Learning to Grieve (part 3)

“Don’t forget who you are." While it may sound like filler on a graduation card, the words ring incredibly true. They do not suggest we sentimentally stay attached to our childhood self, or to childhood things, nor do they imply we fear growing up. 

“Don’t forget who you are” means in the process of growing up we hold on to life, to our truest self. Our sense of wonder. Yes, wonder. Childhood, in this sense, is not a disease to be rooted out of our system. It is, rather, those foundational experiences of discovery that make us who we really are. 

Growing up means curating those experiences, holding on to the right ones, letting go of the wrong ones. And holding on to the right ones means holding on to the current that brought them in the first place. That current of life does not stop moving. 

As soon as we put our foot in that current, we know it is where we are supposed to be. We see the experiences of our past in light of our present and even future self. Our life becomes ours again, not in a “I possess it” way, but in a deeply connected way.

This is where grief comes in.

Grief has this unsuspecting ability to bring the current of wonder back into life. It challenges our value system. What we think is important. What we do. Everything gets put under the scrutiny of our own mortality, and even eternity. Does this really matter? Will this really help?

Those who allow grief to do its job will undergo such questions. The goal? Wonder! Wonder might best be described as the opposite of control. It is a surrendered state where one gets to actually enjoy the things not in their direct control. 

Instead of fighting for more power to control, the joy of letting go is discovered. We finally correctly assess the power was never really ours in the first place. The version of reality we were holding onto is not the real story. Grief reminds us of that.  There is so much more than what we see. 

And that can be a wonderful thing. That can be a reason to celebrate, not despair. We can not control everything. We certainly can not control the number of our days here. We will die. We are dying. But it’s ok. Death has been defeated.     

It may be counter-intuitive and downright strange to think of death as mercy. But anyone who has watched a love one "battle" a disease or slowly pass from the natural processes of growing old knows vividly just how death can be a mercy. 

There is a certain point when our bodies are simply no good anymore. Every movement involves suffering. Pain abounds. It is hard to watch someone go through that. When death comes in those situations, one can almost visibly see the mercy of death. 

Not that we hasten it, or in anyway manipulate its power, but in its natural course we see how death brings in view the whole story. Our end is part of a daily reality of death and life. Birth and rebirth. The certainty of death informs and instructs the life we live now. 

Today is realized only in the shadow of death’s certain coming! 

We go toward that dark night, realizing our limited scope here. Knowing that death is a mercy, but not one we can control or dictate. It comes with its own agenda. We must submit to its reality. But with the reality of death comes mercy, and with mercy, wonder.