Two Thoughts on Grief

Elizabeth Gilbert lost her partner, Rayya Elias, almost a year ago to cancer. When she died, she wrote that Rayya was, “my love, my heart, my best friend, my teacher, my rebel, my angel, my protector, my challenger, my partner, my muse, my wizard, my surprise, my gift, my comet, my liberator, my rock star, my completely impossible non-cooperator, my otherworldly visitor, my spiritual portal, and my baby.”

To be described like that; to be seen and understood and experienced so completely.

So this has been a year of grief, and I read something recently that she said about it that I found really moving:

I have learned that Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.

The only way that I can “handle” Grief, then, is the same way that I “handle” Love — by not “handling” it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.

I love that because it makes sense.  If we can’t control love, force it to come or leave at our will, how could we ever believe that our control over grief would be otherwise?

In the end, Elizabeth adds: “It’s an honor to be in grief. It’s an honor to feel that much, to have loved that much.”  It’s cold comfort when you are in the throes of grief, but it is a truth, too.  Grief can be a statement of love.

I think about friends who have lost children — I think about my own miscarriages — and how the grief never fully goes away.  That is a statement of love.  Our heart holds onto that feeling and shakes us.