Ambiguous Grief

Learning to live in the present

I’ve been struggling with how to write about this, which seems only right, as I’ve been struggling with the feelings for months and have been even more conflicted about how to approach them and deal with them.

Feeling about feelings. Sigh. It’s too much. I’m not sure I can unpack it, or should, or even want to do that fully. I’ve compared it before to touching the tip of a knife to a cooked sausage, because the breach is going to split wide open of a sudden and spill everything out and it’s never going to fit back in again. I prefer to be in control of myself, and when I’m not it’s alarming.

I have experienced loss in many ways during my lifetime. Grieving is far more nuanced than the sharp-edged finality of death, and in some ways the loss of a dream, of potential, of what-should-have-been can be more difficult than the abrupt finality of the reaper’s scythe. Not to say worse. Just different, and sometimes harder to bear, in that a hope dangled just out of reach while you strain towards it and it is twitched from your grasp at the last moment is soul-crushing.

The difficulty of living with an evolving situation is not dwelling in the future, as I wrote about last week. I’d drafted this essay, and was letting it sit while I grappled with the difficulty of writing and doing this topic justice. I debated not returning to it at all. However, it’s always on my mind, and I recently touched on it while talking with a friend about their ambiguity of a difficult loss, so… here I am again at the keyboard thinking about the nature of loss. There are, as we all know, permanent losses. There are temporary losses. There are the losses of dreams, which somehow we seem to discount as cobwebs and ephemera of the mind. I think that is a mistake. The loss of the potential of a child, lets say, who develops into an adult you cannot be proud of, strikes into the soul of the parent. Perhaps, in time, that adult may return to the way in which they were raised, but it’s also possible they may not. Grief is appropriate here. Letting yourself be struck down entirely and wondering what the point is in life at all, if not to raise the next generation, is not. This is not the end of your life.

Humans are a story-telling species. We like our tales to have neat, tidy ends. A few loose plot threads are fine by us - they allow our imaginations to tag along and spin off tales of our own, which is where fanfiction comes from, after all. Humans don’t do well with uncertainty. I suspect this is why the phrase ‘you’re dead to me!’ came into play. Dramatic, yes, manipulative? Oh my word, yes. However, it’s also final. It means the one who is losing a loved one needn’t dwell in the grief and uncertainty any longer, it’s a resolution they can move on from.

And, sometimes, that is what you must do. Sans, if you please, the dramatic declaration. You have to finish dealing with the situation, decide to move forward, and then, do so. Tricky, tricky, yes… there will be reminders and pitfalls that will pop up when you least expect them, and blow up in your face. You’ll cry again and again. However, there is a choice of standing there, face wet with tears, blind to the future, always looking to the past… or making goals and creating momentum towards them. What do you want to do with your future? Sorrow endlessly? Or find joy and celebrate that?

Acknowledge that you feel grief. A friend suggested to me that I write out everything I am grieving for, the potentials that are now impossibilities, and then take that paper and burn it with some small ceremony. When the ashes are cooled, then it is done. I can dwell in the bitter dreamworld with the astringent ashes of dreams in my mouth and blind eyes, or I can create new ones based on the reality I live in, and work towards those. The path through life is littered with what could have been, and happily ever after only ends a story. We can choose to dwell in the living present, finding the way forward through the pain. Leave the dead dreams in the dust, like the fallen leaves that will nourish the new spring to come after winter’s long sleep.

Understand that your story is not over. You still have miles to go before you sleep, and many things to do along the way. There is pain over the horizon of the unknowable future, yes, but there will always be that, even if it’s easier to see when your loved one is ill and frail. You are not valueless if you cannot do what you wanted to do as a child, a parent, a wife or husband. You have worth, and you’ll have to work at finding what that is, now, here, in the place where you are. Grieve, release, and breathe until the tears are gone for the moment. Spend some time in thinking about where you want to go, what you want to be, and then break that down into small goals that can be done readily. A huge, ephemeral concept: I want to be happy! is much more difficult to achieve than, perhaps: I want to feed friends and to do that I must get my house clean and orderly. Or: I want to write a story. Or: I want to mentor a child. Or: I want to get strong and healthy so I can do what I dream about. There are a million ways you can be of service to others and yourself. Figure out one, to start, and do that. Dream a new dream. But live in the present reality.