Notes from Izi: Healing through grief

Grief is natural after losing someone who once shared our lives. Grief can serve as a reminder to celebrate the past and ensure those meaningful moments have an impact on the future.

When we love someone, we want to walk through life alongside that person. When we lose someone we love, we feel like we are drowning in emptiness. Part of us assumed that person would always be there, and so when that person is gone, we cannot move, we cannot take another step forward, because the sea of grief sweeps us off our feet. At first, the grief may be so deep that we cannot swim, cannot even stay above the water, as the waves of sadness come crashing over us. But after a while, we learn to tread these waters, and start to predict these waves. Some days we even find some relatively dry land, and we can walk again, although the waves of sorrow are never far away.

When we lose someone we love, we feel like we are drowning in emptiness.

These waves of grief come over us because we know that special person is not there anymore - they cannot enjoy the sensations and activities and being-ness that brought them so much joy. Grief is also something inside ourselves. For a long time, we had enjoyed the comfort of that person’s presence, valued the shared memories we had created, and counted on building a future filled with more of those special moments.

Grief comes in different flavors

Grief is knowing that we are more alone in this world without the continued presence of that person – that exceptional, unique, distinctive person. There are so many flavors of grief – as many different flavors as there are people, and types of connections between people. We certainly feel an emptiness when someone we love passes away. We feel a more ambiguous type of emptiness when someone we love continues to live, but separates from us. That is an emptiness caused by grief as well.

There are so many flavors of grief, and so many ways to experience it. Many of us have learned a lot about grief over these past few years – we have lost loved ones, relationships with loved ones, even our own personal sense of invulnerability. Being open to this grief, rather than shutting it down, gives us a valuable opportunity to reflect on the transient nature of life.

Contemplating the transient nature of life

It is worth sitting with the uncomfortable idea that every single one of us is temporary, and each of our relationships is temporary as well. But it’s worth remembering: We do not have to stop loving someone just because they are no longer there with us. We can still love that person, even if they are not present to receive that love. That love may just take a different form, and grow in different ways.

Grief is painful. But this pain can be alleviated by the recognition that we are all temporary, that there is no way around this fact. Whether we believe we were created for a purpose or not, there is something about this world that makes temporary existence the general rule. Rather than fighting against this fact of nature, we might focus on finding beauty and meaning in our fleeting existence.

What grief is

Grief is the knowledge that our lives are ephemeral. Everyone we love – in all their complexity – came from dust and will one day return to dust. We are a very real part of this dynamic universe – our bodies are temporary arrangements of matter and energy. We form into living beings, with beating hearts; then we develop into thinking beings, with ideas and preferences and habits; and then at some point we die, no longer continuing to participate in the world with our words and actions. The words we spoke and the actions we set in motion continue to echo, through the chain of causation, but we no longer contribute new material.

The content of our minds, just like the beating of our hearts and the cycles of fertility, are produced by biochemical interactions. This does not make heartache, anger, grief, and love any less real, it only explains how these amazing gifts came to be. The content of those feelings, and the interactions that gave rise to those feelings, are real too. Those feelings and those interactions may only exist in the past, but they happened, and they matter.

Is this any comfort? I think so. Loss reminds us to make the best of our relationships and our lives while we can. Losing someone we love does not feel fair – the inevitability of life and death can seem relentless and unforgiving. But the moral imperative that results from awareness of this fact is that we must do our best to ensure this world is filled with more joy, and less suffering, as a result of our actions.

The inevitability of life and death can seem relentless and unforgiving. But the moral imperative that results from awareness of this fact is that we must do our best to ensure this world is filled with more joy, and less suffering, as a result of our actions.

Because this is the important thing: Our actions matter. What happened in the past matters, because it shapes the world we live in today. And our actions today matter, because they will shape the future. And that is why grief is so painful – because we realize that our loved one will no longer be actively shaping the future. Without that person, our lives will be shaped by other events, by other people. In this way, grief is an emotional reminder that life matters. It leads us to the knowledge that our own actions matter, and that they can shape the future of others too. When we struggle in those waves of grief, and we finally come up gasping for breath, that is the realization that we make – that we must do something to make the most of our own lives, inspired by the knowledge that life is fleeting.

What grief does

Grief spurs us to action – to remember, to honor, to celebrate those people we loved so dearly. And it reminds us to choose our own actions in the world. We may even choose actions designed to remember, to honor, to celebrate a person we loved – to ensure that person does shape the future. For example, we may choose to work toward justice, toward peace, toward improving healthcare, so that others do not have to suffer in the same way our loved one did. What greater legacy could we leave the next generation? What greater gift could we bestow on the future, than preventing them from experiencing the same kind of pain that we have struggled with so deeply?

How do we make sense of grief and loss ? We can start by considering all the ways that special person became woven into our world during the time they were present in our lives.

How do we make sense of grief and loss? We can start by considering all the ways that special person became woven into our world during the time they were present in our lives. We actively tackle this question during funerals and memorial services, but we do not stop thinking about this question after the service is over. This is a process that can continue as long as we are grieving, or even for the rest of our lives. Answering this question is what gives us purpose.

We are all conscious beings, seeking meaning and purpose in our lives. The answers are not given to us – we have to find them for ourselves. And since life naturally ends in death, each of us must choose whether we ignore this fact, struggle vainly against it, or embrace this fact and make the most of our time on earth.

If we choose to make the most of our time on earth, then we choose to live consciously – selecting our actions, what kind of problems we focus on solving, what kind of habits we build, and how we treat those around us.

If we choose to make the most of our time on earth, then we choose to live consciously – selecting our actions, what kind of problems we focus on solving, what kind of habits we build, and how we treat those around us.

We have this time – a short and uncertain amount of time – and we can choose how to use it. Grief may be infused with the feeling of being alone while we take uncertain steps into the future, without the people who used to walk alongside us. But if we remember what they taught us, we will know deep down what path to take.