Why Write About Grief?
Don’t I have anything fun to do? Or even something boring? Why write about something sad?
In case you haven’t read a description of my book yet, here it is:
The Caring House is about a boy and a girl who meet in grief counseling after each losing a parent to suicide. They grow up, fall in love, get married, and then have to contend with whether their parents' illnesses will catch up to them or if they can break free from the cycle.
Together they’ll discover if they can learn how to love while facing their deepest fears about each other.
Sounds like a light-hearted read, am I right?
Believe it or not, everyone who has read it so far has said that it’s not heavy or depressing. Will it make you cry? Probably. But will it make you take a shower afterwards to wash the sadness off of you? I hope not.
Either way, why write this story? Why write about grief?
Grief is a universal experience, but discussing it is taboo - at least here in America.
We all lose someone or something that we have a hard time getting over, and yet almost everyone feels alone in that experience.
In the first year of our marriage, my wife Lindsey lost her younger sister. It was sudden, shocking, and tragic. She left behind a two-year-old son with a puff of jet black hair and a heart-melting smile.
Most of our friends, whom Lindsey knew from college, had never lost someone unexpectedly (if at all).
When we returned home from the funeral in Montana, our friends thought, as many people do, that bringing up the loss would make Lindsey more sad. So they stayed quiet.
Lindsey told them: “You don’t understand. Bringing up her death isn’t going to make me suddenly start thinking about her. I’m always thinking about her. Bringing her up shows me that you care and that you remember.”
As we went through the darkest days following her sister’s death, I would occasionally hear the phrase “metabolize your grief” as a way to describe the process of returning to “normal” life following a major loss.
“Metabolize” always stood out to me as a curious word to use. When you metabolize your food, it becomes a part of you. It becomes your muscles, your energy, your bones. The parts of your food you don’t metabolize become waste and are expelled.
To use the word “metabolize” regarding grief means that successfully grieving someone you love means to make them and their death a part of you.
Grief isn’t wasted. It shouldn’t just pass through or by you. It nourishes the soul. It’s the process of carrying ancestors, loved ones, family, and friends with you, inside of you, indistinguishable from yourself.
Their memories, traditions, and personality are added to your own as you grieve. You cook their recipes, tell their stories, and pass down their wisdom.
Jamie Anderson wrote,
“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.”
So why write about grief?
Grief isn’t a sad or depressing topic. It’s a universal expression of love - one that deserves to be written about.
