Surviving Grief

Over the past few days, I have been enmeshed with Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Option B’. Sheryl is the COO of Facebook, and perhaps more famous for another masterpiece she authored ‘Lean In.’ She wrote Option B following the sudden death of her husband, Dave Goldberg when he was just 47 years old. In writing about grief, Sheryl remarks ‘Grief is a whisper in the world and a clamor within. More than sex, more than faith, even more than its usher death, grief is unspoken, publicly ignored except for those moments at the funeral that are over too quickly.’

In this life, I have come to the conclusion that we will all suffer grief. If not today, tomorrow certainly. It is an inevitable outcome. And most times, grief does not change us, it reveals us. We have either lost a loved one, or know somehow who has lost a loved one. One of the clichés you hear from sympathizers in those times are things like ‘I know what you are going through.’ Truth is that, they don’t. You also hear people say ‘This too shall pass.’ Truth is this: It will not pass, and you will never completely heal. They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite. Bishop T.D Jakes once explained that after his mother passed on, one sympathizer told him ‘God will give you double for your trouble’ and then he thought to himself ‘What does that even mean? Will God give me two new mamas? It was a startling consolation.’ In truth, many of those who sympathize with us during times of grief and mourning usually mean no harm, but sometimes, their words might deepen the tears more than it does to ease the heart. A vivid example was one that Sheryl Sandberg shared in her book ‘A woman I met chose to go to work the day after her husband died because she could not bear to be at home. To this day, she still feels the disapproval of colleagues who said to her, "I'd think you'd be too upset to be here today." You would think, but you just don't know.’ We simply shouldn’t tell people how to grief, we shouldn’t tell them how to mourn or how long to grief. We simply never know for we all suffer differently, and we heal differently.

However, whatever your grief is, you must find meaning in it. There must be some purpose to the pain, and even if it doesn’t fully make sense at the time, we must realize that some things will only make sense in hindsight. While I managed my own individual grief, I started to learn that no matter how sad I felt, another break would eventually come. It helped me regain a sense of control. As we grief, we must always hold on to the fond memories, and channel our pain as a reason to go on. One way to deal with grief is to always ask yourself ‘what will the person I grief about want for me at this time?’ Most often than not, the answer is that they want you to find strength, and somehow, trudge on.

Writing about grief, Anne Lamott said: “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”