The space between two chairs
November is the perfect month to grieve. Grief is built into its bones. It’s the time of year when you realize there’s no going back. The cold is upon us and it will get much worse before it gets any better. It requires a true surrender to shoulder this burden well. Old and new, many rituals in different cultures choose November as a time to choose November as a time to connect with death. Whether it’s All Hallow’s Tide or Day of the Dead or even Remembrance Day, many people had the same good idea. We continue to uphold the traditions, I believe, for the healing they can bring.
But what does it mean to grieve? For me, grief has been about space. Giving it, allowing it. But it’s not the kind of space that can fit between two chairs. It’s a space that doesn’t have edges and that contracts and expands without warning. It’s tough to know the shape of it, even when you’re right inside it.
Grief appears for me in stages: first desperation, then resignation. Then, waves. Which are like echoes of the desperation but in varying degrees of severity. An overall decrescendo when you zoom out a bit, but never a straight line. An unexpected trigger sends me back down to the bottom of the sea. Again. And I can’t always make the time at the time but I always try to make time at some point. To sit, to allow, to let it move in and then out of me. To feel the physicality of grief. Not to prevent it from happening again, but to try and at least be clean when it comes again.
I do what I can on my own, but the true power of grieving is in doing it together. Funerals are one of the greatest gifts. I can’t believe I’m saying that. But to gather hearts together and to realize that we grieve because we love has been the most poignant part of my own grief journey. Even in the absence of a gathering, reaching out to a love one with a gaping, aching heart makes it so mcuh easier to bear. No, I can’t have what I want. I can’t bring my dad and my other loved ones who have passed back. But I can use that grief to find a deeper connection with those who are still here with me.
