Our culture sucks at grieving.
Those were Miss Sarah’s words but, really, I had said it to her first, in a whole lot more words.
I had been describing to her how not only am I in the midst of some really heavy waves this week, I am also being relentlessly bombarded from every direction by the message that I should be over this pain. I hear it in songs. In movies. In books. In magazines. In the voices of people I talk to. And for sure in my head—the remnants of beliefs I picked up in church, or in my childhood.
Don’t dwell on it. Look on the bright side. It’s time to move on. That happened months ago. It could have been worse. Pull yourself up. This is your chance to make a new start. Wallowing won’t help. Come on girl! Get out there and live your life! Don’t let this get you down. All things work together for good.
Miss Sarah did not try to deny that those voices are real. In fact, she pointed out how truly awful our culture is at doing grief. How desperate we are to not go to the depths of that horrid pain, and look in the eyes of what we have lost, and to sit there as long as we need to. She told me that researchers are finding that much of today’s depression, illness, and even suicides are linked to unresolved, unfelt, unacknowledged grief.
She confirmed for me that if I want to do this differently, I may be fighting an uphill, lonely battle.
She didn’t tell me I was crazy, or that I wasn’t hearing those voices.
But she did call those voices very, very cruel.
Those voices do not have names or faces attached to them. Mostly these messages come from within me (which makes it a lot harder for me to get away from them). So now I’m back to trying to be kind to myself. Staying with the pain when it rises, feeling it, and tending to myself in the midst of it. Offering myself compassion.
I know I’m not the only one grieving. I hope that I will be able to look with different eyes on those around me whose pain lingers longer than I expect it to. I guess there’s no timeline for grief. It comes when it comes, and it’s done when it’s done.
And it will be done, someday.
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