It’s not just Emily. Thoughts on grief and loss
CW: Death, loss, suicide, grief.
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This blog post is profoundly personal and vulnerable. I write it as a catharsis, in hope of feeling less isolated in my grief. And I write this to let folks know that they aren’t alone in their own experiences with grief.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t grieving.
Grieving the lifelong absence of my father.
The early loss of my innocence.
The loss of close friends to murder, suicide, and overdose.
The death of my best friend, Emily.
The anticipatory grief of the loss of my partner — the ever looming possibility of his illness taking him from me too soon.
ID: Nickie hugs her partner smiling. They stand together in a backyard, Nickie’s partner’s face is obscured by a baseball cap.
The knowledge that one day I will lose my mother. And that my kid will lose me.
These varying levels and layers of grief are all different in feeling, weight, and how they impact my day-to-day life. Nevertheless, my grief is ubiquitous. It’s a hot burning sensation in my chest, a shortness of my breath, a heavy ache in my heart, an ominous dream, a distinctly deep and guttural cry when I see an image, hear a particular song [cue Fade into You by Mazzy Star], or walk past a particular landmark. And sometimes it’s an assumption made, a dissonant reaction to something someone says or does, or a preemptive and undeserved disconnection with someone.
I’ve heard grief described in many ways — some descriptions are helpful, some are not. There’s the image of grief as a ball in a jar; the jars get bigger, but the ball stays the same size - a visual representation of how life grows around grief, but it never goes away. This one resonates with me sometimes. There’s the quote that people put on memes all the time that says something about grief being love with nowhere to go. This one resonates with me less.
ID: An image of jars with black spheres inside. The top three jars are the same size and have spheres that get smaller inside. Under these three jars reads, “People tend to thing grief shrinks over time.” Underneath are three jars that get larger in size with the same size spheres inside. Underneath these three jars reads, “What really happens is that we grow around our grief.”
Honestly, I don’t think there is any description or reasoning of grief that will make it feel any better or less painful. Grief is one of those exquisite experiences that you just have to feel, and you have no control over when it comes, how intense it will feel, or how long the wave will last.
We need to talk about our grief more openly.
We need to speak our grief into the atmosphere and belt it out to the universe.
We need to be better at supporting each other through grief. We need to know that it’s ok if we don’t know what to say in the moment, and to be able to hold space when there aren’t any words to speak. Because words won’t take away the pain. This is a pain that demands to be felt. We owe it to our grief to take pause when it needs a witness. We owe it to each other to be present for one another when our grief demands to be felt. We owe it to ourselves to ask for a witness when our grief waves swell.
I’m grateful for the support that I do have. My partner knows exactly what I’m going through when I walk up to him, grab him, and start to weep. He’ll ask, “Is it Emily?” And most of the time, yes. It is Emily. But it’s not just Emily. I’m grateful that I have him to lean on, and that he tries to understand what I’m going through without minimizing it or trying to make it better. It is my hope that you, too, have someone that you can grab onto and cry, and that they’ll know what you’re going through - or at least they will try to understand and be there for you in whatever way that you need them in the moment.
All of this is to say — I don’t have any answers about grief itself, but I do know this: We are all grieving and we need each other; these are immovable truths.
Thank you for taking the time to read my words. I appreciate you witnessing my experience.
If you want to give my top grief wave songs a listen, follow this link for my playlist.
Some resources:
Coping with Grief and Loss - HelpGuide.org
Supporting Those Grieving an Overdose Loss | (fullcirclegc.org)
A few snapshots of me and Emily over the 24 years of our friendship on this earthly plane.