“The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.” ~ Kristina McMorris
Today (Oct. 2) marks seven years since the death of my oldest son, Ethan, at the age of 25. Them: “It’s been so long and you’re still grieving?” Me: “Well, they’re still dead. So yes.”
Once grief becomes a part of your life, it doesn’t go away. It’s like getting a tattoo. It’s a permanent addition. For a few weeks every year, the grief is especially tender. It tends to sneak up on me when I’m not expecting it. Like Saturday when I saw at least half a dozen C.R. England trucks on the way to the eye doctor. (Ethan drove for them for almost a year. For months after his death when I passed one of their trucks, I thought I saw him behind the wheel.)
The last seven years have given me the opportunity to do a deep (and unasked for) dive into grief and mourning. What I’ve found is that we are really bad at grief, despite the fact it’s a universal condition, not limited to physical death of loved ones, and triggered by all sorts of loss or traumatic change.
We avoid grief, deny it, run from it, try to drown it or smother it, pretend it’s not real, feel ashamed and embarrassed when it keeps reappearing long past whatever is considered socially acceptable, and generally do a terrible job incorporating it into our lives because it makes us uncomfortable and it makes other people uncomfortable, too.
As a result, people try to accommodate this unfamiliar entity in all sorts of unhealthy ways. One of the most common, in my opinion, is the tendency to build walls of anger and bitterness and sarcasm around our grief and just become angry at the world. Well, why wouldn’t be angry? Death is often cruel and unfair. I think many of the angry, spiteful, unreasonable people we know are the way they are because of unresolved grief. Most of our favorite storybook villains have a complex backstory that’s infused with grief and loss, but whoever checks the villain’s backstory?
On the other hand, some of the most compassionate, considerate, kind and gracious people we know are that way because they, too, have experienced grief. What they did with it, however, is different.
I’m trying to think of grief like a secret superpower. If I yield, it produces positive results, like gratitude and kindness and compassion. However, if I resist it, in a futile attempt to avoid pain, it transforms into a dark, shadowy thing with the potential to cause harm to myself or to anyone else around me. The choice is mine.