Are you going through a grieving process that is difficult to describe? One that others do not always seem to understand or know how to help you with? Is someone you care about going through such a process? Grief is a complex and intricate experience, emotionally, physically, and mentally, and it deserves more honest attention than sweet aphorisms ("Remember the good times with your loved one!") and simplistic directives ("just give it to God"). In the year following the death of my mother, for whom I was caregiver, I began writing daily observations of my experience with grief, being especially truthful to the overwhelming aspects of it, day to day. But I go beyond that also to the spiritual and profound connection that grief affords, and the hope that lies within. I wrote this not only to help my own grieving process but also to be a voice for those going through deep grief; in that way, I would hope that it could be equally helpful to those trying to comfort the aggrieved. I especially want readers to respect the process of grief they are going through and to give themselves and others a testimonial sort of guide by which they can find comfort. My intention is that my book helps those grieving to feel they are less alone and that there is hope to reach the other side of a bridge they may not yet know exists; I drill directly into the center of each day in the life of a person grieving deeply and include a perspective that I hope feels both intimate and cosmic. There is a spiritual element within which the narrative exists, although no less a daily observation of what grief feels like in a grocery store, a parking lot, a graduation party. Here are two sample entries: February 18, 2013 Monday An unexpected feeling from grief, for me, is a consuming sense of personal inadequacy. Whatever grief is, you are unprepared for it. You are not adequate to the occasion, not up to the task, not capable of handling the full extent of it, so we simply must give up to it. Since both of these states - feeling inadequate and giving up - are slippery stones to stand on, neither is accomplished, at least to any discernible degree. Neither is natural to ordinary life. It is not your fault, and you are not irresponsible to find yourself in this state. The grief is yours, personally, as if it were designed for you, and is as bewildering. Grief continuously feels as if you have forgotten something, as if you are trying to catch up to something, as if you have left something unattended. This kind of personal anxiety is as if you heard the crash of a huge building months ago, and are just now remembering it; this jarring of time's dimensions is inexplicable. The death of a loved one is an earthquake, and it is many months before you even begin to realize what buildings have fallen. March 2, 2013 Saturday A grieving person is a balm to the world. Grief observes and intuits, listens and divines in others what might have gone unnoticed before. The subtleties of human interactions rise into a new dimension, and their intricate movements and messages come forward - we witness glimpses of feelings, details, stories half-expressed or remembered, those you expect no one to be able to see. We notice what is unspoken or half-begun, a memory flitting through the heart, the pieces of a life delicately gathered and carried into the day so that the afternoon is a path we can walk down and not a wall to climb over. There is something in you that we turn toward instead of away from, a recognition, a love of someone moving over your face, and we offer a still moment for its grace. - - - - - - For those grieving: These are uncommon hours, and you are somewhere, alive, within them. May the words in this journal honor you, the one you lost, and the love you had together; that love, too, is intact somewhere and honors us all. For those who seek to comfort the aggrieved, however you choose to do so: Thank you.
About the Author: Lisbeth Chapin (b. 1957), Ph.D., is a poet, essayist, and English professor at Gwynedd Mercy University, near Philadelphia; she has been teaching writing and literature since 1990.