Grief

This post deals with death and grief. If this subject is too much for you to read right now, don’t read it. It’s not worth hurting yourself.

Losing someone is horrible. The grief that it brings can make living life so hard. You feel it in your body, your mind, and your soul. Getting through it can feel impossible. And it never gets easier. 

For something that is such a natural occurrence, death is a troubling topic. The idea of it can paralyze a person. I’ve unfortunately experienced quite a bit of loss in my life starting at a young age. Grieving as a young person is really odd. The concept of grief is a pretty advanced topic and a lot of times kids don’t have any idea what it is or how to cope with it.

Once you get to be an adult you know what grief is, but we like to ignore it a lot of times. Grief can take over your entire being, but there’s no time to slow down and let it take you. The idea of being consumed by grief is a hard pill to swallow and so, a lot of times, people shove it down. Not dealing with it can sometimes feel better than dealing with it. But, that doesn’t last forever.

Grief that is not dealt with can come up in other aspects of your life and really affect how one lives. I just finished reading All About Love by bell hooks, which I’m sure everyone in my circle knows; I haven’t stopped talking about it. Anyways, in the book she talks about how important it is to experience and work through grief. She believes that opening your heart and loving becomes difficult when you refuse to move through the stages of grief.

I think this is a really interesting idea. It totally makes sense. Grief can cloud the joys of life and can stop us from wanting to cultivate relationships. It can also introduce coping mechanisms based on vices. All of these things can make someone feel very alone and can contribute to the depression stage that you can get stuck in.

I recently lost a friend. He was such a beautiful soul. I hadn’t seen this person since I left college, but he was a very important person to me. I have many beautiful memories with him: deep talks and laughing backstage, trusting each other on stage and sitting in the sunny courtyard talking about our days. We lost him far too soon.

Processing and grieving death is a lot. I’d be lying if I told you I’ve mastered any of this. For the unfortunate amount of people I’ve lost, I don’t know that I’ve fully learned to grieve. It’s hard when you have to learn at a young age; no one really teaches that to you. I’m sure there are plenty of you that can understand that. Grief is one of the hardest things to get through and is a skill that no one ever masters; no one is ever ready for it.

I am finally learning to let myself grieve. I had a night very recently where a rush of sadness for those I’ve lost hit me. It began because I was thinking of someone specific and then all of a sudden I was crying for everyone I’d lost. It was at that moment that I realized that I hadn’t fully grieved these deaths.

In moments of loss and sadness, I tend to be the one who steps up to care for everyone else. I try to heal others’ sadness while trying to run from mine. I know that I must have cried for all of the deaths, but I don’t know that I really let myself feel the weight hit me.

I’m working on it, but like I said, no one is good at grief. But feeling the grief, letting it hit you, is the only way to get through it. And sure, you’re still going to have those moments of sadness. You may feel it extra around the anniversary, but it won’t take over your entire being forever. You will survive it.

When these horrible things happen I like to check in on my people. I tell them I love them. I let them know how important they are to me. I wish I had done these things more often with my friend, and with the others I’ve lost, but it is part of the mystery of life unfortunately. You can’t ever know when devastation is coming. 

So I implore you to do the same. Check in on your people. Tell them you love them as much as you can. Let them know they aren’t alone. You never know what someone is going through until you ask. 

And the last thing: don’t let it take over you forever. Let it take you for a moment. Let yourself sit in whatever you need to, but do that so you can come out on the other side. I’m letting myself do that now. I’m releasing those years of held-in grief. 

So do things to remember and honor the people you’ve lost. Feel the gratitude for having the privilege to know them. Let the memory of them be something you eventually love, and not something you fear. People can live forever through memories, so let those people be immortal.