Grief Incantation

There is a time

Grief Incantation

There is a Time

There is a time when you want to tell everyone. You cannot stop telling your grief story: to friends, to strangers, to anyone who opens their eyes wide to you, welcoming the need. In that time the grief is raw and unreal, a path spooling out ahead, leading you into dark woods. Telling the story then pins grief to the ground, holding it firm, so you can face its truth and begin this journey.  Telling is a way to call out to the darkness, to tame the terror; to find a way to believe in your own survival.

There is a time when you want to tell no one. When you  do not want to be defined by grief.

Do not ask me to share, leave me alone in my truth, you want to say, though it feels unkind.

I must digest my loss. It is mine to grind and chew, and find a way to swallow; to slide it past the scream in my throat. I cannot spit it out and begin again for everyone who asks.

Not telling then is a way to absorb what the world has served you, and to quell the fear that you have become the meal.

There is a time when you hold something back. When you do not tell about the second death, or the third, or the suicide truth you cannot bring yourself to share. You titrate your grief then, afraid too much will be toxic to those who listen. You wonder if you are a carrier; a poisoner of happiness, a viral destroyer of illusions. You tell only part, the part you both can bear in this moment, the part you hope will not frighten the world away. 

There is a time when telling is to hold the lamp of survival. To throw a lifeline to those who do not believe their grief can be endured. You tell little then, for your story does not matter, only that it took you where they are and brought you back. Despair is all you mirror, and the shaft of hope that holds their gaze. Telling then is courage reaching out, and seeding them to find their own.

There a time when telling holds no purpose. When silence is its own reward. Silence then is being in your truth, discovering you can swim without drowning, though the water is all around you. Silence lets you feel the strength of your stroke against the current, lets you stretch its power, and know it will take you where you need to go.

And there will come a time…

There will come a time when telling is a gift. An offering to those who’ve earned the right to know what forged your spirit and gave you strength. The truth of who you are and why. Telling changes nothing then except understanding, and that, it seems, is all that is required.

 A valentine to those who offer love.