This post is also available as a podcast here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/s-p01/episodes/Grief-e28nvuc

This one was inevitable. We all experience grief in our lives. It comes in waves. It’s never the same. Our greatest griefs surprise us and bury us. At least, that’s my experience. My greatest grief (thus far) was not the one I would have expected. I never thought I’d grieve like this.

Most losses in my life didn’t strike me as hard as I’ve felt in others. I lost my first pets within a year of each other, but it was when I wasn’t living with them anymore. I’d already grieved their losses, in a sense. The day I had to leave the home that we’d shared I also had to let go of them. I knew I could visit them, but I still had to make the transition from living with them to not living with them. Their deaths seemed abstract, unreal. They just weren’t there anymore. I grieved the loss, but it wasn’t the kind of grief that shuts down your life.

My paternal grandmother passed on Christmas morning the year before I was born. I don’t remember a “good” Christmas from my childhood. I only remember my dad’s grief. I felt his grief every Christmas. Christmas was a time of mourning, not joy. I think that’s why I escape to visit my mom; I never want to see my dad on Christmas. (I’m not helping him, and it hurts, but so does seeing him on Christmas.) Grief marks us, it changes us. In his case, it changed those around him, too. When the grief is too heavy and weighs on things outside ourselves, I think we need help.

One of my friends passed away in high school. Only, she wasn’t my friend anymore – she’d cast me out. We were best friends in our Freshman year, but her foster sister threw coins at me on the bus every day. Her foster sister bullied me; sometimes she even caught me somewhere she could corner and threaten me. My friend and I drifted apart after she tried to “save” me and I resisted. I was raised secular and I still do not believe any specific religion is going to save me. I believe in being the best human I can be in the here and now because I don’t know what comes after this life – and all I can do is be my best self now. My friend called me, maybe a week or two before her death. We hadn’t spoken in years, but she called me out of the blue. She had become more popular, she was facing peer pressure, but she was putting on a good face. Even through the phone conversation, I felt her stress. She reached out to me because of the friend I’d been to her. It was a nice chat. Her death came before I ever saw her again.

That was the first shocking death in my life. I was stunned. I was grateful for the phone conversation. I was grateful that I hadn’t fallen into the crowd she chose. She was the face of the anti-drug club on campus, she was the picture of a “good girl,” and she was a true Christian. The official report stated there was ecstasy in her pocket. Why?! That’s why she called me. I still, to this day, have never tried any recreational drugs. She knew me. I was a “good girl,” but I wasn’t Christian – so we couldn’t be friends anymore. Not by my beliefs, but through hers. Somehow, she’d tried to be true to her beliefs and live the life she put forth – but at her death there was evidence the peer pressure took hold. I will not claim to believe she used drugs, or didn’t. I don’t care because my friend died, regardless of whether she used them. If she did, it didn’t change the person she wanted to be. If she didn’t, it doesn’t change the damage of peer pressure or her loss. I got a goodbye, though. That phone call gave me more peace and closure for her than I can explain. Much love for my friend. Whatever comes after in this life, may she rest in peace.

Loss comes in more forms than death. Death is final; we can’t argue with a loss that comes through death. We can’t wish or hope for something to change. The losses that we have to accept, but have the potential for change – those are haunting losses. Losses through folks with addictions – the person we knew is still there, somewhere… but we have no control of when they will be that person again. We stand on the sidelines, loving them and hurting. It’s a battle only they can win, we are just spectators. Sometimes being a spectator is too hard; too much to bear. Then we lose them entirely, in the hope that someday they’ll win the battle without us.

Losses of people in our lives due to disagreements, boundaries, or merely distance (extended lack of contact, or lost contact information.) The moments we see something that reminds us of them, but we can’t reach out. The moments we miss them and know they could walk back into our lives at any moment – but we can’t walk back into theirs. It’s easy to say that when someone shuts us out, we should do the same. I don’t think so. We don’t know what was in their world; we don’t know what they were going through. In my experience, walls just lead to more walls. Walls that keep us from connecting and seeing each other. I don’t want any more walls. Grief or not, if you love someone – don’t wall them out. Please.

I have no advice for these griefs. I don’t feel like I have any wisdom to share, just love. Grief is going to be there, perhaps for a while, or perhaps for the rest of your life. You cannot change it. The losses change us. You can change how you let it affect your interactions in the world. You can embrace all the good in front of you, remembering that anything can be lost in an instant. Embrace what you can, grieve what you cannot. It’s all we can do.

This week’s post needs something uplifting, so I’m going to write about a beginning instead of an ending.

I’ve mentioned before that I was an only child for 10+ years. Well, I got a sibling when I was about 10.5. I remember my mom’s pregnancy, and learning about pregnancy and birth – as much as I could, anyway. Those were the days before the internet and Google. I had to go to the hospital to see the ultrasound, but I still remember it – it was really cool. When my sibling was born, I was at school. My grandmother picked me up that day, she was elated to tell me everything went well. I wanted to be there for the birth. Yes, me, a 10-year-old, wanted to be in the birthing room. I didn’t know any better.

My sibling was a little hot-potato. Newborns feel like large hot-potatoes. They get all swaddled up, and they don’t move much. Squishy little hot potatoes. I remember so many of the lessons I learned about babies and motherhood in that short time. Breastfeeding, crying, the first poop – the whole slough of new things was intriguing to me. My greatest takeaway from having a sibling when I was over 10 years old? I didn’t want to be a mom until I was ready to sacrifice for my child. I gained a more realistic picture of motherhood than anyone else I’ve spoken with. I was old enough to remember the sleepless nights and my empathy allowed me to feel my mother’s exhaustion. When I had my child, I felt the best prepared I could have been. I reveled in it, and I loved it.

Just as we face endings, we also face beginnings. Find the beginnings, and honor the endings.

I’m still here for you. Love, -S.