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Grief often shines a light on goodness in the world




“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion, a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.”Mark Twain

Sitting with her kaleidoscope, the big girl in a little body sat down at the restaurant table. As she tried to share some incredible story with the person beside her, both her gestures and facial expressions were engaging and entertaining, as I watched from a distance. 

After paying my check, I picked up my belongings and headed for the door. I stopped at the table with the bigger than life little girl to comment on what a joy she was to watch. Her name is Arlie. In the few minutes we visited, her mother shared that she was, in fact, a very tough little girl. 

At 5 years old, she was a cancer survivor (twice). The reality hit me — here was a young girl getting the chance to live a beautiful life, while a friend’s life was coming to an end, much too soon, in a hospital room not too many miles away.

Grief had already begun visiting me over the previous few weeks, and I felt as if it were taking up long term residency. The grief our friend was feeling in watching his wife, his best friend, begin the downward spiral toward death was blanketing me like a heavy cloak as I looked on. 

Grief is just that way. It doesn’t wait until it’s invited to pay a call, it picks the lock on the door to your heart and begins removing bits of joy and replacing them with sadness. I’ve been learning about grief for more than 50 years, and I am guessing I’ll never be its master.

Grief: sorrow, misery, heartbreak, anguish, torment. That is the dictionary’s definition. Pain that makes a person burst into tears is my way of describing grief. It seems to be inescapable, though many people have attempted to ignore it, to pretend it wasn’t in the room, and to diminish its value. 

Grief seems to be a necessary, albeit uncomfortable, part of life. The sooner we learn to accept, and perhaps even invite, grief, the sooner we might heal from the hurts of life. Grief is about loss, not always about death, and as Twain points out, the grief of losing a doll when you are a child or a crown when you are a king is not so different. 

Your grief and mine may look different on the surface, but the sadness that comes with our loss is similar.

It’s a funny thing, grief. You think it arrives when someone dies, but it isn’t that way. It begins to visit from the moment we hear a life-altering diagnosis. When the dentist threatened that I might lose a tooth, grief was there. When a girl ran a stop sign and totaled my husband’s car that I was driving, grief was waiting for me. When my father died, grief became my closest confidante from the day I heard he had cancer. 

We do not choose the circumstances of grief; it chooses us.

Loss of a relationship with a friend or family member, a job, of belonging, loss of a scholarship, a pet, and loss of love all bring grief.

Grief accompanies loss.

Grief is normal.

Perhaps if you and I began to honor our grief, we would feel better.

If we would acknowledge the necessity of grieving, we might find we could allow ourselves healing we would otherwise miss. 

My friend Sally lost her battle in a hospital bed. One friend died, and a world of others mourn. Someone else might have lost their pet, instead of a person. The grief is still real and valid. A child’s favorite toy breaks, and to them, the loss is significant. Grief is about loss.

In each of these instances of grief, we know from researchers like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross that people will typically go through five stages of grief and even revisit them: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

You’ve been there — someone has lost a person, a pet, a job, a dream. What do you say that will be comforting and not minimizing someone’s sadness, anger, or guilt? I found some advice from a few good sources you might want to keep handy:

  • Don’t downplay the loss
  • Don’t make it about your own past experiences
  • Do let people talk about how they’re feeling – let them be sad or mad
  • Do share a favorite story of the person (if someone has died) if you knew them
  • And the kindest thing you can say in the case of anyone’s loss of anything? “I’m so sorry.”

My best friend, my world, the love of my life, took her light into the next room last night.

The words, written by the husband of my friend who died, caught me off guard in both their beauty and simplicity. I think about the light each of us has the opportunity to shine while we are here. 

Sweet Arlie came to mind, taking her light everywhere she goes, winning her battles. Her parents (Living for Everything) have continued to shine a light despite the grief they have experienced in her five years of life. Countless others have lost homes to storms and homelands due to wars, yet they all continue to shine a light for those watching.

What about you? Are you shining your light? Let’s never shortchange a person who is grieving, regardless of the loss, and never forget to keep our light burning in whatever room we might find ourselves.

Susan Black Steen is a writer and photographer, a native Tennessean and a graduate of Austin Peay State University. With a firm belief that words matter, she writes and speaks to bring joy, comfort and understanding into each life. Always, she writes from her heart in hopes of speaking to the hearts of others. 

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