Good Grief?

Is there really such a thing as “good grief”?

Grief is something I’ve been trying to get my heart and head around in the last few weeks. I firmly believe that the precipitous for grief is loss, and the precipitous for loss, is love. So I’m venturing to say that without love there is not grief, and without grief there is no love.

Grief is more than sadness or depression. Grief is a hole in your heart that actually hurts; it’s a lump in your throat and a stinging in your eyes that lingers for days, months or years. Grief is an emotion that can consume you and leave you with a feeling of hopelessness if not processed.

It’s not always death that causes grief the key is “change” because of loss. Grief can be kids growing up and moving away, a new job, leaving a community of friends and familiarity, graduating from high school or any major change in your life that causes a loss of something. On a deeper level grief can be the loss of a parent, a child, a spouse or even a pet. With grief everything is changed and never again to be the same, but that’s not to say that we won’t love again, we won’t care again. Once we come to an understanding that life is not an equation, and there is no answer or a final destination --- instead it is part of continuous journey that we call “circle of life”. Everything in your circle has value. Love, compassion and even suffering and pain have value. Love gives way to loss, which gives way to grief, and the challenge we have is channeling that grief back into love.

So let’s set the scene, a beautiful wedding, a life together, children and then then suddenly a death of a spouse and the entire family is stricken with grief. It’s intense, and everyone is struggling to find their new place in the hierarchy of the family, struggling to move on, and at the darkest hour, the lowest point, the saddest of the sad days, a grandchild is born. The baby knows nothing of the grief, but knows it is surrounded and comforted by love, and the metamorphosis of grief to love begins. Without love, this child has not hope, no future and we are called to provide it.

My answer to the question of is there really “Good Grief” remains unanswered, but I do believe that grief and loss morph us into love – sometimes new love, but always love and motivation to perpetuate this great circle of life, love and caring knowing that eventually grief and loss play into the formula as nothing is forever, nothing is guaranteed.

Love today in spite possible of grief tomorrow. It’s what we’re called to do.

This lesson I’ve learned from life, love and God. Thank you.

This was written after mysteriously losing 26 full term ewes to poisoned feed. It was such a helpless feeling, and the remorse and grief that followed had to be processed.