“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken…..”

First of all, if you are tenderhearted because of a recent loss, you might want to proceed with caution because I will be talking about grief and loss. The words in the title are from “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from the musical play “Les Miserables”. as Marius mourns his comrades in arms. What has inspired this blog about grief and remembrance, well, several things: It is the season where there are reminders of the coming Mother’s Day everywhere and even after fifteen years this still reminds me of my loss, and I have a dear friend who recently lost her mother and I was thinking how this must resonant with her. We just lost Dick Clark, who was so much a part of my formative years. I have been listening to Miranda Lambert’s “Over You”, which so succinctly sums up the feelings of grief over a beloved so in just nine word of the chorus. “You went away, how dare you, I miss you.”

I come from a background that basically taught you to suck it up. Grief was a very private thing, you didn’t really talk about it once the funeral rites were over except to remember and share stories. You didn’t really share pain you still felt When I have lost people I have channeled a lot of it into my poetry. Lamentation is a staple of many poets..

The past couple of decades I have seen that the ready access to media has made mourning a very public and communal even for people we don’t really know. Princess Diana’s death I think was the apex of this, but it continues and is magnified with Facebook, Twitter, and so much non-scripted television. It sometimes seems over the top that people are so distraught when a famous person dies and how much media has made people feel that they “know” celebrities. But I think it also maybe reflective of the need to feel connected, to share with others. I remember vividly when Kennedy was assassinated, people came together in their mutual grief and shock and were riveted to the black and white images flashing on the TV screens. It ever so briefly united a nation that was facing a lot of change and dissention.

Grief isn’t really something that can be measured or easily defined, it is individual and although everyone experiences it, each person experiences it in his or her own way. And it doesn’t seem that we grieve the same for everyone we lose in our lives because each loss affects us in different ways. Sometimes it can be mixed with other emotions; relief if a loved one has been suffering acutely, guilt if there were unresolved issues, helplessness or a feeling that you could have somehow prevented the death, abandonment, anger, denial, fear, or a mixture of many emotions.

Our thoughts and feelings about our own mortality and spirituality or religiousness can be thrown into confusion. Memories become precious commodities, clung to, shared and sometimes fragile. Birthdays, holidays, certain place, meals, objects can stir the memories and the feelings of grief but also help us cope and eventually hopefully dull the pain and reinforce the happiness our loved ones gave us.

Innocence Lost

The assassin’s gun ended a dream
So we clung to one another
For comfort and tried to make sense
Of the unimaginable, the unknown
And my mind reached out
But couldn’t find you
So in his arms my fears were calmed
He was gentle and sweet
And couldn’t have known
That it should have been you
That it was doomed before it began
The memory of that night would
Ever be linked to loss
Of innocence
Of hope
Of the dream
That was you.