Gratitude doesn’t cancel out grief…
AND it can exist alongside it
About a year after Mike died, I was driving home from work and reached the intersection where we often went separate directions. He would take the right as it was a bit more scenic and went over his favourite bridge. I, blindly following the GPS, would usually take the left which was a slightly quicker trip. This day I thought “I’ll take the right, for Mike.”
As I approached the final leg of my trip a few minutes from home, my heart sank at the sight of many flashing lights – the bridge was closed! I’d never seen it closed before. A huge storm had blown a barge loose in rough water and they were afraid it might collide with they bridge. Sobbing into my steering wheel, I chucked a uey1 and backtracked to make it home. Through my tears I was also smiling. I knew Mike would be laughing at me and felt connected to him in that moment. He totally punked me from beyond the grave and got me good. Quite the achievement when you’re dead! I felt grateful for the moment of connection.
I’m grateful for so many things in my life. I’m grateful for all the people that love me and that I get to love in return, especially my boyfriend, family and friends. I’m grateful I have my health and that I live in a country where I can access healthcare. I’m grateful I live in a beautiful city where I’m steps away from green spaces and oceans and mountains and wildlife. I’m grateful that I find joy and laugh every day. I’m grateful I’m alive, living and breathing to see another day.
I’m grateful for so much.
And I’ve lost a lot too.
I’m grateful I had a loving relationship with Mike and that we had the time we did. And I’m devastated that he’s dead.
And at the time when the loss was most raw and painful, gratitude was foisted on me like some kind of cure all.
Some version of “think of the happy times & be grateful for what you had!” was communicated to me in many ways after Mike died. And it stung. Because it felt like I was being told to be grateful for what I had to cancel out the pain of the loss. And it’s just doesn’t work like that.
Gratitude doesn’t cancel out the grief.
AND it can exist alongside it.
Gratitude is a big part of my existence now.
And it was before Mike died too.
I was grateful for what I had before it was taken away from me. I treasured our time together while it was happening. I didn’t need some big lesson in loss for me to know what was important. And I bet you wouldn’t either.
There is something in our grief phobic culture that insists on telling grieving people to look for the gift and beauty in all this. As though it it’s a substitution for all the hardship.
It would be like someone cutting off your legs and telling you to focus on the time when you were able to walk and run and frolic as though that would make it better.2
We’re not denying that we treasure the memories and are grateful for the blessings that remain. But it doesn’t feel good to have it forced like it’s some kind of cure all.
Gratitude can be wielded like a weapon. People are uncomfortable with the hard things and will trip over themselves to talk you out of pain in an attempt to reframe it into gratitude.
The problem is it doesn’t work when someone else tells you to do it. Instead, it feels like is someone telling you your pain isn’t valid. And that you must find another place to share that pain, or worse, stop talking about it altogether.
When someone says it to me, I feel like a petulant child being told to clean my room. I was going to do it, but now I don’t want to because someone’s telling me to. And now I can’t find my favourite toy so I’m going to sulk in the corner.
When our pain is invalidated, it amplifies the hurt. Because now we can’t share it with anyone. It compounds the suffering and add to feelings of isolation and disconnection. Not only am I in pain, now I’m silenced and not seen in my pain.
Instead let’s make room for both.
Just because I’m sad about Mike no longer being here, doesn’t mean I’m not also truly thankful for the joy and laughter and love we shared, and for all the beauty I have in my life now. And vice versa when I’m feeling joyful, I may also be feeling sorrow that he’s missing it.
I can and do find moments of gratitude in my grief. And they are powerful when I find them for myself.
I still think of him, of course constantly, but especially when I choose the direction at that intersection. I warily check in on Mike, asking him if he’s got any ghostly pranks to play on me that day. When I take the right over the bridge and make sure I drive slow enough to notice his favourite stained-glass lamps that look like flames.
Thank you, Mike. For forcing me to take the scenic route, even if it takes a little bit longer. For showing me things I never noticed before. And for all the gifts you gave me while you were alive and even now. I look forward with gratitude to any other ghostly pranks you’ve got to play.
Chucked a uey = performed a U-turn if you will forgive my true natured Aussie slang.
Not enough frolicking happening these days. When did we all stop frolicking?