Is grief forever?

Is grief the last act of love? This was the subject of an interview, quoted by Mel in her post here.

Whilst I don’t think that grief IS love, I definitely agree that grief is a result of love, and an expression of the love we felt and the loss of that love. In the context of our No Kidding situations, we have loved either the babies we wanted (conceived, birthed, or not) or the role of mother (for me it was definitely the babies I had loved, I was still coming to terms with the idea of being a mother), or the future we had planned. We had already invested love into this. And when we didn’t have it, we grieved.

It was described in the article as the last act of loving someone. “You get to … translate this last act of love for the rest of your life,” said Ocean Vuong, the interview subject. Whilst it is beautifully expressed (click over to see it), I don’t fully agree with it. Because if it is the last act of loving someone, then in means that grief is eternal. And it does not have to be endless. (To be fair, the person is three years into grieving, and so maybe cannot see this yet.) The loss doesn’t have to be felt forever.

More importantly, we can continue to love someone without actively grieving them. I don’t think I grieve for my parents anymore. I mourned them, and I am sad for different aspects of their deaths. But I no longer actively grieve. Instead, I remember with love. Sure, I may feel sadness occasionally thinking about them or wishing I could tell them something. But it doesn’t feel like grief anymore. Continued grief would be pointless - I can’t change anything, I can’t continue to pine. So the best thing I can do is remember the good times, remember what they taught me, and remember the love.

We can love someone, and show that love by honouring them in our actions, when we have already moved through grief. It’s how I feel about my lost babies, my lost motherhood, and my lost future too. I remember them with love. I remember the love I felt towards those tiny flickers of life, the love I felt towards their and our future. I was filled with love for them, and although that led to grief at their loss, now I remember and focus on the love. It sustains and nurtures me. 

I remember and honour the loss of my babies by living well. I honour them by appreciating what I have, rather than focusing on what I have lost. I honour them by becoming a better person, and by giving my love to others. I honour them by writing this blog, and through it their loss means something. I honour them by (I hope) helping others who come after me. I honour them far better this way than by continuing to grieve, or to focus on the grief. Honouring them is a better way of loving them.

I honour my losses, and my pain, the grief I once felt. I do that because of love. Love outlasts grief.

 

No Kidding 2020 Project: Day 5 - Love

Growing up, the idea that you might love or even like yourself was anathema to me, and I suspect most New Zealanders my age. We didn’t think about ourselves in that way – we were taught to focus outwards, not inwards. In some ways that is helpful, but in so many ways it is not. So when I first experienced loss, I didn’t know how to feel compassion for myself. 

But what I read, and who I talked to (mainly online), always came up with the same message. Be kind to yourself, be compassionate, love yourself. I never really got it, as instantly – when I would think about loving myself or showing compassion – my inner dialogue would counter with a long list of why I didn’t deserve love or compassion. Sound familiar? Too many of us do that. Just this last week, in a different blogging project, a friend wrote her “Things I like about myself” post which was really a litany of what she didn’t like about herself.

But then, in a book a friend recommended, there was a simple exercise about how to love yourself, and how to show compassion. It didn’t mean you had to love everything about yourself, or even like it or approve of it. But it did mean that you were worthy of love and understanding. I’ve written about it before here (in the Gifts of Infertility series), but I’ll repeat it because I think it is useful.

When we’re grieving, or angry, or simply feeling down, we should try not to self-recriminate. Instead, imagine that grieving, ranting, or sobbing person as the child we once were, clearly in pain, clearly needing love and understanding. Who better to understand them but us? Embrace the child, send all the love and understanding we can, because their pain is our pain. Let them know that pain is heard with empathy, it is understood, and they are loved nonetheless. I’ve done this exercise, and it always helps when I’m in pain. Sometimes years go by without needing it, then something pops up, and I remember how important it is to just express and feel that love.

Ultimately, isn’t this also how we would react to someone we loved who was in pain? Wouldn’t we would hold them, comfort them, listen to them, love them? Don’t we deserve the same compassion? Yes. Yes. Yes.

It makes life easier. It helps us begin to change what we don't like, or to accept what we can't change. It makes us better people too, more able to exercise compassion and extend love towards others. But it all starts with loving ourselves.