Dear Grieving Person-- I see you

Dear Grieving Person—

I see you.

You’ve lost someone. Or possibly, you’ve lost something dear, something precious. A marriage. A dream. Your health. Your livelihood.  

I see how hard you work to care for others around you. I see you apologizing for your own emotion when you can’t muster a smile, or when you break down in front of others. You draw back, as if you’re afraid to infect them with your sadness. And those around you draw back from you, uncomfortable, also afraid to catch the sadness.

If those around you don’t flee, they aren’t always good company. They’re searching for the “right things” to say, and in so searching, often say the wrong thing. “She’s with the angels now” “God must have needed him more,” and the worst, the ultimate insult to you, the griever, “Everything happens for a reason.” 

It’s all a bunch of bullshit, right?

Grieving is lonely. Grieving can isolate.

For those of you whose grief isn’t obvious—perhaps you are of the variety who have lost a dream or your sense of yourself, rather than a person—or perhaps you’re feeling grief for someone you think that you “shouldn’t” be grieving—your ex, your estranged father, this girl from high school who you used to be friends with but had fallen out with—you are especially lonely. How do you seek support for something you are afraid or ashamed to articulate? How do you reach out for understanding when your feelings defy your own understanding?

I see you.                 

                                                                                              

It pains me to see you, but I see you.

Sometimes I am the steady, compassionate therapist. Sometimes I am your rock and provide the place where you are safe to talk about the range of things that you feel, without judgment, without being shamed for “not moving on fast enough.” I ask about your loss. I ask you to share memories of the person that has gone, or of the dreams that will no longer be. We can do that together and I won’t back away from you.

Sometimes I am the well-intentioned but bumbling friend or family member. When I’m in my office working, the distance that I must maintain as a professional provides me with a shield— translucent, but still useful. When I’m outside of my office, shieldless and unprotected, I feel vulnerable. I feel raw. I get scared. I panic and forget what it is that I can do to be a comfort to you. Even though I know better, I’m afraid of catching your sadness. I flee—maybe not physically, but emotionally.

Sometimes I’m the griever. Sometimes I’m feeling the loss of something or someone in my life so poignantly that I’m not sure I have the capacity to be as open or as present as I’d like to be with you, griever.  Please forgive me.

Often I am all of these things at once.

But still, even in all of that, I see you.

I have hope for you.

I can tell you now that the grief that you’re feeling won’t go away. You won’t “get over” this. No one “gets over” loss.

Here’s what I think does happen:

If you are a vase, the grief is the thing that tosses you to the ground and shatters you into a million tiny shards. You think, How am I ever going to put myself back together? You think, I am never going to be the same, even if I do get the pieces back in order.

And you’re right. You’re never going to be the same.

Day by day, though, those pieces are going to find their way back into place. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it will happen. Some of those pieces are not going to want to stay in place. Some are going to fall out, over and over again. And yes, even when you think you've got yourself in order, you aren't immune to breaking again. And again. Sometimes when you least expect it, a piece will pop out, or maybe you crumble to the ground entirely, and you will think "Am I ever going to be okay?"

But progress will be made. In time there will be less crumbling, more assembly.

True, the pieces are now going to be joined by glue—you will be solid, and whole, but you’re going to look different. Some of the cracks are going to show. Some of the joints are going to be tenuous. Some pieces might not line up perfectly, their edges too ragged to bond solidly. Maybe some little pieces, the shards that broke off and flew away, too tiny to find, cannot be replaced. Maybe you let those tiny spaces be there. Or maybe you fill them with gold.

When you’re reassembled, you’ll be beautiful. Potentially stronger in the places where you’d shattered.

Even when you’re reassembled, the hurt doesn’t go away. What happens is that your heart makes room for it, and over time, as the pain finds a home where it can rest, it becomes less heavy, less gut-punching. Less likely to mess with your concentration or your ability to get out of bed. In time you’ll be able to notice the pain, breathe through it, and keep moving even as you feel it. It’s a miracle of humankind that we have the capacity to do this.

One day you will smile or laugh and not feel guilty for smiling or laughing. One day you will be able to hold the pain and simultaneously hold within you great joy, great hope, restored wonder.

Someday, someday. These things will happen in time.

For now, griever: just grieve.

I see you.

I am you.

**
Click here to read Part II in the Dear Griever series: I Still See You.