Grief Is Not an Event

There is a terrible tragedy happening in our community. Brain cancer is striking again.

Since I heard the news, a cloud has been hanging over me that I haven’t been able to shake. This news has triggered a series of flashbacks.

Allison calling, saying I need to come to the doctor’s office right away.
Sitting with her in that office and being told, “Your wife has a brain tumor,” losing all feeling in my body and watching her, mouth open, go into silent shock.
Days later, waiting for the biopsy result after an eight-hour brain surgery that delivered the news: “Your wife has 4 to 18 months to live.”

They were wrong. It turned out to be three months and 29 days.

In our home, we know what it’s like to lose someone. Grief has shaped everything about who we are as a family, and in many ways, who Whitney and I are as a couple.

One of the biggest lessons we continue to relearn as the kids grow up is that grief is not an event. Once you have it, it’s a chronic condition that you carry with you always. It becomes a part of who you are.

In her TED Talk, Nora McInerny speaks about this idea. When we lose someone, we do not “move on.” We can never leave grief behind. The choice is whether we stay stuck or whether we move forward.

You never move on from it or get over it. You learn to live alongside it, and if you’re lucky, grow from it.

One of the strange things about grief is that although almost all of us have lost someone we love, we, the collective “we,” are generally pretty terrible at how we carry it.

In the early stages of acute grief, we’re flooded with complicated and overwhelming emotions. We’re reminded of the different stages of grief that we supposedly must navigate. Annoyingly, this proposed set of stages suggests that this is a linear process that will eventually end, which, of course, is absolutely not true.

Alongside that, we face an unspoken cultural spectrum of expectations. On one end, we’re encouraged to be resilient and persevere through the pain. On the other, people expect visible expressions of raw sadness.

Over time, as we become accustomed to carrying grief with us, we can be surprised when a wave of emotion hits and find ourselves not well equipped to handle it.

For me, I’ll never forget taking my kids in to say goodbye to their mom. It was the worst experience of my life and an unimaginably hard thing to do. Now, when I watch a movie or hear a story where a child loses their parent, it doesn’t take much for me to lose my composure. Unfortunately, this means that every Disney movie ever made has me burying my face to choke back tears.

Think about it. Every Disney movie.

We’re conditioned to have expectations of what grief might look like for others and ourselves, but it rarely follows a pattern. After Allison died and I began a relationship with Whitney, some friends celebrated it and others couldn’t handle it. To some, I clearly wasn’t sad enough. It didn’t fit their expectations of what my experience of loss should look like. How messed up is that?

Friends’ and family reactions say nothing about the unexpected complexities I grappled with as I tried to build a new relationship and life after watching my vibrant wife wither away in just four months before my eyes.

Grief is complicated.

BUT grief is universal. And so little is said about it. So little is taught about it.

So when it hits us, things get awkward.

Grief affects all of us, because whether it’s happened to you already or not, it will eventually. And once you know grief, well, then you know.

The situations we have to navigate are horrible and tragic, whether it’s a young child, a 33 year old mother and wife, or a beautiful, wise, and beloved grandparent. Loss hurts, and after it happens, there’s just no getting rid of it.

What we need to do is get better at it.

We need to recognize that grief is a chronic condition. Once it hits, we all live with it. And when we see it happening to someone we care about, we need to try really hard to remove the expectations that come with that experience. We just need to show up.

For a close friend or family member, that probably means literally showing up. Getting in the car and spending time just being there.

For someone you’re less close to, that might mean sending a voice note or text message to tell them you care or that you’re thinking of them.

No heroics required. Just let them know you care. And for God’s sake, don’t fill their freezer with lasagna. I’ve got stories about that.

You can’t fix their grief, just like no one can fix yours. But by showing you care, you can do the one thing that really matters. Remind them that they’re not alone.

If you’re capable of love, then you’re going to lose people along the way. We grieve because we love. And as horrible as loss can be, there is a bittersweet beauty in the humanity of that.

For anyone reading this who’s going through something horrible right now, I hope this helped in some small way.

You’re not alone.