Respect My Grief

Recently, I heard the phrase, 'Respect my grief,' it gave me pause for thought. I had to look at this from various sides to try and understand it's meaning. I think it is not just one meaning, but a multitude. The words stuck in my head, echoed in my heart. It has a simple truth to it. It has taken months to sink in that no one has the grief I have. It is personalized, tailored just for me. That is why I feel alone in my sorrow, because no one can share what I feel, I cannot share what they feel. Having experienced this horror, I can understand how they feel but I cannot know the depth, the length, the darkness of their pain. Even before this loss, I respected their grief.

A few years ago, when someone I knew well died suddenly and tragically, I grieved with the family. I knew even then that my loss was different than theirs. I grieved for the person I knew, they grieved for the loss of a son. Not once in those years did I think they should be getting over it, moving on, getting past it. I respected their grief knowing that my loss of a friend could not touch their loss of a son. Common sense told me this. At that time, I looked at my own son and was grateful, fall down on my knees grateful, that it was not him we mourned. Now it is and I understand more than I ever wanted to know.

We have all been touched by death from the time we are old enough to understand what it is. As children, if we are lucky, we will only know the death of animals, plants, the changing of the seasons. Every aspect of our life has some form of death in it. Does it prepare us for the loss of human life? No, it gives us small insights into what being alive is if we pay attention to it. Most of the time, we are too busy to pay attention. But the lessons are there. The many faces of death, of life. Always intertwined. One does not exist without the other. So when the deepest grief comes, it comes without fanfare, without warning, for we cannot know the depth until we have lived it. But we can respect those who grieve without experiencing that grief ourselves.

When my dad died, my grief was for the man who taught me about life. My mom's grief was for the man who had been by her side for years and years. Was my grief deeper than hers? No, it was different than hers. I learned to live with it in time in my own way. She traveled her own path also. I could not know what was in her heart except for what she shared. I did know the difference in our sorrow. It did not mean that I cared less or that she cared more. It just mean't that we each grieved in our own way and our own time. People move to this new reality in their own ways, on their own paths and reach whatever destination they personally are headed for or never reach a destination at all. No road maps to say you have arrived. This does tell me though that others have not exactly moved on and forgotten my son. They just grieve and learn to live with it differently than I do. They respect my grief, maybe they understand it, but they do not live it. They carry on in their own way. I cannot know what is in their hearts. They cannot know what is in mine.

Some of us are more deeply affected then others when loss comes our way. The reasons are easy. It is the difference between how close we are to the one who passes. What our relationships were, how we interacted. We cannot expect the cousin who hardly knew them, or the uncle who never met them etc, to feel what we feel. But in the beginning, we expect the world to feel what we feel because our pain is so deep, how could they not? On down the road, when they move on and we don't, we feel abandoned. We have not been, but it does not make us feel any less that way. How can everyone move on? How? We have lost one of the most precious things in our lives, how could others not remember them as we do. They have not forgotten, they have found a place within themselves where that loss can live. They can move forward.

Even in the depths of our loss we learn to respect others grief. At first, their grief is not important to us. We are so deep in the tornado we cannot see beyond that which has caught us up in its terrible grip. There is no room within our hearts to feel anything but what has happened in our lives. No one is to blame for that, it is the nature of death. Given time, we get our compassion for others back, it is changed, but it still comes back. The direction of our compassion will not be the same as it once was and it will be hard on many who know us. Some will accept this, a few will not. Again, the nature of death.

These thoughts are not set in stone, they are flexible according to the depth of emotions at any given moment. If you don't 'get it' when someone is grieving, say nothing for your words can change the relationship you have with that person. Don't make life, which is already damaged and broken, worse on the one who hurts. Your actions and words, whether you mean't to say or do them, will determine what course your relationship with the bereaved will take. We do get it that many don't know what to say or do at that time, but we do not have control over how we will react. We are so lost and deep in our pain, be it for months, years for eternity. Loss does not take our hand for a moment and then let go, it walks with us forever. Respect our grief, learn to accept that it is now a part of who we are.