My Journey With Loss And Grief
How It Began
I had what I didn’t want, and I didn’t have what I did want.
I felt stuck. Unable to influence and shift important things in my life and relationships, I was deeply unhappy, and disappointed in myself for having allowed myself to fall into in this condition with no apparent way out of it.
I was living "a life of quiet desperation.” Henry David Thoreau
And then, my husband was diagnosed with a cancer that threatened his life. And when he told his employers, they let him go.
Our lives were changed in an instant. Now he was fighting for his life, and livelihood. Our ability to direct our lives at will and to strive for anything aspirational, disappeared. Thrown to the sidelines, we were left only with the reactive fight to save his life and salvage what we could of what ‘had been'.
It was terrifying, living day to day, wondering what tomorrow would bring and how we would deal with it. I felt inadequate and hopeless in the face of the new challenges.
Friends reminded me:
“Many people are in worse situations than you. Look at the all the good things you’ve still got. It's a First World Problem! You'll get through it.”
My extreme fear, my terrible pain and grief were illegitimate.
There was truth in those opinions of course, yet diminishing my experience like this felt like being slapped in the face. My "First World Problem” hurt really badly. I didn’t (and still don’t) compare my own painful experience to more extreme examples of suffering. Nor did doing so ameliorate anything about what my husband, kids and I were going through. Suffering is suffering, and is no less painful just because you’re a middle class person living in a western economy. I was racked with debilitating fear and sadness, regardless of whether I ‘should' or ‘shouldn’t’ be.
No-one's experience of grief at loss should be invalidated and dismissed with judgements or platitudes.
Losing My Self
I would have given anything to go back in time! All I wanted was to regain control over our lives. To feel ‘safe’ again.
I struggled with loss. Loss of certainty, of safety, of choice, income and opportunity brought stress and depressive feelings to my door every day. Aspirational, I was acutely aware of what had been possible in a Middle Class life, and of where we could reasonably have expected to be, had Fate not intervened.
I struggled with grief. I grieved the loss of all that I had assumed. I grieved my powerlessness in the face of circumstances and timing. I felt despair at my inability to bring about any kind of restoration for us.
I struggled with my own existence. I believed that I could only be myself from a certain space: the reinstallation of the conditions that had previously enabled me, to be ‘me’. That was what had made me functional. I lost my ability to hope and thus to try for better things in a life that I now simply wanted to be done with, rather than continue on in.
Over the months, my sadness, withdrawal and loss of hope made me a different person from the one I once was. I battled both a terrible, inner rage — and despair. It felt as though I was dying inside.
My external sense of powerlessness became fatal to my sense of Self.
A Dark Night Of The Soul
I endured my existence, my relationships, and my days. The narrative of what ‘should’ have happened was loud in my ears, drowning everything else out: we’d ‘followed the rules’ and what had resulted was unfair…
I felt dark emotions I didn’t know I had in me—jealousy at other people’s ability to work, to make choices, to feel safe, and to take things for granted. Nothing was going to change, I thought.
Stubborn as I am, the months came and went. But eventually, I became weary.
“I-Am-Who-I-Am-Because-Of-Where-I-Am-And-What-I-Have-And-Do” — broke.
What I wanted, wasn’t going to be restored to me. “I” and my self-flagellation, my stubborn will, and my ‘legitimate’ grievances were nothing in the face of that implacable truth. I had no option but to accept that.
Finally, I let go. I gave Life permission to be what it was.
And I gave myself permission— to simply 'Be' in the space of the great force that Life is.
I surrendered to what was, and importantly — surrendered feeling something about it. Surrendered myself to absolute powerlessness, in deep acceptance of it. Allowed… ego to dissipate, along with agenda.
In this moment, I was able to make peace with Life itself.
Waking Up
Now, open to previously unconsidered possibilities, I was genuinely surprised to find myself stepping into employment caring for disabled and elderly people — something far from the kind of work I’d ever done before that.
But it was something. A chance to contribute. An opportunity to reclaim some direction and make choices in my life.
And here I found something that hadn’t expected — something that began to wake me from a sleep I hadn’t realised I’d been in.
Though they were suffering with loss, limitation, indignity and even fear — almost without exception, my clients showed up every single day with kindness, gratitude and grace, in the face of difficulty.
They were inspiring! I went home every day humbled, by their stoicism and their unfailing ability to find something to smile about.
A Life-Changing Insight
Then, one day not long after I began this work, browsing the web for some information, I finally woke up to what they were up to. JK Rowling in a commencement speech to Harvard’s graduating students in 2005 - had quoted Plutarch:
"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."
I finally understood what my aged and disabled clients clearly knew:
We are not our situations, health or circumstances. Whatever else may be happening—we are our Selves first.
What was I achieving inwardly? Sadness, fear, and a wish to give up. I was ‘being’ my circumstances.
How I was showing up in my life was making me miserable, making my family miserable — and was miserably entitled.
I had a job. I had a roof over my head, and people who loved me. And my husband was rallying.
I thought of people who, despite suffering the most terrible circumstances and privations, rose above their loss, suffering and fear to prevail. —Quiet heroes, who defined themselves by living their values, by their consistent actions. By their grace. And who — in so doing — revealed to the rest of us just how magnificent and inspiring a human being really can be. Nelson Mandela is one such example.
Finding My Self
I was humbled and embarrassed; inspired and suddenly clear — all in one moment.
I knew then that I wanted to be like those people.
COURAGEOUS. TENACIOUS. PRINCIPLED. GRATEFUL. HUMBLE. GENEROUS. WISE. AWARE. INSPIRING. CONTRIBUTING.
What I Learned From My Painful Encounter With Loss
The way we show up in life makes a difference to our situations.
Our attitude, our actions — our vision of our Self as a person of character, effort, kindness and grace— affects what ripples out from us and into our worlds.
They materially affect the quality of life that we thus create for ourselves.
We might lose our ability to manifest certain hopes, dreams, and our big pictures. Yet there is another part of our lives where we can and do make an enormous and immediate difference, every single day.
The kind of Human Being we ultimately are.
How we show up in every moment, week, day, month and year is up to us.