Experiencing loss…
Yesterday I learned that someone important to me has died. There no sentence to follow the prior one. There’s nothing else to say.
Loss follows an ending. It’s an experience of the lack of something, the lack of someone, that used to be there. It’s indescribable, as though trying to communicate that once there was something and it was terribly important and really nothing is the same without it, but for those who never experienced what has been lost that doesn’t really mean much of anything. A person who experiences loss is, in many ways, alone. Others many be present with them. Others may be able to empathize with them. Others may wish to heal their pain. But the reality is the experience of loss is personal and unique.
It’s possible to experience profound loss in other ways than losing a loved one. The loss of opportunity may feel significant. The loss or states or time, like the loss of youth, strongly impacts people. And we grieve these losses. We can grieve them as much, or sometimes more, than the loss of people. Loss can also be felt in disappointment. Sometimes we expect or anticipate that something will be or turn out a certain way and it just doesn’t. It doesn’t turn out how we expected at all. And we feel beyond sad, we feel devastated. We feel the loss.
Grief…
I had considered writing about grief in this blog. I think winter is a tough season for grief because it is such an internal season. It’s hard to avoid thoughts and feelings related to grief and loss. I think many who have experienced loss may encounter forms of grief during the winter, even if as little as missing a departed friend or family member over the holidays. I had mostly set aside the idea of writing on the topic because it is so heavy, sensitive, and personal, but since it has come into my winter experience it seems appropriate.
I have been through the process of grief so many times and in so many ways over roughly the last 15 years that sometimes I think if I took bereavement leave for each time I would never come back to work. All this (unwanted) experience doesn’t make me an expert, but I have learned a lot about the territory. Here’s my analogy for grief, it’s like being sick. Really, it’s very like having an illness. Our minds seek patterns and predictability. Whether we have lost a loved one, a job, a home, an opportunity, or have had our hopes, dreams, and expectations destroyed, what we are habitually looking for to be there just isn’t. On a physiological level that means our brain has to rewire or repattern to the way things are instead of how the used to be. When we’re in this state we operate at a diminished capacity. We need to recuperate. We need to get well.
It’s worth noting that it’s possible to grieve for someone or something that caused us pain or discomfort because there was a predictability to it, a regularity that we could count on. A way to know if you’re experiencing loss or grief is to notice if you are seeking or anticipating a pattern, a presence, and action, or another usual experience that isn’t there. When you notice that it isn’t there usually you will experience some amount of pain. We need time and energy to rewire to the change to our experiences and expectations after a loss.
However, I have felt the feeling of not wanting to rewire. That absolute resistance to being okay with a world that was missing my beloved. I understand that the world is wrong after a loss, and it makes no sense to think of it in any other way. I have felt this feeling many times, and I think it is normal. I don’t think you can choose out of it. In grief we need rest and quiet. In grief we need a winter season for ourselves to be in the dark. I have lived in the dark of grief for long stretches of time. For a while it’s the only place that makes sense.
Eventually, and often without force or will, something new will begin to emerge. There is a kind of spring that follows the winter of grief. The broken dark world starts to shape into a different world. I’m sorry to say, you can never go back, and when you feel back into that prior world it will hurt because it is gone. Instead, if you look around at this new world you may find something good, something to move into, something different that’s possible. I have learned that there comes a time after the mental and emotional devastation of loss when looking forward is the only option and the right option. It’s possible to honor what has been lost in moving forward, but not to take what was lost into the future. It’s possible to transform something of what was lost that still remains with you or within you and let that become something of the present and the future. This is the way forward, but it is a process. There’s no deciding to get over something, there’s just feeling the loss, recovering from the shock and upheaval of grief, and then turning toward what’s now and what’s next and making that as good as it can be.
I have also spent considerable time thinking about what would be important to those who I have lost. What would they want me to do? Who would they want me to be? How would they want to be included in the times ahead? Depending on the person I have different answers, but I believe everyone I’ve lost who loved me would want me to live. Live well. Live brightly. Live fully. Live without regret. Live actively and not to let life pass me by. Add good things to the world. Do interesting things in the world. Laugh and play and love and appreciate the opportunities that remain. Be sad. Feel the pain, the loss. But don’t let the loss prevent you from being here and being alive while you still can.
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