Sometimes Grief Wears Colors

I've been thinking a lot lately about grief. I feel like I've seen it often this year, in passing, on sidewalks and news outlets, hanging over my students, standing behind tragedy, and even, sometimes, waiting quietly in places, or for people, you wouldn't expect. I've thought a lot about the way that grief shows up, the way that it lingers, the way that it leaves, and the way that it shapes people, has shaped me. And the specific reasons for the grief, the roots of it, aren't necessarily important, because grief is a universal experience. Every soul in the universe experiences struggle, experiences loss, whether that loss is a feeling or a place, a person or a plan. Grief touches all of us. But the part of it that I've been focused on lately is the way that it looks: grief. Because it's never quite what you expect. I think it woud be easier if it was, if grief welled up in you like water and drained back out slowly when you released the spigot. But it doesn't. I think that's the hard part. You can't be ready for it. You just...walk through it, or with it, when it comes. And it comes in different shapes and forms. Often it's hard to recognize, in others, perhaps even in ourselves.

Sometimes grief looks stereotypical. Sometimes it comes dressed in black, crying at the front of a funeral home in heels that pinch its feet. Sometimes it hugs its loved ones in graveyards or brings tears, offers tissues. But sometimes it doesn't. 

Sometimes grief dresses all in white. Sometimes it wears colors. It comes covered in bright pinks or bold blues. It smiles. It laughs. Sometimes you would never know its name if it didn't introduce itself. Sometimes nobody can see grief except the person it stands next to. Sometimes it hides.

Sometimes grief is little. You can fit it in your pockets; you can carry it in a backpack, or tuck it under your chin. Sometimes it's just the size of a pebble in your palm. And sometimes grief is big. It's a salt water wave that rushes in around you and refuses to let you breathe. It swells up in your lungs, gets stuck in your throat, and leaves you gasping. And sometimes that happens in an instant, when just a moment ago grief was a pebble, in a breath it overwhelms, and then all of a sudden it's pocket-sized again. The shape of it shifts, the weight of it changes.

Sometimes grief makes people turn their heads. Sometimes they can hear it. It sounds like gravel in a windpipe, like shrieks, like sobs. But sometimes grief is quiet. It doesn't even whisper. It just sits, waits, breathes. Sometimes nobody can hear it at all. 

Sometimes grief rides in the passenger seat. Sometimes it drives. Sometimes, on days you thought that grief had gone, you open the car door, and there it is, just waiting to travel with you. Sometimes it goes before you thought it would. You expect to find it sitting at the dinner table, and by the time you pick up your fork, it's left the room. 

Sometimes grief moves in, it takes up residence in your bedrooms, your shower, the very back of your closets. It doesn't offer payment; it takes from you instead: your energy, your spirit, your peace. Sometimes it comes briefly, rings the doorbell just to punch you in the ribs, and then it saunters down the sidewalk without a word. It leaves you surprised and angry on the doorstep, and then, after it walks away, you catch your breath again.

Sometimes grief stands next to joy. In the midst of celebration, it sets a palm against your shoulder. Not to overwhelm you, not to drown you in it. Not to remove or replace happiness. Just, simply, to remind you that it's there.

Sometimes grief seeks attention; sometimes it repels it. Sometimes it's easy to see the surface of grief. It shines through eyes or asks for advice. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it lives in your neighbor's house, and you never once bump into it at the mailbox.

There are moments where we all carry grief, and it's important to remember that it isn't always visible or audible or made for public consumption. Kindness tends to tame it though. I think it's important to remember that a little bit of grace goes further than we ever really see. We ought to give it out more often than we don't.

You never know how long grief will stay, how many minutes or months it might ask to be carried. You never know what it will weigh. You never know what it might look like, what it might say or ask for or wear. That, I think, is the hardest part: the unknown. It's human nature to be afraid of the things that we don't understand. And it doesn't mean a lack of a strength: fear. It means we feel threatened, we anticipate the pain that it brings. It doesn't negate courage. Courage is accepting the grief, is understanding that, although we don't know how long it will last, it is never infinite. Courage is the acknowledging of grief as a tunnel, and the willingness, however reluctant, to push through to the other side.

Moving forward is such a lovely, lovely thing. Because no matter the shape or the size of grief, the truth is, it won't look like this forever. It changes as we change, moves as we move, and sometimes, the wind of life blows it away. And maybe grief changes you. Maybe it teaches you. But it's part of what makes us human: those scars on our hearts. The pain that grief brings is never fair; it is difficult and overwhelming and graceless, but it also brings with it an opportunity: to be better, or stronger, or wiser, or more. So take what you need from grief, and don't give anything back.

Someday, in the broadest sense of the word, because grief doesn't carry a timer, the distance will seep in, and you'll see the parts of the whole, the minute shards and corners that you used to move through it. The heart is a resilient muscle. And someday, you won't be in the midst of grief, you'll be far enough away to look back on it, to understand, not what you needed it for or deserved it because of, but what you've created in the face of it. Grief is messy and complicated, and sometimes it's incredibly strong. But so are you. So. Are. You.