This is the second part of a series titled “Finding Beauty After Loss”, reflections on my personal experience with grief. You can read the first part here.
My brother wasn’t supposed to die. He didn’t want to die. He looked forward to more travel, starting a family, and so much more. My brother loved children, and children loved him. I would have loved to be an aunt to my brother’s kids. Just as much as he would have loved to be my kids’ uncle. He would have loved my two boys. And I know that he would have done everything possible to build a good relationship with them despite the long distance. Sometimes I still feel robbed of that experience. Sometimes I still feel that my boys were robbed of experiencing his presence in their lives.
Nobody young is supposed to die. But many do. It feels wrong. It’s the wrong order. It seems that the last thing we as humans can feel entitled to is a long and healthy life. We can only be thankful for it as we live it. We can be thankful for each year, each week and each day. And we can try to make the most of it. It is a good habit to practice being thankful for each day that we get to live with the people we love. Because we simply don’t know. And yet there is no reason to live in fear either. We must not. We need to live and love as best as possible.
I didn’t know much about grief before my brother passed. I mean, I had lost my grandparents by then already. I certainly remember feeling upset and sad but I had not experienced the kind of grief that came over me after receiving the news of my brother’s passing. I had not felt that kind of pain. I felt pain everywhere all at once: emotional and physical pain. It was the pain of my personal loss, but at the same time, I also felt a tremendous amount of pain, love and empathy for my parents and, of course, my brother’s wife. I could not and did not want to believe that they had to deal with this kind of loss - the loss of losing a child and the loss of losing a partner after only a couple of years of marriage. I remember feeling especially concerned for my parents right after receiving the news. There were tears, of course, but besides the tears and deep sadness, I also could sense strength in them. Something that I certainly didn’t seem to have. I was a mess. I was in shock, in disbelief and in despair. I didn’t feel any strength. I could only feel pain.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
It is difficult to describe grief. Something that resonated with me strongly and, I assume, resonates with many, is the way C.S. Lewis talks about grief in his book “A Grief Observed”. This book has brought comfort to thousands of people who lost a loved one. In it he writes on the very first page:
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep swallowing.
At other times, it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting.” - C.S. Lewis
The invisible blanket. Yes, it’s true. When grief strikes, there is something in-between you and the rest of the world. I couldn’t find any words for it but it was very real. There is a distance, everything seems slightly off, far away. You can hear, but you don’t understand. You can see, but you don’t recognize. What struck me the most about my own grief was the utter and complete lack of interest in anything, anything that was important to me before, anything that was part of my daily life, anything that used to worry me. Anything other than the loss was now banal and trite from my perspective. I remember overhearing conversations of strangers at the airport or other places, and thinking to myself ‘How could they talk about such things? How could anyone talk about anything so mundane?’
I have since learnt that this is a very common experience, an experience that is part of the process, especially in the early stages of grief. It’s as if you entered into a different dimension where you must linger for a while and wrestle - wrestle with the absence of your loved one, wrestle with anger, denial, and many questions, so many questions.
There is nothing linear about grief or its so-called stages. There is no such thing as predictability in grief. Of course, there are certain elements of it that everyone experiences, but you cannot predict the time frame of grief, nor the intensity or frequency of it. You can’t predict when healing starts.You can’t predict how healing occurs. It is a deeply personal experience. But what I do know is that the invisible blanket that seems to separate you from the rest of the world for a while - or the world the way it used to be - gets thinner and thinner, and eventually it lifts. And once it’s lifted, you realize that the world looks different now. Herein lies another element of the process, learning to navigate life in a new world.
I don’t believe in closure when it comes to grief. I don’t believe in getting over loss. I believe in learning to live life with loss in a new world where the absence that the person who passed left behind remains and is always present.
As C.S. Lewis describes it:
“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.”
I believe that these new landscapes provide opportunities. Entering a new landscape after experiencing a profound loss leaves you with choices. The absence of a person, the hole that someone leaves behind, can either consume you or it can open you up to something new. Therein lies the mystery. The mystery of how pain and beauty can coexist in someone’s life. The mystery of how loss can give you a new capacity for love and provide space for deeper and more meaningful connection. The mystery of how grief can provide the space for creative energy and a strong desire to bring beauty into this world.
Herein lies the possibility of finding beauty after loss, which I would like to continue to explore further in the future.
I want to say that I could not have written about this experience shortly after it happened. I probably could not have written about this ten years ago or maybe even a couple of years ago. I am not sure, but if someone is in the midst of dealing with a profound loss, the thought of beauty, opportunity or connection might be far off. You might be in the midst of facing the absence head on, feeling crushed and not being able to see anything beyond that. And that is the reality.
As I continue on with this series, I want to reiterate the complexity of it all. I think I desire to share my experience to provide validation for someone in grief, and possibly provide a better understanding for those who are trying to help a bereaved person. None of this easy, but all of it is human.
If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I appreciate it. I also invite you to share your thoughts in the comment section.
This is beautiful and deep. I have been there and find great peace in how you have expressed your feelings and thoughts so clearly. This is a true gift.
Mmm. It is a mystery how beauty and pain can exist in life at the same moment. Grateful for how you put words to emotions of a very inward heart reality.