Friend to the Shadows
photo credit: Jen Brown 1976-2023
On Grief
In September of 2023, I lost a friend. I feel a deep need to share a little bit about this experience. My guess is that if we’ve been on this planet for any length of time at all, we’ve lost someone. This friend isn’t my first, nor will she be my last. And even if we haven’t personally lost a person in death, we’ve most likely felt the feeling/s of grief for a plethora of other reasons. We must simply look around… our world is full of other reasons—currently, historically…yesterday, today and even tomorrow.
One day this past May, nearly eight months after losing this friend, I wrote this journal entry.
———————————————
I weep,
I wept for you today, Jen…
Not because today holds any superior significance
to our interactions or knowing one another
Not because today marks or points
to something specifically special
But because the loss of you
fell over me afresh
in a giant wave of memory
of how I saw you, what I learned from you,
and with you, and because of you—
the soul connection I felt for you,
the phone call we missed,
and the visit that never became.
You were my person to ask the weird questions of
so we could both sit with them, dialogue,
and see what gold stayed in the sifter.
It seemed that everything was safe on your table…
that was made with love, kindness, grace,
curiosity, compassion, empathy, honesty,
hope, joy, invitation, humility, humor, integrity.
I don’t think I’ve made you more than
you were in life
into my memory, now that you are gone;
I think I just continue to be struck with awe
at who you were to me in such a short time…
and the place of safety you were and that you created.
So I wept when I remembered I couldn’t text you, call you, message you, write you a letter that would find its way to your mailbox, greet you at the airport with a goofy welcome sign, chat about our books, podcasts, the latest astrological transits, or someone’s explanations about this wild ride of a life we are in.
I miss you; that’s all.
———————————————
How familiar are we with grief?
Why, if grief is part
of the human experience,
are we not allowed to make space for it…
or given only a timed and limited space by society?
Why must our grief be pocketed
into hidden places or perfectly
pinched from our hearts, bodies,
and the corners of our eyes?
Why do we make excuses for,
qualify, quantify, contrast or compare our grief?
Grief is not for show or ego but for the health of our souls!
Grief bends us, moves us, breaks us,
shapes us, and shakes us and sometimes remakes us.
Can we make peace with our grief—hold it,
and allow it to reside
on the same shelf with joy and happiness—
seeing it as an equal for the sake of our authentic
collective selves?
Some might have opinions or judgements
about the length of time
we allow ourselves to grieve, based upon
our person’s age, our age,
our relational or physical closeness,
or for how long we knew them,
how they died,
or if they were family…
I want to say… grief is grief.
It’s simple.
It’s complicated.
It’s complex.
And everything in between.
If we could normalize grief
without the rules around the how
or the condemnation
for its interruption,
perhaps we’d all be a little kinder,
healthier, more deeply connected
to others, ourselves, and this planet.
I miss her. I grieve the loss of her.
I grieve the loss of people and places,
times of togetherness, and
land that once was;
that’s all.
