Grief and Joy
There's a bit of this around at the moment. Please take care if you are not in a good headspace.
Recently I spent a joyful autumn day with a friend where we ate lunch and got to see the amazing new Yayoi Kasuma installation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The artwork makes my heart hit the operatic high-note. In these challenging times where we hush-up micro-pains while living in this rich and unequal country, I asked my friend, does life get better than this?
Earlier that day I had visited the garden of souls. It was my parents’ wedding anniversary and I wanted to be with Mum, feel the writing on her stone and cry. A lot.
Later over lunch my friend looked troubled when I brought up my morning at the garden of souls.
“You could have cancelled lunch,” she said.
Why?
I explained that every wedding anniversary, Mother’s day, deathday, birthday, Christmas, Easter, (and there are plenty of other unofficial anniversaries) is a day of memories, pain, sadness and ultimately a deep, deep love.
It hasn’t quite been a year but I don’t wish grief away. There’s acceptance but not closure. I am a fully-functioning person who grieves. I told my friend, ‘You don’t get over it, you grow around it.’
Whenever I talk to people about grief, I take something away that’s useful. If we were potters, I’d be taking some of your clay and rolling it into mine. Your bit of clay is the part with a slightly different colour. Or maybe that’s my bit?
Shall we share some clay? Do you have a grief story?
Or can you help someone close to you who is grieving in silence? If it’s useful, here is something I wrote last year about what to say when someone dies.
Thank-you for reading, friends. Have a lovely day.
Thank you for your lovely and gentle words about grief, Jane.
I must say at the outset, I am pleased you did not cancel lunch - I think it was good for you to be able to share those thoughts and words with your friend.
And I love your words .. “you don’t get over grief, you grow around it”. When I reflect, I feel that is my experience.
My sister and I lost our dear mother in June 2020. Mum reached 100 years in the April, but then suffered a stroke a few weeks later. We sat with her continuously for the last 36 or so hours of her life. We managed to stay with her almost until the end, and we actually felt quite calm when we said our goodbyes, with her passing two hours later. It was a special time, and I felt it helped our grief process.
Also, quite a different story, if I may.
We lost my younger brother through electrocution in a workplace accident in 1979 - he was 23. I have always missed him.
Rob was very much an outdoors type of person, and I feel he would have been very proud of me walking part of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, which I am doing in August. Along the way, we will visit the Ferro de Crux (the Iron Cross), where pilgrims traditionally place a stone they have brought with them - maybe to remember someone, maybe to offload some troubles (in a spiritual type of way), etc. I have decided, just in the last few days, that I will place a stone at the base of the cross in memory of my dear brother.
Thank you for this forum, Jane.
Thank you Jane. The older we get, the more grief & loss we seem to encounter as those we love leave us behind. I shared the anniversary of my Father-in-law's birthday yesterday. He has been gone for 5 years now, but I still miss him as he was a most wonderful man.. I wrote "Happy Birthday to a most wonderful man.
Hope you, Thel & Carol are celebrating together & looking down with delight at those you loved 💖🧡💙🧡💖