Lies About Grief

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As I have grieved these past few months, I grew tired of the clichés people threw at me. I know some of these people meant well, and I know that some of them care. I also knew there was more to the story, and I found an article this week about lies people tell about grief. For those who have sensitivities to profanity, be warned, because the author uses vulgarity to accentuate feelings. I suspect the author is also grieving, but her thoughts gave me the perspective on grief that I needed.

Only you can decide how you grieve, how long you grieve, and why. Only you know exactly what it meant to you no matter how much other people may empathize or sympathize or love you. The reasons we grieve are deeply personal, and the healing process is too. There is no magic formula or guaranteed strategy, and because of that some people never really get over their grief. I do not believe that time heals all wounds. I think in time they scab over so that we don’t notice them, and eventually scar tissue fills them so that we can continue to function, but we are never really whole no matter how much time passes. In the end, I expect my wounds only to fully heal when Christ returns, puts His hands on me, and because of His knowledge, power, and wisdom makes me whole.

This post is about what the lies are and why people tell them. You don’t have to get over it. These things are true things that happened to you, and they will forever change who you are because they really happened. Nobody else really understands, and nobody else has to carry the burden, and so usually when they try to help it’s because they don’t want to see you hurt and don’t like the fact that they’re powerless to help. My friend told me that great heartaches take anywhere from 1-3 YEARS to fully heal, which might be why there are so many rebound relationships and narcotic dependencies, because people are rushing to move on with their lives while their souls ache for the solace that only comes from the Prince of Peace. Nobody else can tell you how and when and if you should “get over it”, because nobody else really knows all the facts. Let me explain them.

1. You should be over it by now.

The fact of the matter is that when something or someone about which you care deeply is taken from you, the piece of you that you attached to it goes too. When a relationship with someone dies, a part of YOU dies too. If nothing else, the hope you had and the plans you made and the joy you felt suddenly find themselves awash with a feeling of powerlessness and confusion because suddenly what you foresaw is no longer true. It’s awful because you feel akin to what Shakespeare wrote about a poor player who struts and frets his hour on stage and is heard no more. You feel like an idiot, full of sound and fury, and you may wonder if the things you really loved meant nothing.

You will never forget it, because it changed you. For at least a little while, it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I can show you boxes of pictures I took and pages of journal entries of things I am no longer sure actually happened because the people who were part of my life at the time no longer acknowledge that they ever even knew me. For my part they were real, and if I confess that they weren’t then I am afraid I’ll be calling my life, my work, and my memories liars. I cannot do that because it makes me fake, and I know that’s not true. So, I grieve, and somehow I make it through each day until night when God blesses me with exhaustion so I can sleep and rest.

2. You shouldn’t live in the past; you should stop revisiting it.

The problem with this is that there is truth in the past. The future is all guess work and putatives, inflamed with hope and fear. The present is tangible because it’s right in front of you. The past was once your present, and because it was tangible at some point, you know there are tangible and real things in your past, in those relationships, and in your hopes and conversations and interactions. People who demand that you forget the past are people who have not confronted their own, who have not yet overcome their own grief, and who are reminded of their loss by yours, and so they are selfishly desperate to discuss anything but the things that matter most to you.

I don’t normally watch House, but last week the episode taught me something. He is critical of the man with whom he’s staying while he overcomes his vicodin addiction because the man talks to his dead girlfriend before bed. However, House eventually realizes that the friend is acknowledging the truth of his past, that there were good times, and that these conversations allow him to revisit something pleasant even if House thinks it unhealthy. Eventually House does this and starts a dialogue with his dead father. I previously wrote about how we continue to talk about and think about things and people that mean something to us. It’s a way we honor them and their contributions to us. We remember the good times. We remember what they meant to us. In doing so we realize that there was good in tragedy and it extends their meaning in our lives. Ignoring things that “happen for a reason” and people who “come into our lives only for a season” robs us of the right to benefit from their passing and grow as a result.

3. You have to move on with your life.

You don’t really move on. You move forward. You see, the road on which you were suddenly came to a dead end, literally or figuratively, and so you really can’t move on. The changes in your life that precipitated your grief render that future perfect into an impossibility, at least as you imagined it, and so there is no moving on per se. Other roads do lead forward, and eventually you find one of those on which you can continue to progress, mindful of the fact that it wasn’t really where you originally intended to head. As the author’s image indicates, if a city or a home or a life has been destroyed, you have to rebuild, and it will never really be the same, but you can build the same idea or towards the same goal or in the same place. However much it resembles the original dream, it will be a new life, because you have changed and therefore what you build will change too.

4. You could have prevented this.

Even if everything happens for a reason, sometimes that reason is because of other people. Sometimes other people make choices that we do not sanction and that we do not like. Frequently their actions aren’t even malevolent, but the consequences feel that way. I know that it’s a consolation prize to look at a dead chapter of your life and say, “Well, I did the best I could with what I had”, but sometimes that’s all we have. Even if you do everything perfectly, sometimes things don’t turn out the way we like, and sometimes it’s not because other people did the wrong thing. The fact of the matter is that we are only one infinitesimal force in this world, in this universe, and in this life. You take control of the things that you control and do them the best you can, and then you trust the advice of people you admire and the comfort of the Holy Ghost and your own soul. Sometimes an enemy will come and sow tares in the field or worse burn everything down to stubble. You rise and rise again until lambs become lions.

Even if you could have done something, sometimes there was nothing virtuous to do. I have been warned by God about “guessing things I don’t actually know” and about “trading one tyranny for another”. There is no more information to obtain, and any action at this point will not change things. The things are not mine to change. Like Obama likes to say, “You didn’t build that”, and if you didn’t, then it’s not yours to fix. Your part is to decide what to do with the time and opportunities given to you. We like to think that there's something that we can do because we like to feel in control. Some of the things that we can do are not things that we ought to do because although they may help us, they will hurt others, and the ends do not justify the means. It's hard to be the good guy because the good guy often suffers silently.

5. Time heals all wounds.

This is just bad on every level. Will time heal cancer or replace an arm that is amputated? Will time restore someone to me that I lost or an opportunity missed? Time matters really because it allows us to replenish our hope, and our hope is what makes us try again, live again, trust again and love again. It doesn’t do anyone any favors to pretend you are ok. Helaman wrote his son to “let thy sins trouble you only with that trouble that leads you to repentance.” If there is something you did wrong, fix it. Otherwise, it’s too far out, and it’s best that when you can you eventually let it go.

Christ heals wounds. Maybe for this reason, I keep turning to certain speeches. I love Elder Brown’s story about the currant bush and Elder Busche’s talk on the Dormant Spirit because they infuse me with hope. It doesn’t heal my pain, but it cushions it, and it helps me feel motivated to rise up and move forward. I have seen God upgrade my life and bring me to a land of promise, and indeed He has blessed me in every facet of life over which I have any control. You see, when it comes to people, you deal with another agent, and sometimes they will do things that hurt you even if it’s against their will or sentiments. Time gives us hope, and hope gives us courage to act. The wounds remain until we allow Christ to heal them, and all too often we hang onto our most painful episodes like we do our favorite sins because they are comfortable. Perhaps we fear that if we surrender them then it shows they do not matter to us, but you matter to Him, and so He is anxious to heal you because His love is the only constant.

The people who feed you jejune and trite phrases as "comfort" don’t know any better. They were handed the same clichés and the same trite phrases and eventually buried those painful parts of them deep down inside their hearts and minds. Only, they don’t stay buried. They come forth unwanted and unbidden when we are sad, tired, or weak, only to torture us. I completely understand. We are trying to solve something with a limited perspective that is completely beyond our comprehension, to handle a matter of faith using the process of logic. We turn to people and things because we don’t really know how to turn to God or because we don’t really want to or because we don’t believe He will help. He already has. He sent His son.

People change our lives. Christ changes us. This is why faith and hope in Christ are central tenants of faith rather than faith and hope in general. People may fail. They may be captured or killed. They may abandon us or reject us or simply change their minds about promises they made us. Christ remains constant. For this reason it is on Christ, the Rock of our Redeemer that we must build our foundation so that when the devil sends forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirlwind, they will have no power to drag us down because of the foundation on which we have built, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. Faith and hope are wonderful things, and loving our neighbors as Christ would have us love them is noble. However, unless our faith and hope and love also centers on Christ, it matters very little on what we decide to center them, because the rest may not last and may cause more grief. Men are that they might have joy, and that’s why grief should lead us to the Savior who is the only constant source from which men may derive lasting joy, happiness and peace.