Grief is not a straight line

A circular path surrounded by trees. Photo by Josh Power on Unsplash

The shapes of our grief

Grief can come in circles, in spirals, in tangled lines, in the outline of a broken heart, in the jagged profile of a mountain peak or of an iceberg in a frozen sea.

Grief, in my experience, has never come in a straight line, in a series of stages that we progress through, one after the other, until we are done.

I see it most often as a circular path. The first time we struggle, stumble around it, it is crowded with rocks, with great gaping holes, with brambles, thorns that tear at our hair and skin, with a whistling wind, with dark clouds and soaking rain. Sometimes we collapse in despair, think this journey will never be over. Sometimes we force ourselves to keep walking, taking step after step. Sometimes we wish we could turn and run the other way, undoing whatever has happened in our lives to cause us such pain. Eventually, whatever our approach, we find ourselves at the beginning again. The path may look identical. We may be filled with the same despair, a feeling we know only too well.

But as we stagger around the path, it might feel a little different. The clouds may be less dark, the rain less cold and the path less stony beneath our feet. The holes we stumble into may be more shallow and we might find we can pull ourselves out quicker, with more ease. But we still find ourselves back at the beginning and we go round the path again. Now we can see that there are tiny blades of grass growing between the rocks and the sharp stones, and the raindrops that fall are intermittent and small. The shallow holes are full of water, puddles that reflect a lightening sky.

We walk round again. At times we feel the sun shining on our face, at times the wind lessens to a breeze. There is a green carpet of grass beneath out feet and flowers bloom on the brambles, roses grow above the thorns.

We go round again, and again and every time it is easier, every time the sun begins to shine more strongly, the colours of the flowers appear more brightly and scent starts to fill the air. The grass beneath our feet is soft and inviting.

Sometimes the storm rages again, but when it does, it passes more quickly. Sometimes we see a rainbow in the sky above our heads. And one day, we stop by a round grey rock just off the path. We rest. We look at our life, at our grief, with compassion, with love.

Surviving our grief

How did we get to this place? How did we survive the path of our grief? How can we do it, again and again, nurturing our places that hurt, moving ourselves forward to a life that will grow around our sorrow and our loss?

We can find people like us, so we no longer walk alone, through support groups, through courses, through reading and listening, blogs, podcasts, novels, poetry, music, self-help books.

We can name what we feel, learn to turn towards our feelings with compassion and love, recognizing that what we are experiencing is completely normal.

We can find a therapist with lived experience of what we are going through.

We can learn to listen to our heart, our body, our memories.

We can write, create, talk about our grief, our loss.

We can reach out to our loved ones and ask for their understanding and love, if we feel it is possible for them to give it to us.

We can create rituals to say goodbye, and rituals to help us remember what we need or want to from our journey.  

We can look to the future, while not forgetting what we have learned from the past.

We can remember, at all times, that we are surviving, that we are strong, and that we are worthy, and carry those words with us like a jewel over our heart.

And we can care fiercely for ourselves, knowing we are worthy of care and love.

If you might want me to walk with you for a while then please do

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