Loneliness inside grief and loss
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It doesn’t matter how many people you have around you, how much love and support is available to you, how surrounded you are by others mourning along side you— there are aspects of grief and loss that are just flat out lonely. Of course, community is important and to be witnessed in our grief and to be held and loved through our loss is profoundly important. However, the scream that lives within us after experiencing profound loss, is ours— it is inside of us, it is silent to the outside world and there is a loneliness about that. Others may hear us speak of this scream, we may attempt to put it into words, but no one else hears it, no one knows our unique grief, our internal scream.
Before I get into it, know that my are writings are about my personal journey as a young widow navigating partner loss. In no way is this meant to be advice about how to grieve or a judgment towards anyone choosing to walk this path differently than me. This is my experience— in a way, it’s a public journal, so please keep that in mind as you read.
A few months after my husband died, I began searching for community, other young widows, people who were living this new reality that is partner loss. And a lot of what I found were people talking about this “double life” they were living— one where they would go to work, do life, and show up for their responsibilities with a smile on their face, pretending to be okay, not wanting to burden anyone with the truth of their reality— death, loss, grief. And the other where they would arrive home at the end of their day and collapse into the heartache, scream into their pillow, sob uncontrollably after holding it in all day long. I didn’t resonate with this at all, this “double life” they spoke of. Yes, I too was screaming into my pillow, crippled by the intensity of the heartache, lacking the will to live at times, but what I wasn’t doing was pretending to be okay out in the world.
Despite what some felt was oversharing and too personal, I shared much of my journey with grief and loss publicly. What I needed, especially early on, was to be witnessed in what I was experiencing, to share our love story, to say his name, to share pictures and videos, for his life (and our life together) to be witnessed and honored. I also felt this desire to let others know that they weren’t alone if they too were navigating partner loss. I realized that even if someone didn’t relate to my story now, one day they might. Death is inevitable. I wasn’t just sharing for the person grieving now, I was sharing for the future griever who has no idea what is coming. Sure enough, I’ve had people reach out to me who have been following my story, praying for me, heartbroken for me, but not able to relate as they had not lost someone so close. They say … I’ve been watching you navigate the loss of your husband and I had no idea what you were experiencing but I just lost my dad (my brother, my sister, my best friend, my mom, my partner …. ) and I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to reflect back on what you’ve shared— now I too am experiencing the unthinkable.
You see, we go through life with this strange unconscious belief that unexpected death won’t hit our home, our life— not me, not us. It happens to “them”, to “those people”, but not me. We believe we are somehow immune, special or different— separate. We see ourselves as separate from nature, from one another— both the beauty of it and the impermanence of it. We don’t recognize our own beauty when we look at a gorgeous flower and we also don’t see our own impermanence when we look at that same flower once it has wilted. Everything has a completion, an ending.
What I learned through my experience of sharing my grief is this, if I want to change the way we as a society view death and grief, if I want to feel less alone in my grief, and for others to feel less alone in theirs, then I get to continue to teach the world (those watching and listening) how to witness me, how to support, love, and honor my process. And hopefully, I get to also teach them how to be a stand for their own grief if they feel called to be witnessed in a similar way.
My take, if we don’t want to feel alone in our grief, we get to stop shielding the world from it, processing it alone and perpetuating this narrative that grief is not meant to shared— “it’s private”, “it’s something you do alone”, “let’s not burden others with it”. To grieve is to be human. Being human is painful— and when we pretend to be happy all the time and stay in this pursuit of a life that is void of pain and heartache— we are spitting on the very thing that makes us human— our ability to feel and to be with both the dark and the light aspects of life.
Of course there are times when being with our grief alone is absolutely necessary, much of my grief journey has been spent alone, in solitude. This is no question, part of the path of grief. However, when I go out into the world, I don’t pretend to be okay if I’m not. I tell people I’m having a tough day. I show raw emotion when it is present in me, I won’t put on a “happy face” just so that others won’t feel uncomfortable. If it’s a heavy day with my grief, I let it be known that my grief is very alive in me today. I talk about it, I talk about my husband, I bring him up in conversation— even with those who don’t know him. I share stories, I share pictures and videos of him, I talk about our love, our life. I talk about his death and what it has been like to continue living since losing him.
My grief goes everywhere with me, even to work. And when I say that what I mean is, I don’t pretend to be my usual outgoing, chipper self if I am not feeling it. My co-workers know what I am navigating and if I am having a hard day, I tell them. And while they may not relate or understand what I am experiencing, most of them have some level of compassion toward it and this is because I have allowed them into this part of my life. I talk about Chris, I share pictures of him, of us, they all know him by name and none of them have ever met him. I live and work in a very touristy town and my customers often as me questions about the area— if I am from here, how I ended up here, etc … and I tell them - straight up! I don’t dance around it, I don’t pretend, I don’t leave out the truth because it might make them uncomfortable. I am here, living in this town because my husband died, no other reason— that’s the truth. So what I tell them is that I lost my husband and I came here to heal, because I didn’t know what else to do, I am on a wild journey figuring out what this next version of my life is all about.
More often than not, my openness and vulnerability creates connection and leads to deep conversations about life, and death. Many times I have experienced people visibly relax into their body, almost like they finally got to exhale, upon hearing me share about my loss, as if they had been given permission to share their own intimate story of loss — with a stranger! I have opened the door to so many connections with strangers about their own loss by grieving my person out loud and being willing to share my truth. As someone living with profound grief, there is nothing more comforting than being given an opportunity to share about my person, to be witnessed and seen in the bigness of my heartache. Knowing that I can do that with a stranger simply by refusing to hide my grief, that is what I call medicine for the collective.
While being witnessed doesn’t lessen the heartache, it doesn’t quiet the scream inside or take away the loneliness of partner loss, it does bring a level of comfort that can be incredibly supportive and has been for me. To be witnessed in our grief is to teach others how to love us through our loss, how we desire to keep the memory of our loved one alive. Most people are so afraid to hurt us more, to say the wrong thing, to reopen the wound— and what they don’t realize is that it hurts more when they say nothing. Because our grief lives right on the surface everyday, when people say nothing, it’s as if they are totally ignoring the elephant in the room, it feels like they don’t see you.
When we make the uncomfortable more comfortable by sharing ourselves vulnerably, we give the people in our lives permission to do the same, and in turn this helps us feel less alone. This helps us keep our persons memory alive, it lets us know that we aren’t the only ones being reminded of them and experiencing a connection to their frequency. We teach people how to love and accept us by how we love and accept ourselves. We teach others how to connect and remember our person, by our example. If sharing in the collective grief of your person feels like love to you then model this. Say their name, don’t be afraid to love your person out loud for the world to witness!!!
The more I share my grief and the love between my husband and I, the more I receive back from the people in my life — messages reminding me that others are thinking of him too, others are experiencing signs from him, remembering him, still heartbroken, feeling connected to him, mourning in their own way. All of these are reminders to me that I am not alone in missing him, thinking of him, saying his name. I may be the only one experiencing the intensity that is partner loss, but I am not the only one heartbroken, I am not the only one whose life has been blessed and by him and also profoundly changed by his passing.
Grief is so very personal and sacred. There is no right way to grieve. There is no timeline around grief. It is a unique experience, so individual to each of us. I share my perspectives, beliefs and experiences based on my journey with partner loss, it may not resonate for you. I don’t resonate with most of the grief content I come across and that is why I share myself in this way— I know there is at least one other person experiencing grief in a similar way as me, looking for a way to feel less alone, open to being witnessed, desiring to keep their persons memory alive. If that is you, I am so glad we found each other.
Aloha wau iā ‘oe. Mahalo.
To be in Lila {divine play} is to let go and be danced by life.