Sometimes we grieve the death of someone who has passed on to the next world, and sometimes we grieve the loss of other things. What do you grieve?
I grieve the loss of my lighthearted nature, my joy. I used to be a much happier person. I suspect that my joy began to dissipate when my father died. That happened when I was just seven. My mother always tells me I was never a happy person, or at least not much of my youth. I find it again with my son, who is a joy-filled being. He radiates happiness much of the time.
I grieve the loss of passion in my marriage. Too many hurts, too much stress, too many financial worries, too much blame, too much…well, it’s not worth naming all the things that have depleted the passion in my marriage. Suffice it to say, I grieve the loss.
I grieve the loss of freedom, which was replaced with responsibility and worry. I now must concern myself with schedules and bill paying and work and doing what must be done rather than what I want to do. I must concern myself with what is best for others rather than what is best for me. (Yes, this happened long ago…I still mourn for the youthful days when I was “free.”)
I grieve the loss of good friends and time to work in my garden and afternoons spent simply reading a book. I grieve the loss of my children as real children. (They are almost adults.) I grieve the loss of my youth and of feeling young and beautiful and strong and supple.
I grieve the loss of my mother as I knew her once, even though she is still alive. As she ages, she changes–in ways I don’t like much–making it hard for me to spend time with her comfortably.
Most often, I don’t sit with my grief over these things. It would be too much for me to bear. Sometimes I feel it for a moment, such as when I talk to God about my grief over one particular loss. Then I sob and allow it to overcome me. Afterwards, I wipe my tears and go on as if nothing had happened. The grief over these things affects me differently than the grief over the loss of a person close to me. ย Even now, if I think of my father or my friend, Bill, or even my friend Jay’s wife, Tofah (who died this week), I feel a different type or level of grief; it’s a grief that sits with me, stays with me, accompanies me wherever I go, and comes up as soon as I think about that person. I may not have the need to cry, but I feel the loss deeply. Yet, I do go on.
All the same, I grieve the loss. In some cases, I could replace these lost things and assuage my grief, I suppose. You can’t do that when a person dies or even when you lose a friend; you still feel that loss forever.
So, think about it…What do you grieve?
