How are you feeling today? That’s a hard question to answer in grief, but what I really mean is how are you today compared to yesterday, last week, last month, or last year? It’s a good thing to keep track of because you’re likely to see a pattern. My pattern probably looked like yours: a big jagged line. Up-down, up-down, up-down, with a few extremes thrown in.
Notice, though, the ups. They are there, as unbelievable as that may seem. I was interviewed for a podcast recently and one of the questions was, “What are the gifts in grief?” If she had asked me that question years ago when I was in the midst of it, I would have put an end to our call. In fact, the same topic came up in a grief-group session and I’m sure I rolled my eyes then too. Please. There are no gifts to this pain except for those who enjoy emotional torture.
But in answering, something came to mind. I told her that I considered a gift in grief to be something that made me laugh, even if I cried again five minutes later. Or if I discovered something to look forward to. That flash of hopeful sensation was a gift because it was distraction from my suffering, and a shocking contrast to the pain I felt most of the rest of the time. I could still laugh? I could still look forward to something? Okay, those are gifts in tiny packages, and I’ll take them. So should you.
Being human is so complex. What a collection of joys and pains we share, sometimes all at once. In grief, we spend much of our time looking back at the love that’s caused this ache, and looking forward to the day we hope to feel normal again. But right now in the middle is where that jagged line is happening. Up-down, up-down. We take it as it comes, whatever it is, and so it’s hard to see the tiny gifts along the way, the life lines that push us through.
Now I can see a bigger picture of the gift in this unwelcome package. I appreciate love in a different way. Sometimes I’ll stop in the middle of making dinner with my husband, see him wearing the apron I got him, mixing something in a bowl, and I take a mental snapshot of this ordinary moment. This is special, this is unique, this is a moment I may someday look back upon with yearning. And then, just as quickly, I remember that my back hurts, and I’m tired, and I want to get through dinner so I can feel the bathwater. But that snapshot is there, the awareness of the great reality of the simple life I’m in as it jumps up and down between sharp beauty and fuzzy normalcy.
Please find the gifts where you can. Maybe you slept through the night, or smiled at your dog, or felt the warmth in a friend’s voice on the phone. We are not here forever, but you are here now. Right now, living, breathing, experiencing all of this great complex life. May your jagged line smooth in time, but may you be willing to feel all of it in the making.
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Listen to my podcast interview at Fit For Joy
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