, walking, morning cuddles in the chaise lounge, and playing ball. It’s so strange to wake each day without his whiskery lips on my ear telling me it’s breakfast time.

I made a list of things that make me sad in my journal. The list includes, but isn’t limited to: waking up, going to bed, sitting in the chaise lounge, sitting on the back deck, cutting lettuce, making food, eating food, dropping food on the floor, going for walks, 4pm, coming home, leaving home, working in the flower bed, watching squirrels, and not having someone to talk to all day long, every day.

I take comfort in knowing the extent of my grief mirrors the depth of my love. He was so loved, for every moment of his glorious life with us, and he knew it. He loved us just as deeply in return. What a gift it is to have shared his lifetime with him.

So what do we do when grief weighs us down? How do we move through, move past or even just move when our limbs feel as heavy as our hearts? I wish I had all the answers, but I have none. What I can do is share a few things I’ve repeated to myself as I made way through the last couple of weeks, and will continue to tell myself moving forward.

Sadness is an appropriate feeling. As Americans, I feel we are addicted to positivity and boot straps. If we can’t pull ourselves up from the mire of “bad feelings” then there must be something wrong with us. Don’t even get me started on anything relating to ‘being blessed’. I believe we do ourselves and our emotions a disservice when we barge through and slam the door on difficult feelings. Sometimes, grief is an appropriate response. We don’t have to rush through or bury it so others can’t see. How am I? I’m sad. For how long? I don’t know, probably forever. There isn’t any reason to be ashamed of that.

Sorrow and grief can be a both/and state. What I mean by this is that I am not relegated to one state at a time. I can be grieving and enjoying nature on a hike. I can be sad and assist patrons with a smile. I can feel like crying while laughing with my co-workers. Humanity and its feelings are complex. We seldom fit in only one box. Yes, grief is an appropriate feeling right now, and it’s ok to carry it while carrying on with life. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over time is that the world doesn’t stop when we want or need it to. It’s ok to not be frozen in a state of perpetual grief, or to feel it alongside other emotions.

If you don’t know what to do, do the thing in front of you. Often, when we’re in a time of emotional upheaval, it’s hard to plan and organize even basic responsibilities. Rather than beating myself up about that, I just allow myself to do whatever is in front of me. Is the sink full of dirty dishes? I don’t need to consider the counters, the floors and re-organizing the cabinets. I can do the dishes, and it’s good enough. Do I know a walk outside will make me feel better? I don’t have to queue up the perfect podcast, and plan a route. I can put on my shoes and go, and when I feel like coming back, I can come back. A kind person once told me, sometimes good enough is good enough. It’s a message I’ve carried for decades now. Do the thing in front of me, do it just good enough. That’s enough.

Crying is permitted. For the love people, when did crying get such a bad rep? Why do we feel a need to apologize for something that’s as natural to our bodies as eating and sleeping. Humans cry. There are scientific reasons why it happens and much of the time we have very little control over it. Just this morning I was sharing with my mom something silly that I remembered my dad doing when we were younger. He’s been gone more than twenty-five years but when I shared, and my mom responded with, I miss his silliness, I cried, because I miss it too, and twenty-five years doesn’t fill the hole his death left in my life. When I feel like crying lately, which is often, I cry, and I don’t apologize for it.

When you’re ready, share your stories. I’m not saying you need to open up to some random stranger in the supermarket - though sometimes that might be easier - but generally, we have a good idea of who is safe with our hearts. Sharing our stories, especially when we’ve lost someone, is a way of keeping them alive in our lives. As the new person at my job, I haven’t shared a lot about my personal life, but one co-worker did know that Mo was sick. He took the time to check in about it last week, and I told him Mo had died - with tears in my eyes because crying is permitted. He immediately asked if I had a picture and we spent the next few minutes talking about Mo’s silliness and how much space he occupied in my life. I was ready to share, and it felt good doing it.

Grief, and all it’s emotional subsets, is a journey best made with incredible care and self-compassion. It’s messy and complex, following no predictable patterns. It leaps on us out of the blue and capsizes all our good intentions. It can be long and exhausting, and none of these elements define our strength or our resilience.

Grief cannot fully leave us as long as love remains, so it’s best to make some room for it and welcome it in.