#169 – What's grief for?

The Christmas after my mother's stroke, my father decided "we weren't the kind of family that mopes around and pushes joy away just because their mother is in a coma." We were stoic like that – or, should I say, emotionally immature?

So, even though it'd been exactly one month since my mother's brain had suffered a massive hemorrhage, nine subsequent surgeries, one life-threatening infection, and several atrophies, we didn't neglect the iberico ham, the cava [Spanish sparkling wine made following the Champenoise method], or the turrones [traditional Christmas sweets made out of almond, eggs, and honey].

Now, I'm not talking about the Buddhist way of "choosing joy," or the "trusting life by showing humor" I referred to yesterday. I'm talking about flat-out suppression of difficult emotions, which is the most effective recipe to store them in one's mind and heart forever. (Then you cry every time you see a lady that has the same hair as your mother, etcetera.)

When instead we allow ourselves to grieve, we give space to those emotions within us. We let them be, accepting them without judging them. We experience them fully, and then, we let them go, once they've stretched so thin that they dissipate on their own.

Grief gives us permission to look at and process the pain of something that ends – the life of a loved one, or our life as we knew it.

To grieve is to walk through the smog until we find its end and the sky is clear again. We feel all the feelings until the moment when we can see clearly again.

What ending do you need to grieve so that it's gone for good?

Love,

Carolina

PS: You can now read the first 91 essays in this series in my book, Unfolding Your Mind: Notes on Ghosts, Power, and the Self. If you’d like to buy it for you or someone else, you can get it on Kindle or paperback here. Thank you!