Freud believed that grief was some kind of vacuum. That when people fell into grief, it became a sticky, cyclical hole that never lets go, and it’s necessary for people to shake off their shrouds and veils and “move on” in order to lead healthy, productive lives. He believed grief was a bad thing.
Perhaps, to some extent, in some circumstances, he’s on to something. When you lose your job, or go through a bad breakup or your favorite cafe with the perfect croissant closes, or life just basically knocks you on your ass, that time period you spend lying flat on your back staring at the sky, trying to catch your breath and wondering what in the hell just happened, that’s grief. And after a few hours, or days, or weeks, you pick yourself up, dust the dirt of what might have been off, and ask yourself, “ok, what now?” That time on your back, catching your breath, that grief, is a necessary step to get back up again.
But what about when it’s not a temporary situation of unemployment or singledom or being croissantless? What if what you lost was previously a permanent, daily, long-term fixture of your life? What if what you lost was a being that brought you purpose? And there is zero hope of anything ever filling that void ever again?
American, or perhaps Anglophile culture seems to follow Freud – you’re expected to be sad, to cry a lot, to spend a lot of time in bed, to stare off into space with a morose downward tilt of your mouth. And then you go to the funeral, and you find closure, and space in the fridge for all those casseroles, and you catch your breath, dust yourself off, and “move on.”
And, secretly, quietly, internally, passively, you grieve. You think about the person you lost, maybe you shed a tear in private here or there. A small smile when the “remember when’s” pop up in conversation. This is acceptable. This is passive grief.
After Logan died, was stillborn, and was buried, priority one was finding a grief counselor to help M and I process the massive turmoil we both felt. We messaged, called, and emailed nearly fifty providers. As we met with the few who would entertain our plea for help, they ran through a series of questions: did you name your baby? Did you hold your baby? Did you have a memorial service for your baby? As though moving through some sort of checklist of grief. We get to the end and the checkered flag drops: “ok! You guys are good! Grief is over! My work here is done!”
But we didn’t feel like grieving Logan was done. We began searching for other ways to feel like we were connecting with our son. I spent hours editing a photo of him so we have a snapshot of our son, now displayed on our dresser and in M’s office. We visit Logan’s grave every month, walking the valley with our eyes to the skies, searching for the bald eagles that nest there. We placed amethyst healing crystals around the house and began collecting little figurines of the animals that remind us of him. We wear memorial bracelets. We talk about him. We write letters to him. We are learning origami for him. M is building a memory box for the momentos of our pregnancy with him. We lit candles for him on October 15. We did it again on the anniversary of the day he died, and left them lit through his birthday three days later.
It has been a year. I don’t spend days in bed anymore, clutching his hospital blanket to my chest trying to ease the unbearable, physical ache in the arms that should have been holding my son. But I firmly believe those days are only done because we found other ways to grieve.
The passive grief, thinking of him, and missing him, and wondering what our lives would be like if he were still with us, if he had lived – that is daily. It probably always will be. But it won’t pile up, it won’t paralyze us, because eventually we will take that potential and turn it into action.
We’ll plant a tree. Get a tattoo. Adopt an injured wild animal at a refuge. Name a star. These little acts in service of him will release just a little bit of that ache, sustaining us so that we don’t implode.
If grief is love with no place to go, we have to give it someplace to go.
