Good Grief

“Aren’t you over that yet?” Bob Albers, an instructor while I was at seminary, shared these words from a friend. They were on their way to lunch when Bob explained that he was feeling low about his young adult son who had died six months earlier.

Most people are uncomfortable with illness and death. These realities point to the fragility of life, which unsettles us. So we push sickness and death to the edges of our awareness. We send cards and balloons rather than visiting. We shelter the frail and dying (away from us) with nursing homes and hospice facilities. We deny illnesses with stigmas and poor insurance coverage. And when someone has a personal loss, we expect their grief to be completed quickly in a way that doesn’t discomfort the rest of us.

Grief is a normal part of life. It takes as long as it takes and doesn’t especially follow a pattern (though many stick to Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages idea). When we deny grief, it breaks into our lives in other ways, mind, body or spirit. Better to welcome it, pull up a chair and sit with it for as long as it takes, and in whatever ways it manifests.

Having said all of this, the rest of my words today focus on the losses that are part of our everyday experience. Grief describes our inner healing process after loss. A good cry, like laughter, helps us to process feelings that will otherwise gum up our ability to live fully. Acknowledging our grief allows this healing process to begin. In spite of our preference that it would just go away, grief is healthy and good. Charles Schultz was onto something when he chose “Good Grief” for Charlie Brown’s most uttered phrase. This character was seldom appreciated and often suffered the scorn of “friends.” I’m sure he reflects a grief many of us have felt with the ordinary pains of life.

While some losses are tangible like an empty nest, retirement, a job or relationship loss, bankruptcy, or a tornado-flattened home, we also grieve the intangible. We mourn lost dreams. We grieve losses of familiarity, social position, community, independence. In 1989, Kenneth Doka conceived the phrase disenfranchised grief for the grief we face when a loss cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported.

What griefs were you unable to share? Which are not recognized by others? Through years of marriage, I grieved that it wasn’t what I’d hoped for and that I seemed unable to create something different. More recently, I grieved the loss of health. “Care” emojis are easy to come by but who is there to sit with us?

This week, I processed (again) a small disenfranchised grief. It was compounded by newly released climate change reports, a slowed-but-not-ended pandemic, a brutal land-and-resource-grabbing war such as we never thought we’d witness, oh, and a death in the family. When not otherwise occupied, I felt low.

You have a similar list, no doubt. Do you honor it? Do you allow yourself to experience the sorrow? Give yourself time to be still and simply feel what you feel? I wrote “when not otherwise occupied” above, because when we’re busy it’s easier to pretend we’re not suffering. Sometimes we can be fully functional! That doesn’t mean we should be a flurry of activity. You know folks who do this. Please, don’t be one of them. Strange as it may seem, we need to give ourselves permission and opportunity to grieve.

Part of my vocation is to encourage self-care. So hear me, please. Take care of you. Especially when our lives are so full that it’s easy to skip that which leaves us uncomfortable or embarrassed. Especially when national and world news distresses and even terrifies. Especially when society would rather we pretend that grief doesn’t exist beyond our losses of beloved people and pets (and then, only within preconceived boundaries). Especially because the world has become a scary place and we are small and too much alone, please make space in your days to rest and feel. Give yourself permission. Give yourself this gift.

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