Sitting with Grief

When I think of her, I hear little girl laughter, hers and mine. I see the darkness of corners where we hide together from our moms because we don’t want to be parted. I see the yellow Belle dress, its gauzy layers twirling with her as she leaps across the room. I taste buttery cornbread—the last meal I shared with her.

My first inclination is to tell you that that when I got the call telling me my childhood friend had died, “time stopped,” or “I felt great pain,” or “I felt empty.”

The real truth is that a loss is not any one of those things—it is all of the above. A loss is not so painful because it is simply one sharp sorrow, but because it is one sorrow, and a thousand, and none at all because sometimes we try to shut it all off in a bid to escape.

When I heard about a get-together in honor of my friend, I am ashamed to say that at first, I didn’t want to go. I knew that such a gathering would be painful, and I was afraid of the pain. Because unlike Sophia’s closest friends and family, the ones who saw her regularly, I do not have to endure the sight of the empty chair at the table or the empty bedroom. The world and I could box away the memories and shelve them for another day—when it is more convenient, less painful.

But grief is not merely a wound—it is a thorn continually twisting into your side. It often seems less painful to simply let the thorn be until the skin grows over as you try to forget, but the thorn always remains underneath, festering.

The gathering for my friend was a twist of the thorn, it’s true. But I met people I hadn’t even known I had ties to—someone who attended the same college, others who shared my passions and dreams. And even though it was bittersweet because of our shared loss, there was something glimmering there, among all those people connected by this young woman: little saplings beginning to grow.

Whatever loss you are experiencing—the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, a splintered family—when you allow yourself to sit with the grief, you will see that the twisting of the thorn means being present in the pain, facing it, and, over time, learning how to walk with it. Remember that your pain simply signifies that you are human, that you care, that you love.

So live each day remembering the ones you have lost—those people who loved, were loved, and still are loved. Look at photos of them, talk with others about them, do the things they loved to do. And, as you allow yourself to move through the grief, know that you will see the light in the shadows, the healing amidst deep pain.