When I grieve, I always perceive the emotions as ‘bad’, as dark and painful. Horribly, grief is like a staticky sweater – it keeps picking up more and more grief. If something happens to cause grief, I will not only keen and mourn for that issue/event/person, but all of those who/which have come before. Layers on layers, a drop of water that floats me to a well that pulls me into the abyss. Over the edge I go...
I am a guest diarist - typically a lurker who stumbled onto this series several weeks ago. Trapped in my own cycle of grief (more below, of course), I was touched and heartened to find others here openly struggling with this issue. I volunteered to fill in, and decided at the time to explore the stage of accepting and living with grief - a place I wish to find.
Grief piles up in a persons life.
My first grief – my only grandfather passed suddenly just after he retired. I wasn’t told about until I got home from camp. I felt I had missed the whole thing. The next pain arrived when I experienced a painful and confusing breakup in college. Just months after that, my mother died. Each event, and those that would follow, trigger all of my memories, the abandonment I felt, the aloneness. These days, I could be a paid mourner with the grief experience I have...
But good grief - is there such a thing?
Perhaps not while one is deep in it’s arms, it’s harsh grasp. But later?
Good grief is the familiar soft pain you feel in the years after a loss. The tears you can shed as you smile at a memory, though still feeling the loss. This is the grief that you can savor.
Good grief is grief that is good because the love you have still holds you, not the loss.
Losing my mother stands at the core of my grieving, and after nearly 30 years, I still find tears, I still miss her. But she has been gone so long, I don't know where she would fit. These days I grieve an idea, a bulky pile of memories rather than a person, and I can do so without becoming lost. A gentle sweep of emotions, a breeze on my face, and then I move on. The soft fragrance of bittersweet, not the soul wrenching pain of long ago.
My current grief centers around the loss of a longterm relationship. Thirteen years with a man who simply can't commit. I had to leave. Had to. He is moving into a new phase of his life without me, and now I need to figure out where I am heading. I grieve through all of my pores; the person I could share a bed with, my companion, my partner, my future dreams, our rocky past, the family that is gone, everything. Everything is in the air, and I feel frightened, fragile and lost. Grief overwhelms me (remember the abyss...). I yearn for the day when I will feel good grief.
If good grief is healthy, natural and experienced by all of us, then bad grief is the loss of that which never was – the loss of a desire, a yearning. The pregnancy that miscarried, the relationship that was doomed, the things we couldn’t possibly know, but still mourn.
I can accept good grief, but really need to get rid of the bad stuff. It traps me in a cycle of regret and fear. To that end, I am trying to go running every evening, inviting my small circle of friends over to grill in the yard, taking a meditative yoga class (really, really helpful), and trying to make future plans with a cognitive therapist. Today, I'm okay. I'll have my bad days. But one day, this time will be sorted out, and what I choose to hold on to will be the good grief.
Good grief is grief that is good because the love you have still holds you, not the loss.
How are you doing? Do you have any ideas for moving from grief to good grief?