Grief

[There is no song for this post. No song comes to mind or feels appropriate.]

Grief is a complicated thing. Sounds obvious and unremarkable to say, something that goes without saying, but like most things we don’t say it enough.

It hides in the shadows and ebbs and flows in its own way and time.

For grief, time is an illusion. It’s a continuous spectrum. A spectrum that can be pulled forwards and backwards any time grief decides to rear its ugly head.

We most often translate grief to loss of life but it’s so much more than that. We grieve almost all which we lose, which includes life at the highest part of the tier, but so much more is lost on a daily basis.

As children we grieve the loss of our favorite crayons, teddy bears, favorite books, and if we are unlucky the loss of things that are beyond our comprehension at that age.

As we grow up we begin to grieve the loss of our childhood. We grieve the loss of relationships. This continues throughout our lives whether they be friendships or relationships with those we consider lovers.

Finally, as adults we grieve all these pieces again in a time continuum for we are never really done grieving anything. That’s the funny thing about grief. It stays with us forever. Grief is never gone. We learn to accept it and live with it but grief forever stays with us. It flows through our lives for old and new things.

The joy in one thing can make us think of the grief in another thing. Both emotions are often times so connected that the beginning of one is the end of the other. Without one the other doesn’t hold its same power.

Both are so powerful that we sometimes grieve that which we haven’t yet lost and rejoice over that which hasn’t yet happened.

And the complication only grows when ones grief is another’s joy. What a paradoxical emotion.

Grief is an emotion, which can be shared between those that have shared a similar experience. Indeed, felt on levels unimaginable to others.

I don’t believe in coincidences and so I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that I began writing this post yesterday evening before the news broke about the passing of Chadwick Bosemen. A man who privately battled colon cancer for 4 years and passed away at 43. Far too young, far too talented, and far stronger than we knew. To know now that he filmed such legendary films in between surgeries and chemotherapy is to speak of strength many of us may never understand.

I feel grief for his passing on levels that I never thought I would be able to. It hit me like a tidal wave this morning as I read the headlines. I grieve everything he and his family have lost. The ebb and flow of grief striking hard and fast. Thinking, that superheroes truly do exist.

Grief is a complicated thing. Sounds obvious and unremarkable to say, something that goes without saying, but like most things we don’t say it enough.

[Image by Kat Jayne on Pexels.]