On Grief

    Grief is hard to describe. It feels like everything and nothing. At its inception -- such as when getting word of tragic news, or hearing a terrible prognosis -- you'll feel as if the walls have rushed in and the ceiling has dropped. Your vision narrows; the world becomes hazy, but focusing on any one object makes it appear sharper, more harshly defined, than normal. You continue to hear, but meaning is muted. The external world feels overwhelming, but internally you feel as if you're standing on the edge of a vast, desolate plain with nowhere to go. You're struggling to comprehend what you just learned, so your subconscious sections off your perception to ease the burden of existence.

    After a while, everything you say and do is tinged with nervous anticipation. You know you'll have to adjust to life without this person, but the devil on your shoulder squanders no opportunity to tell you that you're not capable of adapting. So you drown him with distraction and entertainment.

    Finally that long-awaited, hated event comes; it rises, peaks, and passes, just like any other. Numbness sets in. The world loses its color, music its resonance. Any thought of the future will seem bleak because one of the main ingredients that makes life worthwhile is gone. Ambitions and milestones are tainted with hints of regret for something you had no control over.

    In the weeks following, routine runs your life. Each day feels the same, every moment replicating itself into the next. But randomly interspersed throughout these weeks are sudden flashes of clarity and remembrance that break the charade and leave you sitting alone in the dark, indulging your sorrow when perhaps what you need is "a clean, well-lighted place", like the grieving, drunken Spaniard Hemingway wrote about in his short story of the same name.

    Enter the first few months after the loss. Life has begun returning to normal; you once again feel involved in the day-to-day. Intrusive thoughts aren't as frequent or severe. Things are good, or at least something approximating good.

    As your mental well-being continues to improve, you may begin reflecting on the various ways your grief is still manifesting.  For me, that manifestation was largely (1) art and (2) self-reflection. 

    I've realized that a lot of my ideas for different creative pieces revolve around some dimension of my relationship with my father that I want explore in greater depth. Occasionally I find myself trying to project our relationship out into some alternate timeline, a future where I'm older, established, and have my own family and my dad is now a doting grandfather. Creative ideas are then spawned from these thought processes.

    The self-reflection I, and I'm sure many others, experience after a loss translates into action. When you lose someone you looked up to -- like a parent, mentor, or guardian -- you begin acting in such a way that you hope would make them proud. You aspire to be the person they always said you would be. It's funny how life has these self-fulfilling prophecies.

    There's a cliché that's often referenced when discussing loss: "Time heals all wounds." I think the saying is functionally true, but reductionist. You will never feel the same after your first major loss, but it will hopefully ignite a series of thoughts that help you grow as a person and maximize your life. Doing so will then honor the memory of the deceased.

    There is one perspective I've found very helpful this past year, and it can be summed up with the following:

    Death is an avenue by which meaning is found. It is part of the natural order of the reality. This does not mean it is fair or even that it makes sense. But it is a catalyst which can prompt the grieving into action to better the world for themselves and others. In this truth, there is meaning.