Grief is a strange entity for its unpredictability, its tugging, its palpability, its pinpoint. Everyone has felt grief, and everyone has felt joy, but grief is defensible. No one lays claim to other emotions the same way; few are able to admit-especially in the onset of its clutches- that any other has felt this grief. It’s the only emotion where context truly matters, where the grieving can grip their pain with the surety that none other has ever felt the exact same style of grief.
Grief is tailored to us, a worn grey dress. We all own it, we all have worn it, we all pray it stays folded at the bottom of the drawer; and though they’re all of the same cloth, each is cut a little differently. We’ve each embroidered it in our own way.
Grief is fleeting. Not in that it disappears quickly, for even a moment of grief feels like an eternity; but in how it comes and goes. A smell, a memory, a sharp crash- and everything comes flooding back. Grief is an active emotion- it must be remembered to have an impact. The few moments after waking up carry the most bliss for the grieving, for in those groggy seconds, the reasons for a heavy heart aren’t quite to the forefront of the mind.
“
The hearts of my Church, of my family community there, my brothers and sisters, pour out today for the loss of a woman: a mother, a wife, a friend. Her daughter is an integral part of our ministry. So we grieve, they grieve, those closest to the family cry, we all hold our living parents a little closer to our hearts. We all pray for grace like a blanket to cover up that grey. We all know Grief, we know her intimately, and she knows us.
Unique and yet unifying.
So grief is sorrow, it’s bitter, and we never wish for it. When it’s folded softly away, we forget its existence. But as lamentable as the causes of grief, shouldn’t we, as mortal beings, be glad for her at some level?
The loss of something means it once existed, and meant something- and the things that mean something change us and mold us into who we are. Pocahontas, the Disney version, speaks to that:
Pocahontas: It would've been better if we never met. None of this would've happened.
John Smith: Pocahontas, look at me. I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.
Pocahontas: I can't leave you.
John Smith: You never will. No matter what happens to me, I'll always be with you, forever.
Grief is tailored to us, a worn grey dress. We all own it, we all have worn it, we all pray it stays folded at the bottom of the drawer; and though they’re all of the same cloth, each is cut a little differently. We’ve each embroidered it in our own way.
Grief is fleeting. Not in that it disappears quickly, for even a moment of grief feels like an eternity; but in how it comes and goes. A smell, a memory, a sharp crash- and everything comes flooding back. Grief is an active emotion- it must be remembered to have an impact. The few moments after waking up carry the most bliss for the grieving, for in those groggy seconds, the reasons for a heavy heart aren’t quite to the forefront of the mind.
“
“My heart’s broken,” he thought. “If I feel this way my heart must be broken.”
After a while he heard his father blow out the lamp and go into his own room. He heard a wind come up in the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the screen. He lay for a long time with his face in the pillow, and after a while he forgot to think about Prudence and finally he went to sleep. When he awoke in the night he heard the wind in the hemlock trees outside the cottage and the waves of the lake coming in on the shore, and he went back to sleep. In the mornings there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.
After a while he heard his father blow out the lamp and go into his own room. He heard a wind come up in the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the screen. He lay for a long time with his face in the pillow, and after a while he forgot to think about Prudence and finally he went to sleep. When he awoke in the night he heard the wind in the hemlock trees outside the cottage and the waves of the lake coming in on the shore, and he went back to sleep. In the mornings there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.
”
Ernest Hemingway
Ten Indians
Ernest Hemingway
Ten Indians
The hearts of my Church, of my family community there, my brothers and sisters, pour out today for the loss of a woman: a mother, a wife, a friend. Her daughter is an integral part of our ministry. So we grieve, they grieve, those closest to the family cry, we all hold our living parents a little closer to our hearts. We all pray for grace like a blanket to cover up that grey. We all know Grief, we know her intimately, and she knows us.
Unique and yet unifying.
So grief is sorrow, it’s bitter, and we never wish for it. When it’s folded softly away, we forget its existence. But as lamentable as the causes of grief, shouldn’t we, as mortal beings, be glad for her at some level?
The loss of something means it once existed, and meant something- and the things that mean something change us and mold us into who we are. Pocahontas, the Disney version, speaks to that:
Pocahontas: It would've been better if we never met. None of this would've happened.
John Smith: Pocahontas, look at me. I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.
Pocahontas: I can't leave you.
John Smith: You never will. No matter what happens to me, I'll always be with you, forever.
We hold onto that, as grievers. The idea that those lost are forever with us- even if not in a physical sense.
And somehow, with time, it becomes almost enough.
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