~ Reflection on Loss & Grief ~
“To live in this world
you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.”
Mary Oliver
you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.”
Mary Oliver
Grief is the natural response to irrevocable loss and death. It is slightly different from sadness and sorrow, because grief is about someone or something that no longer exists – in other words, it is a response to permanent passing away. Even if the loss or death is anticipated, it always comes as a shock. Suddenly we realize that someone or something doesn’t exist anymore, and this creates a distressing void in our lives.
Grief is how we cope with this void; it is a way of coping with the utter emptiness and bereftness we feel when someone or something we knew was here and is now gone. Forever. In this way, grief helps us to reconcile ourselves with the fundamental impermanence of all things.
It does not leave us the same as before the loss. It does not return us to the same state as before the loss. Rather, if we let it, the pain of grief carves into our being, breaking our hearts and at the same time opening them to something larger - to the truth of love and to an acceptance of the way things are.
But how can we bear loss and grief without turning away or being totally overwhelmed?
I think part of the answer is to change our relationship with them and even get curious about them. To understand that loss and grief are inevitably part of life and that we can learn from them. If we are willing to open to them, despite the pain, we can work with them and learn their wisdom, thereby growing on the spiritual path and becoming more real, more authentic and larger human beings.
To do this, we need to come into a wise relationship with loss and grief; holding them with respect and reverence. Finding this wise relationship takes time and patience. But if we can do this, they can teach us and open us to a larger sense of who and what we are. Through loss and grief, we can realize our true nature.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let’s consider why we feel grief when something or someone is lost forever. We feel grief because we care. If we did not care then we would not grieve them. This is an important point, even though it sounds very obvious. So I’ll repeat it: We feel grief because we care. They go together. We grieve because we love, and because we love we will grieve. I find this very helpful to remember.
The death I have grieved the most acutely is the death of my step father Gwyn. He died in his eighties many years ago after a rich and well lived life. I grieved his passing for a long time, and I still do. But the intensity of my grief has softened because whenever I think of him I remember our love and affection for each other, and I remember how much he supported and guided me as a child. My love and gratitude are big enough to hold my grief, so that although there is still a hole in my heart, it’s a hole filled with tenderness and gratitude rather than being an empty black void.
A second gift of grief is that it reminds us of just how connected we are. It reveals the reality of our bonds with each other and the world. Even though the western culture perpetuates a myth that we are separate, isolated beings, the overwhelming grief we feel when someone or something dies reminds us of our connectedness.
The disbelieving grief that I, and millions of others felt, after the bombings of the World Trade Center in 2001. The stabbing grief I felt when I heard about the death of the last white horned rhino and the extinction of his species. The heavy grief I felt when I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in 2016 and knew that every step I took I was walking on the ashes of human beings who had died there, including some of my ancestors.
A third gift is its reminder of the truth of impermanence or as someone put it “No one gets out of here alive”. Death and loss ask us to face life’s most challenging teaching: Nothing lasts; everything is a temporary gift. When we acknowledge grief, we acknowledge that everything we love, we will lose. Without exception. It has been said that to love what death can touch, which is everything, is a holy act. Holy in the sense of being sacred and holy in the sense of making us whole. By acknowledging the inevitably of grief and loss, we can re-claim part of our humanity. And this is a third gift of loss and grief - To face impermanence and to love anyway.
Loss and grief often feel too much to bear, but the painful suffering that accompanies them can also be deeply transformative. This is light inside darkness.
Grief is how we cope with this void; it is a way of coping with the utter emptiness and bereftness we feel when someone or something we knew was here and is now gone. Forever. In this way, grief helps us to reconcile ourselves with the fundamental impermanence of all things.
It does not leave us the same as before the loss. It does not return us to the same state as before the loss. Rather, if we let it, the pain of grief carves into our being, breaking our hearts and at the same time opening them to something larger - to the truth of love and to an acceptance of the way things are.
But how can we bear loss and grief without turning away or being totally overwhelmed?
I think part of the answer is to change our relationship with them and even get curious about them. To understand that loss and grief are inevitably part of life and that we can learn from them. If we are willing to open to them, despite the pain, we can work with them and learn their wisdom, thereby growing on the spiritual path and becoming more real, more authentic and larger human beings.
To do this, we need to come into a wise relationship with loss and grief; holding them with respect and reverence. Finding this wise relationship takes time and patience. But if we can do this, they can teach us and open us to a larger sense of who and what we are. Through loss and grief, we can realize our true nature.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let’s consider why we feel grief when something or someone is lost forever. We feel grief because we care. If we did not care then we would not grieve them. This is an important point, even though it sounds very obvious. So I’ll repeat it: We feel grief because we care. They go together. We grieve because we love, and because we love we will grieve. I find this very helpful to remember.
The death I have grieved the most acutely is the death of my step father Gwyn. He died in his eighties many years ago after a rich and well lived life. I grieved his passing for a long time, and I still do. But the intensity of my grief has softened because whenever I think of him I remember our love and affection for each other, and I remember how much he supported and guided me as a child. My love and gratitude are big enough to hold my grief, so that although there is still a hole in my heart, it’s a hole filled with tenderness and gratitude rather than being an empty black void.
A second gift of grief is that it reminds us of just how connected we are. It reveals the reality of our bonds with each other and the world. Even though the western culture perpetuates a myth that we are separate, isolated beings, the overwhelming grief we feel when someone or something dies reminds us of our connectedness.
The disbelieving grief that I, and millions of others felt, after the bombings of the World Trade Center in 2001. The stabbing grief I felt when I heard about the death of the last white horned rhino and the extinction of his species. The heavy grief I felt when I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in 2016 and knew that every step I took I was walking on the ashes of human beings who had died there, including some of my ancestors.
A third gift is its reminder of the truth of impermanence or as someone put it “No one gets out of here alive”. Death and loss ask us to face life’s most challenging teaching: Nothing lasts; everything is a temporary gift. When we acknowledge grief, we acknowledge that everything we love, we will lose. Without exception. It has been said that to love what death can touch, which is everything, is a holy act. Holy in the sense of being sacred and holy in the sense of making us whole. By acknowledging the inevitably of grief and loss, we can re-claim part of our humanity. And this is a third gift of loss and grief - To face impermanence and to love anyway.
Loss and grief often feel too much to bear, but the painful suffering that accompanies them can also be deeply transformative. This is light inside darkness.