Things we do in grief
Braving a stormy season
The dog died. That’s how it began. A small snowball at the top of the mountain.
A friend suffered a health trauma.
Another began to battle the justice system for horrific wrongdoing.
Another sought protection as a criminal was released back onto the streets.
Two women, unconnected but known to us, both young mothers, suffered random neurological incidents. They were bizarre, frightening and life-altering and required long recovery.
A past student, a genius at 22, died suddenly. Everyone in shock.
The snowball - now heavy with sludge from the side of the mountain and roughly the size of a house - keeps rolling.
Every once in a while, you will suffer a direct loss. It’s unavoidable. A spouse, a family member, your best friend - and it will be so great it will colour the world in a new shade for the rest of your life. These are atomic bombs.
More common are the sharper griefs. Someone known to you is going through something horrific. Someone you knew for a chapter of your life passes suddenly. Random tragedies that are both close and not close and strike you as bullets. Enough of them at once, and the world comes undone.
These pains are unavoidable and horrific. The feeling of grief - cold, immovable, desperately uncomfortable - settles in. And because we are human and don’t like to be in pain, we feel there must be something we can do to resolve it. This feeling is solvable, if I do the right series of actions at the right moments.
I clean the house, light incense, and play early Taylor Swift.
I write an appreciation post for a friend whom I love very much.
I talk to friends closer to the tragedies than I am and offer comfort.
I want to sleep and hide, but I can’t. And so I disassociate for days, going through the actions of my life (being father, a husband), in a numbed daze.
I read The Stand, by Stephen King, filled with random death and horror, before I realise I shouldn’t. And then I read Superman comics instead.
I spend more money than I should on new board games, eat a burger and feel sick.
I drink every night for three nights and wake up with my toddler at five am feeling a desert in my mouth.
Nothing is resolved. The feeling remains, although it undulates in severity.
Grief is grief. There is no right or wrong. There is no way to solve it, although other verbs may be possible: to surrender to it, dance with it, kneel to it, converse with it -
But fight it? Solve it? Out-smart it?
No.
Whatever you’re feeling and however you’re managing is right. You can only do your best.
Stephen Fry talks about depression as a storm.
The first mistake is to think it’s not real. “This isn’t real, I’m being silly.” It is real. It is really raining in your head.
“What did I do to make it rain?” You did nothing. It’s not your fault.
“I’m stuck like this forever.” You aren’t. The sun will come out again. It will stop raining.
I hug my daughters and smell their hair.
I shout for joy when I watch the Brisbane Lions score a goal.
I admire my wife’s elegant beauty.
I wait for the rain to pass.
Beautiful!
I love you, my friend.