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I wrote this blog article while I was a grief counselor at a hospice agency. I wrote it for February’s volunteer newsletter.
Similar to the holidays that have just come and gone, Valentine’s Day may trigger powerful emotions or memories, no matter how much time has passed since a loved one’s death. Valentine’s Day may be especially hard because of all that it symbolizes: togetherness, love, romance, and gifting cards and chocolate. Valentine’s Day, essentially, is a celebration of love. If we look at grief in a similar lens, we will see that grief is also a celebration of love.
Perhaps grief is the most painful kind of love that we have to experience. Grief is love’s sadness, frustrations, anger, bitterness, guilt, and resentment, especially towards death taking our loved ones. Grief is love realizing that we need to find healthy ways to cope and find meaningful and supportive connections. Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up or let go. It is working on creating new bonds with our loved ones, redefining limits of life and death, in order to create a space where we continue to love someone without them physically here. Grief is love showing us that we will smile again, share laughs, and learn to grow with the deep sorrow that we feel.
As we approach and endure another holiday without our beloved, try to hold onto these words from writer Jamie Anderson: “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
Try to be gentle on yourself in this new and perhaps difficult season of life. Try to hold onto the things, people, memories, and activities that make you feel love. Try to remember during your most painful times of grief and sorrow that simply put: grief is love… and what a beautiful concept that can be.
All my love,
Nikki
