Since I walked my father into the valley of the shadow of death five years ago, I have used poetry as a way to process what I was only dimly beginning to grasp. I see it as a snapshot of the things I know are there, but I can’t see.
And every now and then there is something I write that is neither a poem nor is it prose. A prose-poem is apparently an actual literary thing.
During Covid, I wrote the following prose-poem where I thought about the feminine characteristics of grief.
The Gifts of Grief
She comes to you as a crying mess. Welcome her anyway. Her tears will heal and will wash away the soul sludge.
At times she may feel like an unwanted stranger. But she won’t stay forever. Don’t look down on her bad reputation. Ban her and she will go underground, her energy stored in the earth.
We miss the ways that she wants to bless us. She helps our spirits to heal; she gives us space to transition; she rightsizes our understanding of time and loss. She gives us a kind of spiritual stretching.
I want to celebrate her, but she has few friends; better some paper mache over the hole inside than to expose the throbbing.
When we attach, we assimilate. You connect to my spirit; I invite you to join my spiritual mesh. When you leave, that part of me that attached leaves with you. I don’t just say goodbye to you, but to a piece of myself.
She is the scab where scar tissue forms. Sometimes I’m a hemophiliac – I just bleed and never scab over.
But I’ve got scars where scabs used to be, and losses that didn’t heal properly.
Think about all of the things you loved that you lose. Not just a person, but the quiet thrills of discovering new things about that person. Not just your health, but your ability to run long distances or throw frisbees. Not just your hope, but finding it subtly replaced by cynicism that feels like a rock in your shoe.
Our pets give us the chance to practice losing. Hamster burials gave way to dog funerals in our home. They didn’t get any easier, but the practice was good.
Animals suffer too. We see videos of elephants mourning their losses. All creation groans on this side of revelation. Does the groan come from the gap we sense between what is and what will be? Is it the groan of birthing pains?
We are constantly losing parts of ourselves. We slough off skin daily, giving us the opportunity to transition by degrees to a spiritual realm that stands on tiptoes waiting to receive us.
I inoculate myself to the pain of loss by practicing thoughts of death. Is that morose or just good metaphysical hygiene?
My children think they think of death too much – did I bring a grey discoloration to their perspective?
Grief is irrepressible. She will always find her way to daylight, even if in a dysfunctional way. Better to make friends with the natural order, choosing to focus our spirits not on the loss, but the transformation. Bodies aging require grieving for the spirit to keep up.
We need to grieve the lack of grieving. We are losing so much.
Photo – thanks to Dani Franco
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Seth, this is weighty and insightful. With a family genetic history of Huntington’s Disease and a divorced but still loved first wife who finally succumbed to breast cancer, death has been hit head on. A powerful memory etched on my psyche was being with you and your father before he passed away. My 40 year friend, one of us will go first. If it’s me l don’t want to miss the chance to say again you are loved, honored and respected. Love you.
Butch
Thanks, Butch. Yeah, it’s good to be able to hang onto friends. Thanks for choosing friendship. As David Whyte has written, “a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble. Friendship can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.”
Amen
Amen Seth on ALL levels.
To this day I have never found a grief group that I could relate to though. Most of them are books and films and just aren’t real. I even tried to start my own grief group and it didn’t work. Grief is just too complicated to put in a group… I’m pretty convinced of that at this point.
Grief and mourning are the compliments to intimacy and love; they are proportional as well. The deeper our intimacy and love, the greater our grief. They are the “tail side of the coin,” and the price we pay for knowing and loving others. We will lose everyone we know and love, either after their exit, or ours. For most of us, losing a loved one is life’s greatest trauma. Like a tree’s burl, our lives can grow around our losses, and heal, if mourned in a healthy, helpful way. I host two Widows & Widower’s support groups, and periodically facilitate the Griefshare curriculum. I conduct funerals too frequently (two in the past 7 days, for example). My experience with grief support groups has been that we go further, grow and heal faster, if we go with others –others who have “been there, done that” and have a broken heart as proof. What has been most effective is simply to provide a forum for people to share their “Love Story” or their “Loss Story,” while we listen to empathize, support, comfort, encourage, and share “best practices” with those who do. Grieving in an increasinly “grief illiterate” culture is challenging. As Christ-followers, we share in Jesus’ mission found in Isaiah 61:1-3, and shared by Jesus in his “Inaugural address” in his hometown synogogue recorded in Luke 4. May we all embrace Jesus’ mission to bind up the broken-hearted, to free prisoners, and release captives, and to comfort those who mourn. Mourning is heavy lifting, but the price we pay for knowing others intimately, and loving them deeply. Fortunately, death is never a “good bye” to those who share our faith in Jesus, rather a “see you later.” Thanks for your thoughts on Love’s unwanted partner, Grief.
“love’s unwanted partner” – that’s a good turn of phrase, Kevin. Good comments here from a man who has walked so many people through grief.