[EXCERPT FROM ESSAY: TODAY I ASKED MYSELF MY STORY][I AM A WRITER, NOT A DOCTOR. CLICK TO READ MEDICAL DISCLAIMER.]
I was right when I thought I could never outlast grief, but nowadays, it is not the emotionally inundating atmosphere that it once was. Over the years, I’ve learned that pain is not one of those things you can conquer either, but instead (and only through the grace of time and distance) achieve a deeper understanding of. It is like how winter transitions to spring and then into summer. One day, you’re walking around, and it’s warm outside, but you can’t quite distinguish in retrospect which day was the last cold day. Every now and then, a cold wind will blow that’ll turn your head around; however, the weather, for the most part, remains constant. And warm. And the coldness of winter remains only in your knowing.
Grief today is best illustrated by that Pink Floyd lyric, “So you think you can tell, blue skies from pain?” Some of my happiness and sadness are interwoven on one plane now— like when I catch a glimpse of my son’s face and fleetingly see a resemblance to my dad, and my heart is simultaneously jolted with both immense joy and heavy heartache. Harder still is the realization that every year I age puts more distance between the daughter I was with him and the life I have embraced without him, and that growth brings me equal parts pride and devastation.
So many milestones have come and gone now without him, but I never fail to be ensnared by the grief of missing him when a momentous occasion occurs—my wedding day, when our children were born, or just recently, when I turned thirty. It turns out you’re never too old to need your dad or to endlessly wish he was still by your side. And so, grief today is the double-edged sword, the rite of passage, or the price I pay for growing up, for my memory fading, and for moving on.
After years of feeling tormented and domineered by grief, it took me a long time to understand what grief really is at its core. I used to think of it like an obstacle or a storm—an emotional force I was helplessly at the mercy of, but one that I could potentially outlast if I just had enough fortitude.
It wasn’t until I reread a quote my precious sister-in-law had printed underneath my dad’s picture at his memorial that I began to understand:
“When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” -Kahlil Gibran.
The profundity of that quote grows every year I read it.
We grieve for what we love, isn’t that what he’s saying? So by that definition, it’s impossible for grief to be coined as the antithetical to love, right? That is reserved for hate and indifference, and my God, grief is anything but indifferent.
And wouldn’t it be too simple to say (even though I’ve heard it described this way over and over) that grief is lost-love? Reasonably, wouldn’t it cease to exist the second love disappeared?
So then, is grief just an emotional way to cope with love?
Or is grief a way for us to love what’s lost? Another facet of love, perhaps?
Meaning that grief, at its core, is just love?
It makes sense, then, how I knew in the deepest caverns of rock bottom that I could never outlast grief. I will never stop loving my dad for as long as I draw breath, and therefore grief will always exist as the present form of that love. When I feel overtaken by the insurmountable nature of grief, I try to look deeper and understand how powerful my love is, how many forms it can exist as, and like Khalil says, “that in truth I am weeping for that which was my delight.”
It doesn’t always make it easier. In fact, it rarely does—nothing short of turning the clock backward could do that—but knowing grief is just love by a different name, like a venerable old friend that still comes around from time to time, brings me peace where there once only stood hopelessness to withstand the perennial process.
Until Tomorrow,
Tess
“For people and things that went before; I know I’ll often stop and think about them.
In my life I love you more.”
The beatles, “in my life”
To read more of this essay, click here: Today I Asked Myself My Story.