We Will Be the Shore

Grief is a funny, paradox of a thing.  It's something I've known deeply for the last 4.5 years.  Something I think everyone experiences in different ways.  No one is exempt; we all lose someone at some point.  I know we can grieve things like the loss of a job or the loss of a dream, the loss of a relationship or the loss of home.  But what I'm writing about tonight is specific to losing someone you love to death.  To burying someone.  And it seems so many people around me have started the long walk with Grief recently.  It's something I've felt like I need to write about, and I've put it off for a long time.  I'm not sure why.  But it's to the point where I can't not write about it anymore, the point where there is this nudging in me saying tell them what you know. Give them words. Give them your heart.  So here we are.

This is for all of you wrecked and ravaged by Grief, learning how it bends and breaks and holds you in pieces all at once.

I've heard a lot of sayings about Grief being like the ocean, how it swallows you up and makes you feel like you're drowning.  How it comes in waves and tides.  Those things are all true.  But I'm convinced the people who have gone before you in Grief, who understand the ebb and flow of it, they will be your shore.  They will be the lighthouse and the ground you can look for when everything else is water.  When I see my friends figuring out this thing of Grief, the one thing I keep thinking is that I want to be their shore.  I want to be a steady, constant presence they can come to when they feel lost.  And Grief feels less empty if I know what I've learned from it can be salve for someone else experiencing it.

Here are some things I know about Grief.

The funeral is not the hardest part.  It's painful and surreal and seems like the hardest thing at the time, but it isn't.  Because your mind and your heart are kind enough to go into survival mode, and you do just that: you survive.  And people are in the trenches with you.  They bring you food and they write you cards and they say a lot of beautiful things about the person you're missing and there are people around all the time.  And then a few months go by and it seems like a lot of people forget.  They don't, but life keeps moving and it isn't the funeral week anymore.

The ground around the gravestone will harden.  This seems silly to point out, but one day when you visit the grave it won't look new anymore and that will somehow surprise you.  It will look appallingly permanent.  And you will see the stark contrast of the ground being settled with the truth, even though your heart is not. Even though your heart still feels raw and tender.  The ground will just be another reminder of the way time has kept moving against your wish.  You will find the funniest things to be angry at, and I hated the ground for a long time.  Don't hate the ground for ignoring your pain and settling in around the stone.  It's just doing its job.

You will hate muscle memory.  The way you still reach for the phone to call them or text them.  The way you look at the door when it's 7pm thinking they'll walk through it any minute.  The way you still look for them when you walk into a room.

You think you know the days that will be heavier than others: their birthday, the anniversary of their death, etc.  But sometimes it's a Tuesday in line at the post office and you'll cry in your car for 30 minutes before driving home.

Grief really is one of the biggest paradoxes.  It will make you feel so isolated and lonely but so deeply connected to others.  It will look so different for you than for others but also so much the same.  You will feel held together in pieces.  It will make you feel everything all at once and nothing at all.  The juxtaposition of death making you really live.  Learn to respect the contrast and try to find the in betweens.

While Grief has some universal truths, this will be very much personal for you.  Don't compare yourself to how others are grieving.  You're allowed to feel and figure your way through getting to know Grief and what it looks like for you.  So if you're needing permission, here it is.  Grieve.  Whatever that looks like for you.  But I will also tell you that you will have to live with the ways you choose to grieve.  I will also also tell you that you affect the people around you with the ways you choose to grieve. Be selfish but be gracious.  Be unapologetic about your feelings, but be aware.

I think at first you try to resist it.  But then you learn to respect the way Grief seems to become part of your breath—there without thinking about it actively all the time.  At some point you stop fighting it and learn to walk beside it, knowing it won't leave but at least you can keep moving.

You will never feel completely whole again.  You will learn to live with that empty space that somehow becomes a part of you.  You will somehow learn to love the way it has deepened your senses and made you grateful, even if it sucks.  Because it sucks, but you do the best you can.

You will feel like you'll never understand Grief, but then someone around you will join the grieving club and you'll realize you can take their hand and understand moments of their pain.  And I think that's part of the charge given to people who have begrudgingly welcomed Grief into their story sooner than others: we walk with the new ones.  We validate their pain and acknowledge the deep, personal way Grief holds them and takes up every ounce of headspace.  We tell them on a Wednesday night years after the funeral that we haven't forgotten the person they lost and we know they will always miss them.

When they feel like they're drowning and disoriented, we will be the shore.