Three thoughts about grief
Dear friends,
On the day of my husband’s memorial service, a friend waited in the heavily guarded “reception line” (thank you, Refuge!) and blurted out, “Kitti, I’m writing a book about grief, and…”
I don’t remember a lot about that day, but I do remember that my inner response to this was, “Get out of my face!”
The last thing I needed was instruction or judgment, which is what I thought would come next, not because he was judgmental or harsh (far from it), but because I was tender. But he said something I’ve held onto since then:
“Everyone grieves differently. You grieve like you.”
I metabolized these words, reminding myself often in each season of my grief (seasons that show up way less predictably than summer follows spring) that there were no rules to this grief thing.
With that in mind, I’ve observed three things about grief lately:
1. I notice that a wall often goes up when I talk to happy, shiny people about sad things.
I see old me in those shiny, happy faces. The me that did not want sad, not the kind that takes more than a breath and momentary sad face to acknowledge. The me that did not want to see the world in any way other than hopeful. The me that felt the need to protect my joy whenever I could.
Because I can easily remember this old me, I try to be patient with those whose body language puts up a stop sign against sorrow. I get it. But I’m thankful that letting in sad has opened me up to the second observation:
2. Sitting with someone in their grief—no matter what kind of grief it is—is a privilege.
Grief is grief, whether it’s caused by garden variety anxiety or by profound loss. Whether it comes from a steady intake of hateful rhetoric about refugees and immigrants on the news or from the death of your family during war in your home country. Yes, grief is grief. And the more you experience it, the more it’s possible you recognize it in others and have the right instincts to lean in.
Clarkston is populated with people we know personally who have experience grief in all forms, including:
- waiting years for a wife, a husband, a father or mother, children to join them
- concern for elderly parents forced to leave their homes while their lives are in the balance if they stay or if they leave
- bearing the weight of their family’s needs in a new country as a teenager
- existing years in tents in refugee camps
- fleeing war with only the clothes on their backs
- being forced as young children to kill and to take drugs that made that killing possible
- being trafficked in return for safe passage from one country to the next
These are realities that seem impossible to square with my shiny, happy life. I don’t have to understand them, but I can sit with them, and each time I do, I’m reminded what an honor it is to do so …
3. Timing is important.
Last week, I got to sit with a newly-arrived refugee who lost her father while she was in another country awaiting resettlement to the U.S. and he was still in her home country. She said, “I didn’t care if the enemy killed me, I just wanted to be with my father when he died.” Of course, that didn’t happen. It was an honor to hear about her father, to see smiling pictures of him, and to weep with her.
But last week was one of those rare moments when the timing was right. The time was right for my friend because she is finally able to breathe. Which means she can finally grieve without the old guardrails that survival places around our hearts. And the time was right for me because for the first time in my life, tears come freely. This, strangely, is the gift of grief: It eventually stretches your capacity to grieve with others.
I could chalk up the resistance I sense from others when I express my grief to my bad timing, and I’m sure there’s some of that. I’m not the best at reading a room and realizing my tragic “now” is not always appropriate at that moment.
And yet I remember how many people said, “We are here for your tears” after Bill died. Some of you still say it. The message of Refuge is centered upon this kind of welcome. Being “here for it” is an unschedulable, unmeasurable, sometimes even unintentional part of what welcome looks like here at Refuge. And I love that so many of you are here for it, too.
Gratefully,
Kitti
Photo below: My friend, Manna, of Merhaba Shwarma, and me on April 16, 2023 at Refuge Coffee.
