Holding the Hand of Grief

This week when I mentioned my father’s upcoming 3 year death anniversary, my therapist (that’s right, I’m not only the president if the Tell-Your-Therapist Club, I’m a client) asked me if it feels any different–any easier–this year. I wanted to say yes. I almost did say yes. But rule #1 in The Club is: Don’t lie to your therapist. That’s an enormous waste of everyone’s time.

The answer is no. It doesn’t feel better; it doesn’t feel resolved. I miss him. I feel regret over the things I should have said, the things I should not have said. I want to say goodbye. Properly. I cannot. I was short changed. I was cheated and there is no number to call to lodge a complaint. I just have an ache and dreams I want to believe. It sucks. It’s unfair and that will be the case for the rest of my life.
One of the things that comes up again and again in these conversations about grief is: ‘Well, so what do I do then?’
I think the question is really, what are you willing to do? There is no pill, no erasing this person from your memory. There is no shortcut. Grief is difficult, uncomfortable, analog work. It rests its hand on the small of your back, digs its chin into your shoulder and waits for you to acknowledge it. It will not be ignored. I’m not suggesting that you drop your responsibilities, quit washing your hair, and sit in its lap. That’s terrible advice.
I’m proposing that perhaps, we must stop and hold the hand of the particular grief that arrives for us. We must each be willing to do this work as many times as it presents itself. One effective method for dealing with the isolation of trauma, which is fed by shame, is public confrontation–narration. Telling the story again and again and again. Grief, on the other hand, because it is so universal, may be best served through private ritual. THIS IS JUST A THOUGHT. I AM NOT A THERAPIST. (Full disclosure: I am typing this as I drink old-fashioneds at a hotel bar in Pittsburgh by myself. Karaoke night has just begun, and I am stubbornly acting like I don’t hear it–I am not your leader). Please just wonder with me here.
I think what makes grief so hard to overcome entirely–even within the most supportive community–is its individuality. My sisters’ grief is different than my own. My mother’s grief is another animal altogether. We have to make time to sit with it. This will not be fun. It will SUCK. But it’s real. And maybe it’s how we honor our dead. Not just through ceremony and memorial. But through the actual pain of remembering.

This morning I received a poem via email from the poet Joy Jacobson, who can’t possibly know this is what I’ve been considering. But poets are magic. I’ve long ago stopped trying to make sense of that. Read it. And give yourself over to grieving, if that’s what you know you need.

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When the wind died, there was a moment of silence
for the wind. When the maple tree died, there was always a place
to find winter in its branches. When the roses died, I respected the privacy
of the vase. When the shoe factory died, I stopped listening
at the back door to the glossolalia of machines.
When the child died, the mother put a spoon in the blender.
When the child died, the father dug a hole in his thigh
and got in. When my dog died, I broke up with the woods.
When the fog lived, I went into the valley to be held
by water. The dead have no ears, no answering machines
that we know of, still we call.

–Bob Hicok, from Elegy Owed

ps: there’s a couple singing Piano Man. I have to close my tab and get out of here. Now.