Good Grief

“To live well is to grieve well.” That is a state­ment I heard in a sem­i­nar twenty five years ago. It is not only my most com­mon ref­er­ence when I teach the course titled: “Cop­ing with Long Term Ill­ness and Death,” but it is some­thing I have inte­grated into my spir­i­tual style. Every word of it is true. By griev­ing con­sciously in reg­u­lar doses, life pro­gresses much eas­ier (and helps open the door to joy).

This is not some­thing you have to find out through some sem­i­nar. It can be seen among some ani­mals. I used to have two Bas­sett Hounds. Each day they would set aside a cou­ple of min­utes to grieve. They would howl the most mourn­ful sounds, as if on some cue from the uni­verse, and then they would go on about their day of food and play. They never missed a day.

Each per­son has a unique grief style — every bit as unique as his or her fin­ger­prints. Griev­ing well means dis­cov­er­ing and prac­tic­ing your own grief style. Jesus said, “Blessed are they that mourn…” and he meant it. Embrace the losses and the gains. Post­pon­ing grief is like post­pon­ing house clean­ing or main­te­nance on your car…and you know what that does!

My style is to stay in delib­er­ate motion. I grieve as I go. I keep my rou­tine and inte­grate loss into action as well as into still­ness. Most impor­tant, I do not get lost in it. It is para­mount to treat grief like all of the other lessons of the soul (anx­i­ety, fear, con­fu­sion, bewil­der­ment, para­dox, serendip­ity, etc.). It comes; it goes. When repressed or denied, it goes under­ground and then sur­faces as all sorts of com­pul­sions. All it needs is con­scious acknowl­edg­ment. Grief is a good thing, but it is com­monly avoided in our “feel good only” mis­guided world.

Good grief!