Grief Revisited …

Grief never really goes away but sometimes it feels closer than others. And these past few weeks have been and continue to be one of those times when its presence is unavoidable. And perhaps that is it, I’ve been avoiding it, happily whiling away the summer immersed in the wonders of denial. I don’t know. But what I do know is it has hit me again with full force. And it hurts. A lot.

First off it got triggered through a seemingly innocent Pixar film. ‘Brave’, in case you were wondering. So much rich material around the mother/daughter relationship, much of which reminded me of the lessons and gifts that Margaret gave me in her mothering of me. By the end of the film, I was sobbing. A good healthy release I thought.

But it continued to simmer beneath the surface for a few weeks. And then an unexpected encounter with the sister who looks so like Margaret, left me totally floored. KO’d they call it in Boxing terms. And it was only the count down on the alarm and the call of my responsibility’s that dragged me back up to face it all again.

I just wasn’t prepared to be knocked clean out by the weight of the grief again. Not that I’m sure we can ever really be prepared. And if we could, perhaps we would simply duck out of its way.

But when these grief phases hit me, those individuals who have been there and just get it, become TOTALLY invaluable. Because grief is painful and lonely enough without being surrounded by people who don’t get it. So when you find those who do, talk to them!

Because grief isn’t something we simply ‘deal with’ or ‘get shot of’.

Grief is something that comes to us and we have to walk it through, feeling it, until it dissipates again. Not that it ever goes away entirely. But it does move out of the foreground at times. At least, that is my experience.

And herein lay one of the difficulties in understanding mental and emotional health.

We live in an age of the instant. Most things can be accessed in an instant.

We want something.

We get it.

Now.

No waiting.

Whether it’s the latest box set online, a car on credit or any other stuff.

No one wants to wait for anything anymore.

We want stuff. And we want it now. Even if we have to work so many hours that we pay with the quality of our life/health.

But when it comes to our health, we can’t have things in an instant. We have to wait. We can’t simply buy our health to be as we want it to be. We have to engage with the process of healing. Even if you can afford to skip some queues by going private. And this process takes time and it brings frustration and a whole bunch of other usually unwanted feelings.

It’s how it is.

There is no other way.

Sure, we can get meds to take away this or take away that but even they come at a cost of side effects.

Health is one of the few areas where no matter how much money we have or how hard we pray, we still have to walk the path of healing and growth. (And ultimately, the path of deterioration in to death!)

There is no short cut for healing.

No quick fix.

No miracle pill.

Or even prayer.

It’s just hard.

And any denial or glossing over of that fact, makes it harder.

Unfortunately, our culture just wants to pay or pray to get rid of anything it doesn’t want to feel. And this applies as much to a broken limb as to a broken heart.

We want it better and we want it better now. And we’re willing to pay.

But there are no instant magical cures.

The human body and soul can break. And when they do, they need time and care to heal. No amount of money can pay to fast track this.

We don’t like this. We want the meds to spare us or God to heal us in an instant. And when these don’t happen, we often just don’t know what to do with ourselves and our frustrations, disappointments, resentments and plain sorrows.

We haven’t learned. We want health given to us on a plate. We don’t want to engage with a process that can evoke more pain, to reach the place of healing.

We don’t like it.

And I am no exception.

I don’t like feeling full of sorrow. I don’t like the emotional fatigue that accompanies it. I don’t like the loss of energy. And I don’t like not knowing how long it will last.

I just don’t like it. In fact, I totally ****** hate it. (And of the course the anger part of grief is SO socially unacceptable!). I Understand it. But that doesn’t afford me a fast pass through it.

However, I am learning not to waste my currently diminished energy reserves on fighting the process. Some of the time!

If I feel crap, I cut myself some slack. Mostly! I let myself off the hook a bit. I pull back. I say no. I take any self imposed pressure off. I tend to myself in the way that I need. Just as I might encourage another to do.

Because sometimes, this business of being a human can really hurt.

And what none of us need when we’re hurting is to put ourselves under unnecessary pressure. Sure, life doesn’t stop for any of us. But we can look at our loads realistically and decide what can wait.

We can in short, look after ourselves with compassion and understanding rather than impatience and condemnation.

I’ve experienced a lot of sorrow these past weeks and I continue to do so. I’ve also heard about a lot from others. From friends. From neighbours; a suicide at the train station. And from a film, A Star is Born. Beautiful but devastating and topical.

Death.

Grief.

Loss.

Endings.

Disappointments.

Life.

Sometimes it just hurts.

Pretending this is not so is more damaging than finding the courage to face it.

We all love instant gratification.

But we seldom grow through it. Anything worthwhile having, especially our health, takes time. Time to nurture and care for and time to heal when it gets damaged, hurt or broken in some way.

We don’t get to choose how long the process will take. We get to choose only how we will treat ourselves whilst going through it.

Patience, compassion and a capacity to recognise the presence of God, are absolutely key.