It's not like it was.

I can't remember what I was watching, but it made some lightbulb go off in my head the other day about how human beings change over time. Granted, as a mental health person I observe people all the time and take note of things. Not in a judgey way, but just as an observer of behavior. In the past year, I've made more room to focus on things that really matter to me (family, health, giving back) and taken time to delve into grief, in all its shapes and forms. Not necessarily willingly, but I've leaned into grief and it's taught me a few things.

Yes, at a surface level, grief is something we experience after a loss. Usually over a death of a loved one. More and more we are learning that grief can be extended to any form of loss, some of that grief can be hard to pin point, but we feel it. Often times, I feel, we push it away as something else. Our society tells us that we need to focus on being happy and being sad makes people uncomfortable. I think grief is undervalued and not appreciated enough as a feeling that we carry around for a life time. It's something that moulds us from a very young age. It drives how we interact with our world and the people around us.

There are things that I've known about for a long time and like so many things when I get older, I learn more and more and adjust as I go. Sometimes I make mistakes like everyone else, because I'm not alone in the world. I'm constantly reacting to it, to those around me. And because we're all different there is always room for conflict. The choices we make, the mistakes we make, the reactions we absorb is what makes us who we are. We're constantly changing and growing because, unless we live under a rock, we're constantly being influenced. Don't you feel it?

Becoming a parent or raising another human gives you a front row seat to observe human development. You get to witness this incredible journey of growth from birth to death (hopefully my own death). My daughter is 4 and she is pure light and hope. She has this halo of joy around her (most of the time). My son is 7 and is a walking sponge of emotion. He has a few years on his sister and it's apparent (at least to me) that he's been impacted by life, by loss, in a way that's already shaping his world view, the way he reacts to it.

We moved to Iceland almost 2 years ago, and in the process we lost our beloved cat. Our son has been grieving the loss of his home, his school, the proximity of his US family. Our grief in a way has been parallel to each other. When Emilio (our cat) passed away, that grief compounded and I could see it in my son's eyes, this sorrow that hasn't quite managed to pass. My daughter and I speak often about my father, who passed away in 2012. Neither of my children met him, and that in itself is a point of grief for me. Sometimes I think my daughter recognises it, because whenever I'm feeling that loss, she mentions him. "Your dad is dead!" She'll say when we're riding in the car. "Why did he die, Mom?" She'll ask knowing the answer, because we've talked about it many times. She wants to know, she's curious to know about death and she's also piecing together that one day, we will all be gone. And yet, she's carrying around this light! This bubble that contains no grief, no true loss.

Because I'm attuned to it these days, I can feel it on people. I could before, but it's different somehow. It used to feel like any other emotion I had to be attuned too, because that's my job. But as I've been dealing with myself more, doing more of my own internal processing, I don't know how to describe it. In a way, it feels like an aura. When I look at my children, humans of varying ages, I can see the levels of grief at times. It's how we carry it, how we've been exposed to it, how we want people to see it. With children they show so much of who they are, with adults we've learned how to hide it because, frankly, we've been told too most of our lives. 

"Don't cry.”

"You'll be fine.”

"Don't worry, you'll be happy again.”

"We all lose someone.”

"It's God's will.”

"Don't be sad.”

Our brains are not built for happiness, they are built for survival. They have been from the very beginning. Grief is a pure emotion, it's the gauge in our mind that tells us something is real, it's sad, it's scary. Loss is hard, and the more loss we experience the more we learn how to either push that grief aside, deal with it briefly, and or learn how to process it for the rest of our lives. Grief means change and as we get older, change is almost catastrophic. It's why as we get older, we avoid it as much as possible. It's really f-ing scary. And as a parent, observing my little humans, I can see why. Loss makes us grow up! Once we have had true loss, have experienced true grief, it opens a window. Once we see what's on the other side it's so hard to go back.

I think of the movie "Inside Out" when they are talking about sadness, and why sadness is such an important emotion. When we grieve we also invite people in. When we lose our light, others bring a torch to light the way. Unpleasant emotions aren't there to ruin us, they are there to remind us that we're not alone. When my son misses his family or his school, he looks at his "sad" book. He showed me this the other day, quite recently. I had no idea it existed. "I look at it when I'm feeling sad, Mom." It's a book that his pre-K class wrote together. In the back of the book there is a picture of him with his class. When Emilio died, we all held hands and spoke to each other about our old cat, and whenever the kids pass by the grave, they "meow." My daughter wants to talk about my father because he's her grandpa, she wants to discuss that connection we share. When we lose a loved one, we rally together, we send love to one another, we share our stories, our love, our art, our compassion, we share community.

Never apologise for feeling this incredible emotion and don't push positivity on those who need to feel it. It's necessary to help us learn, to remember that we're all human. We're surviving together, we're finding happiness through grief together. Take a deep breath in, embrace the woe, tears, and pain. It's justified! Allowing others to take in that loss is not burdensome, it's why community exists. We are made to take it in, to share that loss, that love with no where to go.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. - Leo Tolstoy

Be well.