grief is a club. no one ever asks to join.

the grief club hasn’t got a secret handshake. when the time comes, the members know one another.

the grief club comes with a free pass of about a year’s duration. ditch any tiresome date or obligation, no further excuse needed.

you don’t get out of the grief club. lifetime membership. sorry/you’re welcome.

grief club members get to curl into a ball in the part of the basement where the dirt is piled high and weep until they make tear-mud. this is normal.

the only obligations of grief club members are to not die and to help new members. tell them about the curative powers of salt water (tears, ocean, epsom salts). tell them about joan didion and john donne, and especially emily dickinson. tell them the only way through it is  through it, not around it. mostly; listen.

members should go nowhere without the grief club’s badge: a clean white handkerchief.

members know that grief comes in waves. these waves never stop. they do become less frequent, but never take on a discernible pattern. they will knock you down when you least expect it.

a grief club mantra: “don’t make any big decisions for at least six months.” this is good advice which you may freely ignore.

members who don’t have a dog are at a disadvantage. cats don’t make you get out of bed to walk them. birds are hard to curl up with. fish will not lick away tears. however, a pet of any kind is better than none at all, as it means that the house isn’t empty and (technically) you are never just talking to yourself.

you never get to leave the grief club, but you will someday be eligible once more for dual memberships. the ‘buying groceries without weeping’ club is often a first stop. the newlywed club may come along; this seems impossible to believe, but it’s true.

grief club members know:

that if the question of whether or not to attend the funeral even occurs to you, you should go.

that it’s never too late (even years later) to extend condolences.

that for grief, tea (which is brown and weedy, like tears) is better than coffee (which is black and bitter, like blood).

that nice things to bring to someone who is grieving include pie, whiskey, soup, and stamps. all require spit, which is in short supply.

that not getting out of bed, not showering, and not brushing  hair or teeth (today, tomorrow, and the day after that) is fine, but is a tactic, not a strategy.

that the only thing to do is to put one foot in front of another, which is dumb and numb, until you look back and see that, in spite of yourself, you have shifted.

that among the things not to say are ‘they’re in a better place now’, ‘at least they aren’t suffering anymore’, and ‘how are you?’

that among the things to say are ‘i remember when. . .’, and ‘good lord this is hard’, and ‘i would love to help you organize your passwords and log-ins’, and ‘let’s get you a manicure’.

everyone thinks funerals are hard, and worries how they will get through them. funerals are cakety-cake-cake compared to three weeks later. funerals are like luge: all high,slick walls and velocity. three weeks later is like falling through lake ice: semi-transparent, silent, and suffocating. friends– this is when ropes and heavy lifting are needed.

grief is the price we pay for love is a cliche because it’s true. love is when part of your heart walks around on legs of its own, freely given to another. grief is when this part of your heart is taken away. an unthinkably bleak bargain, one we make freely.  it’s the ultimate ‘terms of use’  agreement, a box we check without reading the fine print, willfully ignorant of consequences. the worst outcome of grief is a refusal to risk ever again, a cloistered heart. the best outcome is the capacity for richer, deeper love, love not despite, but because.

grief club is like a masonic lodge: infinite degrees of membership, based on secrets, very possibly the unseen force that rules the world. did you untimely lose your opposite number, your mirror, the one in whose eyes you truly saw your self? your husband/wife/lover/child/brother/sister/mother/father? welcome. did you lose a grandparent at the end of their long life? pass on by.

did you know that airline food tastes bad in part because the conditions in a pressurized, vibrating tube at 30,000 feet actually dull our sense of taste? good. now take phantom limb syndrome, an amputee unable to scratch their missing limb; add waking nightmare, the paralyzed terror of half dream/half waking, unable to flee; as well, crowd-loss-panic, that instant in a throng when a child’s hand slips from yours. it’s like that.

it gets, if not better, then more bearable. you learn to compensate, to lean into the pain, to call on strengths you never knew before. you will dance again, as disloyal and unimaginable as this seems. unless maybe you won’t. some never recover. most do. this is what passes for good news.

try not saying ‘passed away’ or ‘gone home’ or ‘lost’. say instead ‘died’ or ‘dead’. as in ‘i’m sorry your husband died’. this seems brutal because it is. death is brutal. that’s what makes this business of giving away our heart so magnificent. bravery is not the absence of fear; we can only be brave when facing– fear, truth, loss– and moving forward one numb, dumb step at a time.

walk as much as you can. drink lots of water. carry a clean white handkerchief.

welcome to the grief club. step right in. meeting’s about to begin.

 

(all the words and images are mine. kindly use kindly.)