Grief Talk

I sat and talked grief today with a friend. We talked about life, forgiveness, personal growth and grief. We talked about feelings while commenting that no one talks about feelings, at least not really.

I know of this man who was a college professor. Smart guy they say. He made some choices in life and in consequence life made choices for him and at the end of it all he lost everything. Hi career, his family, his reputation, his lover, all of it. He is now known to wander around the streets of downtown pushing a grocery cart while reciting some of the most beautiful literature those within ear shot will probably hear that day. Homeless.

After Mateo died I pictured myself with a similar fate. I envisioned what it would be like to fully give into my grief and then fall apart and then never come back to sanity. I misdiagnosed grief in that situation. Grief is the process- and if you make it so, a teacher. Grief is not the reason one ends up losing their life while still alive. A handful or two of feelings are. Depression, anxiety, despair and so on. That's how you end up giving up by giving in.

I sit with my grief now. A witness. It introduces me to different parts of me. Shows me where I am strong, where I am quiet, where I am restless, where I am lonely. I do not plan on carrying it around forever but our time together is no where near done. Grief is doesn't take time- grief is time. Grief minutes pass by every hour and in that hour I will feel any number of emotions. Grief is the time it takes for you to feel through something, be present with it and create ways to cope and to heal. Then your time is no longer counted by a grief clock. You are in a different place. I do not know what this next place looks like because I am still grieving. I know what grieving is to me. And so I am learning to sit with it. Be with it. Learn from it so that then I can let it go.

I don't know if everyone else knows all this about grief. I didn't. I didn't know what it meant to grieve- it was an abstract commandment. Thou shall now grieve. I did not understand what that meant. I am figuring it now. So far I can say I have sat with some of the deepest darkest corners of my pain and have not ended up coming so far apart that I could not come together again. I come back different- better or worse is relative- but I always come back.

Here is a great TedTalk on grief from a woman who lost her baby around the time in her pregnancy I did. Her words really resonated with me- maybe they will touch you also

http://youtu.be/gqX3Ygy8NOo