On Grieving and Abiding

Tertia started this thing a couple of days ago where she asked a number of bloggers who have experienced loss of some kind to talk about grieving and how to approach a grieving friend. Go read them all, I can wait.

At first I didn't think I could have anything to add. I mean every one of the guests of honor has pointed out exactly why the stupid platitudes are stupid. So why keep wasting electrons? And yet, I felt like there was something in the air, something that the loss bloggers understood instinctively, but did not articulate. Because it is so a part of who we are now, this understanding. In matters of education, concepts that are routinely not articulated because they are so much a part of the foundational understanding of the field that experts often forget that it is possible to not know or understand these concepts are said to fall into an expert blind spot. I guess I am presumptuous enough to think I can illuminate our expert (a dubious flipping distinction if I ever saw one) blind spot. So here goes.

We hear time and again that people say stupid shit because they don't know what to say. That they say stupid shit because they want to help, because they feel badly for us. Um, yes, maybe, sort of. It is my contention that stupid shit is generally about making the situation seem less sucky than it is ("at least you are young-- you can always have another" anyone? Yes, because my children are much like trading cards, and I can surely live without the damaged one). Or making it seem like it had to be this way ("it's all G-d's plan." That G-d of yours is rather a sadist, don't you think?), or that it is better that it is this way. Many other lovely sentiments have been covered by the original group of bloggers in Tertia's circle, so I will leave the recitation alone. I will sum it up by saying that I believe that people say stupid shit to make themselves, and not the grieving person, feel better. About the unfairness of the universe. About this being OK. They want it to be ok. Or they want to "fix it."

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I Won't Fear Love is a guest blogger for Bridges.

Black Gaping Hole

I feel right now like I am in an upswing, moving a bit farther from the gaping hole, though I know it is right behind me, waiting. Recent distractions, newly (re)found, if tenuous, focus on my goals, on my husband, friends.

I fear the moment I feel the swing start to move downward, back toward the gaping hole, wondering about what new misery awaits me, which old misery will hurt most. How long it will take to climb back out of the gaping black hole, what I will need to do it, to let go again of my boys.

I left this comment on a post at Glow in the Woods, in response to a post by Niobe about feeling the wound of loss sort of, well, scar over. Be less raw.

When I wrote this post, I was feeling really good. Hopeful about the future. C had just completed 5 years of intense work and had successfully defended his dissertation. I was starting to get back into my own research and study. There was a minuscule chance that we could have conceived this cycle, and I was feeling okay, even hopeful about it. There was talk of getting a dog. There has been crazy weather here lately, with a big jump in temperature, severe thunder storms and threats of tornadoes. Electricity was literally in the air.

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So Dear and Yet So Far is a guest blogger on Bridges.