Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering. – Roland Barthes
I grieve.
Natural enough. But what does that mean? How does grief work? Is it worthy or vile, salutary or hurtful? How much is enough? I check what forebears have said (why I like quote books – instant erudition!). My curiosity’s cursory, not curative. Today’s grief hurts like hell, but I’ll get over it.
Henry assures me grief is a human quirk. Dogs sensibly live in the verifiable present, not comparing this moment to what was or might be. What is is – and that’s that. Grief’s kindled by a sense of loss – of a person, place, time, idea. Oh for elsewhere!
Grief reflects love, another human oddity. Some grief, then, is laudable. You may have known people who died and no one grieved. What a verdict on a life!
We grow into grief. Infants may bawl for mom but they don’t brood. I was eight when first mugged by loss. John Quinn was our groom. He held me on my pony and spoke with an Irish brogue. He had a certain smell. I don’t remember my father’s smell but I remember John’s. He died of a heart attack in the night. I was taken to his funeral at the Catholic church. He was in that box, I was told, close enough to touch. Sixty-five years later I still can’t quite believe it.
Is grief self-important, self-indulgent, irresponsible, an imposition? Sure, sometimes. Might it be magnified to enhance a meager life? Often. Many souls flaunt their grief – I grieve, therefore I matter. Do we grieve involuntarily or for show? Both. An ungrieving widow would invite reproach. Sometimes I am sad to be polite.
My advice to myself about grieving is a) do it truly – don’t groan if you don’t have to, and b) do it considerately – don’t distress others more than you can help. Grieving is both a private and social act. Some is commendable, even precious; too much tactless, even cruel.
Tolstoy was wise about grief as about so much. “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow,” he said, “but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.” Cicero was surprisingly humorous: “It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.” I happened on this beautiful poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which I didn’t know:
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
If you’re curious what’s breaking my heart, just read the news.