Room for Grief

Tending to Endings (thirteen)

I welcome grief like it is some unknown beast growling on my front porch in the middle of the night. I lean hard against the door, wedge chairs beneath the handle, brace myself like my life depends on it. Grief slips beneath the kick plate, oozes in through the mailbox, enters my life and my body in ways I find confusing.

One afternoon after I returned from my mom’s Celebration of Life last spring, I met a friend at an Indian restaurant. Over the six months prior I had left my job of ten years, lived apart from my husband and close friends, and cared for my mom during her final months of life.

Even I knew grief was in order. But that doesn’t mean it showed up in ways that made sense.

At the restaurant, we had just made our way to the buffet line when a family joined us. Under normal circumstances, I would grin at the two-year-old who was hopping up and down in front of the naan making her shoes blink. I am a kid person.

But on this day I shot a look at the mom, expecting her to save me from plowing over the toddler. She remained oblivious, traveling back and forth in a very disorganized fashion narrating entrees to the older children who also moved every which way in front of the buffet. Then her husband jumped in line in front of me reaching over his daughter to grab his own bread and moving on.

I carried my empty plate back to the booth to wait so I would not yell at a two-year-old or her parents. It was not empathy that stopped me, but some niggling suspicion that if I unloaded, I would eventually feel embarrassed.

People grieve differently. Some people hike the Camino de Santiago or wail along a wall or build a huge sculpture in the desert.

I become petty and irritable. Or at least that is one sign that I am experiencing loss. Things that normally don’t bother me feel personal and important. Newly aware of the fragility and preciousness of life, I think I should be kind toward all. Instead am self-centered and afraid. 

When the pandemic news began ramping up and we were beginning to recognize how our lives were changing, one of my friends posted on facebook, “Don’t forget to take time for yourself to ugly-stress cry.” I read it and thought, oh right, that.

We have lost jobs and school days and music festivals and sports seasons and symphonies and church and therapy and family vacations and retirement funds and graduations and weddings and funerals and coffee dates and the ability to go to the store without fear and hugs from grandchildren and a sense of security however illusionary it may be.

Of course, grief is in order. And it is in me, waiting.

A friend of mine often says, “Grief is not a character defect.” This is comforting and true. But sometimes my grief squeezes into shapes that look a lot like character defects.

I check the news obsessively though I know it makes me feel worse not better and it interferes with my ability to be present for people and for creative work. I am sharp with my husband even though he is a kind person and currently the only human I can hold hands with or sit next to or hug.

One upside of having just gone through a big life loss before this pandemic is that I became aware of my own grief cycle, or maybe more of an avoid-grief cycle. It looked something like this:

1. Do something productive, let’s say write a chapter of my book
2. Sense a wave of uncomfortable feelings arise
3. Pick up my phone and scroll through Twitter to distract myself from the feeling
4. Berate myself for being undisciplined and unfocused
5. Feel worse
6. Repeat

This happened a lot in the early months after my mom died. I was trying to write a book, and I knew time was short. At first I tried to fix steps 1-3, telling myself I needed to Be Present. Let myself feel. Maybe under normal, non-grief conditions that would work.

But not last year, and at some point I decided to just allow that my distractedness was part of my grief. Instead of focusing on being more disciplined, I decided to skip step four altogether. I would notice I was scrolling rather than writing, and I did not have to say one mean thing to myself about it!

In The Five Invitations, Frank Ostaseski writes about how we tend to think the inner critic is motivating us when it is actually getting in our way. He says, “It is neither a conscience nor a reliable moral guide, and it isn’t the voice of wisdom.”

When I skipped judging myself, I could also skip feeling worse. It turns out, four and five were very sticky steps. I got a lot more feeling and a lot more writing in when I let them go. Eventually I even finished a draft of my book.

My judgements–whether aimed at the toddler in a buffet line or my husband or myself–are almost always a futile attempt to regain control. Sometimes they are sneaky. When I say to myself, for instance, other people have it much worse (which is always true) it also carries an implication: Who are you to grieve? As though sadness is a limited resource with only so much to go around.

Today I am sad because my father is far away from family and close friends. The anniversary of my mom’s death is approaching and this is the first year in 57 that he does not have Jane by his side. We can’t fly to Hawaii because of pandemic measures and he shouldn’t return to Chicago until it is safer to do so. I am sad that my dad is alone during such a difficult time.

I have a friend who is caring for parents in much more dire circumstances than we are right now. I’m glad I know today that in order to be available for her, I must be willing to feel my own grief. It is the exact thing that helps me connect with others. It is the foundation of empathy.

Ostaseski writes,

The willingness to be with our suffering gives rise to an internal resourcefulness that we can carry forward into all areas of our lives. We learn that whatever we give space to can move.

Many years ago, my friend Debbie had just graduated from University of Arizona and was planning to join her beloved in Venezuela. She was saying goodbye to friends and packing while he had gone ahead to look for a place for them to live. Then Luis died in a car accident while helping his brother-in-law learn to drive. 

Instead of going to Venezuela to begin a new life, Debbie flew there to meet Luis’s family and attend his funeral. As soon as she arrived relatives took shopping for black clothes. She dressed in black for the remainder of the trip. It was helpful, Debbie said, because no one expected her to be normal. Everyone treated her gently and gave her leeway, which was a relief amidst so much lost.

Everyone I know and everyone I don’t know these days is experiencing loss. We are not just in self-isolation, we are in mourning.

During these strange days I find myself walking on the trail with my heart full of love for the earth beneath my feet, for the hikers who smile when they pass, for the hawk circling over head. I am just so grateful to be here.

And ten steps later I want to swear at the runner who doesn’t say thank you when I move out of his way.

Then I begin the climb up the hill where I spot a stone that a child painted and left in a nest of grass. To Mom is penned in crooked letters, and I am standing next to bitterbrush weeping.

This is a lot to have and it is a lot to lose. I’m good with not being normal, for you too. No matter what shape grief comes, it seems wise to make room, to give grace.

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