The Softer Side of Grief

Does grief always need to be wrapped tightly with heartbreak, sadness, and pain?

My answer is no. Sometimes we can make peace with the death of someone we love, especially when they have lived a long healthy life, or when there was so much suffering prior to the death, that all we wished for them was peace. This does not change our sadness, but in some ways, it softens it. When we can feel this way, I think of it as the softer side of grief.

As I write this, both of my parents died thirty years ago, and my sister died ten years ago and while I will always miss them and wish we had more time, I have found that my sadness has softened over the years. When someone we love dies, we form a relationship with our grief that will last, in my opinion, the rest of our lives. But this relationship differs with each of us, we do not grieve in the same way, and that is okay. For some people the sharp edges around their grief stay rough, and for some, the edges soften with time.

When someone dies too young, or tragically, I think that elevates the level of suffering, or physical and emotional pain that we experience. When someone has been taken from us “too soon,” we can’t help but react to that. It truly does feel like they have been taken from us, and our grief can be painful, and leave us feeling so tightly wrapped in our sadness that we can’t help but wonder, “will I always feel this way?”

In the past three years my brother died, and my friends Marjorie and John died, and I can’t seem to get over my sadness. Their deaths do not make sense to me, and I am sad every single day. I still cry when I think of them, and I wish so badly that I had more time with them. But I am learning to visit my memories often and find ways to feel their presence in each day, knowing that they are physically gone, but forever in my heart and that comforts me. That doesn’t mean I will stop being sad, and to be honest I think I am going to be sad for a really long time, but I am also finding a place of acceptance, which I need in order to move through each day with a gentler step.

If I have learned anything at all about grief on my own personal journey as well as for those I have walked alongside, it is that grief sits with each of us uniquely. I think some people have a harder time than others with accepting that there can ever be a peaceful feeling relative to their pain and I understand that. I think all of us should. I also think we should be accepting when someone is not as sad as you think they should be. We each express our sadness in different ways, some are more obvious than others, and some keep it tucked away. We are not the boss of them or their sadness.

Grief sits with each of us differently, and we do not grieve in the same ways, even when we are grieving for the same person. I do believe that there is a softer side of grief which most of us eventually find, with time, but it doesn’t always happen… and in that case I think it’s important that we show up for them more frequently, so they know they are not doing this alone, or wrong.

Try not to be so critical about how other people grieve, and please don’t compare theirs to yours. I also encourage you not to be hard on yourself about how you are grieivng in comparison to others. We do not grieve the same way… and that is okay.

xo

Gabby