7 ms·

The Strangeness of Grief (2019)

93 points by iafisher 2y ago

temp0826 2y ago
"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." Jamie Anderson Felix Revello de Toro - Woman, 1965
- Sakos 2y ago
  This is brilliant. And it also illuminates how it can turn into something deeply maladaptive and self-destructive when we cling too hard to something that's passed or will eventually pass, when we define ourselves too much by that which we love or are loved. It reminds me of all the times when I was young where I thought I was deeply in love, but really I was just in love with the feeling of being loved and accepted. And my grief when that was gone was love that I could've directed towards myself where it should've gone. It took until my 30s when I realized I could provide the love that I'd been missing all my life, and only then could I be in love in a way that wasn't suffocating and borne of fear.
  - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
    Having lost both parents young, all my grandparents and a spouse... years and years ago, and a brother who is alive but is lost to mental torment from fighting his grief... and I'm not even 40 yet. Calling grief maladaptive seems deeply wrong, while I both grieved and persevered through the loss and have been financially successful and am "well adjusted" and "successful" by any external observers measure, I do not think I would judge myself or anyone else who was pulled into the abyss by grief, I still doubt if living with grief was even the right choice, though I am glad I ended up in a mental state where I retained my volition to make the choice. Loss is loss, a person who has part of their brain removed, their heart damaged so it barely pumps enough oxygen, their limbs lost or kidneys damaged... their inability to function or find joy, meaning or energy in life would never be judged as maladaptive. I persist, that is true, but I see no moral or emotional difference between my functioning and if I was non functioning. I so repeatedly see people discount grief, mental trauma and other forms of true tangible loss as if was somehow different from other types of physical loss, but it isn't. To call it an inability to adapt to loss is one thing, just as a head without a body could not open a door with our current technology, but I would humbly suggest that it is too far too call it maladaptive. I loved every person I lost, due to my age for my parents I was quite literally dependent on them, and the sheer force of will required and personal self subjugation I cannot clearly say was worth it, After all, I've never met an unhappy, struggling or grief stricken man in the ashes of an urn. Loss is loss, it is as real as a limb or organ lost. We all have different experiences, but just some thoughts to consider.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    If it was mal adaptive, it wouldn’t exist.
- throwa9724567 2y ago
  https://music.apple.com/us/album/grief-is-only-love/1692843565?i=1692844742 https://music.apple.com/us/album/grief-is-only-love/16928435...
- kbelder 2y ago
  "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Vision - Westview, NJ, 2023
- PorterBHall 2y ago
  That’s so accurate. I think of it as something that happens to you. Grief comes for you, often when you least expect it. It’s a trap door you didn’t know you were standing on. Mourning, however, is active. It’s a choice to turn and face your loss. Grief is your body telling you that you aren’t doing enough to mourn.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  "It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable." -- Nick Cave, https://www.theredhandfiles.com/communication-dream-feeling/ https://www.theredhandfiles.com/communication-dream-feeling/
  - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
    Never seen this before, as a person who has grieved considerably but won't/doesn't read grief literature. I came to the conclusion years ago that grief is just unexpressed, unshareable, uncommunicable, thwarted love. It's all the love I cannot give, all the words and touches and moments that fail to alight on the one I love but instead, missing its intended, affix me to the void. So not merely entwined, I think grief is love itself unsatisfied.
    - nuancebydefault 2y ago
      From experience I found the feeling of being in love without being loved back, is very close to the feeling of grief for a passed away loved one. So in summary, both are an excess of love not finding its goal.
- rramadass 2y ago
  Beautiful and very True. And the worst thing is you really cannot share it with anyone, it is just too personal. There is also a real danger that this can seek outlet via anger against close folks/circumstances/world in general. It has been a little over a year and half since i lost my Mother(i spent the last decade living with/taking care of her) and the grief is still there. I cannot show it (because i am a "Man"), don't know how to process and deal with it but am only trusting to the passage of time to help me forget. "Human Bonding" is not mere words but is really something strong. I used to poo-poo at all sentimental emotions but now i know better through experience. Elizabeth Akers Allen's emotional poem Rock Me To Sleep nicely captures much of the feeling - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52071/rock-me-to-sleep https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52071/rock-me-to-slee...
  - rramadass 2y ago
    Addendum to my comment above: I forgot to mention a very important book on the subject of Grief from the great Cicero which is rectified here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40472916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40472916
- mechanicalpulse 2y ago
  I appreciate this quote, but after looking into it, I must offer some correction regarding attribution. Félix Revello de Toro is a Spanish artist born in 1926. He specializes in portraits of women, including a 1965 one depicting a woman curled up on a chair with her head tilted down so as to permit her long black hair to hang down and obscure her face. Jamie Anderson is the author of the blog "All My Loose Ends". The quote in question is an amalgamation of excerpts from a 2014 blog entry about loss: https://web.archive.org/web/20200720034003/http://allmylooseends.com/2014/03/lights-wink/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200720034003/http://allmyloose...
  - temp0826 2y ago
    Thanks for that, I actually don't know where I got that block of text but have been holding on to it for a while.
jiggybling 2y ago
I felt sad for her father's death but then didn't make it through the great length with which she talked about a cat that you knew was going to be dead anyways.
dang 2y ago
Related: The Strangeness of Grief - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21939131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21939131 - Jan 2020 (20 comments)
yanowitz 2y ago
I found The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O'Connor really helpful. It gave me a frame for why grief is a necessary part of our brain processing the loss. It made it much easier to move through the pain.
- popalchemist 2y ago
  What's the key insight?
  - yanowitz 2y ago
    you have to actually remap your world to one where this person doesn't exist--that's a difficult neuro process and grief is part of it
spacedcowboy 2y ago
I’ve been lost to grief for the last several months - when I realised, finally, irrevocably, that my wife was never going to recover from the mental straitjacket she is now in. That the woman I married fifteen years ago no longer exists. Backstory: She went to hospital one day in March last year, she had hyponatremia (low sodium) and they gave her saline solution roughly twice as fast as recommended - they wanted to turn beds you see, like a restaurant turns tables, hospitals are run for profit. She went into a coma, resurfaced a couple of days later, and then they discharged her as fast as humanly possible - oh you can’t walk now, but you’ll be fine in a week or so, they lied. I used to think that having “excellent” insurance would cover me and mine, but it’s not the case. Insurance just pays when something is available to be paid for. When the hospital decide their time is more important than your life, well, you lose. And you lose big. Since then, and never once before, she has had a smorgasbord of mental problems, but since January, it’s mainly been crippling fear and paranoia. She thought people were in the house, that the dog was a robot spy, that I was dead and replaced by an AI. She’s convinced she’s going to be dismembered by “them” at night, and that she’ll be dragged off to “a hearing” to determine her fate. She is not getting better. I have lost the light of my life, and in doing so, feel lost myself. Purposeless. Dead-man-walking. I break down in tears, uncontrollably, randomly. I sometimes wish I were dead, except then who would look after our son ? So I live. I have learnt to live with overwhelming sadness, to present a mask to the world, to cope. Badly, but better than not being there for him at all. I phone her, every night. Now that she’s been moved closer (30 mins away, she used to be 3 hours away) it’s possible to visit in the week - in fact I’ll be going tonight, not just at weekends. But that just rips open the suppurating wound and adds a fresh layer of salt. To see her. Like this. A woman who did a joint JD/MBA, reduced to this. I have tried therapy to try and sort myself out, but what use is therapy against the harsh reality of what has happened, what will continue to happen, what cannot be escaped from. What use is talking against brain damage ? How does talking about it change reality. It can’t. It won’t. What has been written on steel cannot be erased, consequences, like us, be damned. I will not desert my wife - no matter what hardship I feel, for her it is thousands of times worse. She has periods of lucidity when she knows the agony of all she has lost, when she talks, wistfully, of how she always saw herself growing old together, bickering like only old, married couples do - and not locked on a ward put on a cocktail of drugs that keep her sleepy and docile. I am her only contact with the outside world, and she needs that. She will have it. So I force a brave cheer, and talk to her for the allotted 30 minutes, and her life is not quite so dreadful for that short period. This is what I can do, but the toll is terrible. I walk out of that pleasant ward with my soul in ribbons, trying to pull myself together for the short but intense drive home. It is what I can do, it is not enough, but it is what I can do for her. I am flying my son to the UK this weekend because he deserves some time in a house that isn’t as dreary and doom-laden as his own. I can’t stay because I need to be near her so she doesn't think I've left her. I can't take the time off work anyway because they’re busy, and I need my job to fund her healthcare, so I’ll catch the next flight back and repeat the task in a couple of weeks. It’s a long flight, but he’s looking forward to the adventure. For me, it’s just another nail in the coffin - not being able to provide for him as I ought to be able to, but misery is not a zero-sum game, he’ll enjoy the time away, and that is enough. Grief is heavier than a mountain, it sits on your shoulders, and weighs you down in everything you do, or fail to do. Grief that won’t fade with time, that is renewed each evening, and twice per week in person, is not anything I would wish on my worst enemy. I sincerely hope no-one that has read this far (or anyone else for that matter) ever suffers like she, or like me.
throw0101b 2y ago
See also perhaps A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed * https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150436 https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150436 (Canada public domain) * http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pdf http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pd...
Spooky23 2y ago
I lost my wife to cancer last year; she was 46. She was my best friend, lover, my son’s mom and one of the greatest people whom I’ve ever known. Q It is a surreal experience. For me it started as shock. I did not eat a meal for almost two months. Lots of people were around and I kept busy doing random things. Then people go away and the random tasks are done, and it’s quiet and strange. I chose to move forward, focusing on my son, fitness (I started running), we did a charity drive in her honor, and we focused on being more social. I have a boy to take care of and responsibilities to be met - but I think this transition is where many grieving people fall into trouble. I’ve lost my dad and my grandmother, both of whom I was very close to. But this hit different. This column, “No Love is Ever Wasted”, captured my feelings well in a unique way. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/style/modern-love-no-love-is-ever-wasted.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/style/modern-love-no-love...
- testfoobar 2y ago
  I am sorry for your loss.
- ckmktua 2y ago
  Condolences
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Sorry to hear. I lost my dad over a decade ago which I was close too, and a couple of years later broke up with my SO which I'd been with for well over a decade at that point. While nowhere close to your experience, that weird emptyness sounded very familiar. Coming home from work, eating dinner alone and then just "ok, now what?". Suddenly the days seemed to have so many more hours to fill. And that feeling when you had some fun or nice experience and you just want to share and pick up the phone only to go "oh... right". I still get that with my dad, and it still hits hard.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- 2y ago
jongjong 2y ago
I wonder if the reason why some people surround themselves with awful, selfish people is because it makes it easier to grieve them once they leave or pass away. They'll say all nice things at the funeral but actually it takes no effort to hold back tears. Many people will have the opposite problem; they want to show tears for virtue-signalling purposes but find that they can't.
- xandrius 2y ago
  That would be a really weird way to actively decide to live one's limited life. I'd say the reason is that historical relationships and connections are hard to let go and when you do (saying by moving to a new place,) you're left with whatever you end up finding.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  I think it's the opposite. The thought of losing even a shitty relationship is difficult to contemplate. You get caught in a trap that's difficult to escape.
agumonkey 2y ago
Huberman made a nice episode about grief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOvi0Aa2EA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOvi0Aa2EA Good quality information in there, saying this after years of trying to overcome a lot of stuff and never really finding anything of value. This was interesting. Hope others find some help in it. ps: I always assumed that grieving is supposed to be done with others, they buffer the loss, share it with you and make your future make sense because your pain is not unheard and thus your emotional self is somehow intact and allowed to be. Without this you may end up as a fake shell unable to find any form of true connection since you've been alienated at your deepest moments.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rottc0dd 2y ago
> “I love talking about her, by the way, so if I cry, it’s only a beautiful thing,” Garfield explained. “This is all the unexpressed love, the grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, no matter if someone lives till 60, 15, or 99.” “So I hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that I didn’t get to tell her,” he added. “And I told her every day. We all told her every day. She was the best of us.” - Andrew Garfield about loss of his mother
goles 2y ago
https://archive.is/uKsta https://archive.is/uKsta
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
The hardest part of grief for me is the guilt and the anxiety. Yeah for keeping the catholic guilt but not believing so not getting the benefit of 'universal love and forgiveness' and afterlife aspects. I went down a rabbit hole when my mom died of theories of time not being linear just so I could take comfort in all those shared moments still happening, indefinitely.
rramadass 2y ago
On the subject of Grief (and in general Emotions), a study of the works of the Roman Stoics, Cicero and Seneca (and earlier Epictetus) are a must. In particular; see Cicero and the Emotions : Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 by Margaret Graver. - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3641329.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo364132... A good review here - https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002.09.15/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002.09.15/
khjjjukykhhjy 2y ago
[dead]

93 points by iafisher 2y ago

"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." Jamie Anderson Felix Revello de Toro - Woman, 1965

Sakos 2y ago
This is brilliant. And it also illuminates how it can turn into something deeply maladaptive and self-destructive when we cling too hard to something that's passed or will eventually pass, when we define ourselves too much by that which we love or are loved. It reminds me of all the times when I was young where I thought I was deeply in love, but really I was just in love with the feeling of being loved and accepted. And my grief when that was gone was love that I could've directed towards myself where it should've gone. It took until my 30s when I realized I could provide the love that I'd been missing all my life, and only then could I be in love in a way that wasn't suffocating and borne of fear.
- fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  Having lost both parents young, all my grandparents and a spouse... years and years ago, and a brother who is alive but is lost to mental torment from fighting his grief... and I'm not even 40 yet. Calling grief maladaptive seems deeply wrong, while I both grieved and persevered through the loss and have been financially successful and am "well adjusted" and "successful" by any external observers measure, I do not think I would judge myself or anyone else who was pulled into the abyss by grief, I still doubt if living with grief was even the right choice, though I am glad I ended up in a mental state where I retained my volition to make the choice. Loss is loss, a person who has part of their brain removed, their heart damaged so it barely pumps enough oxygen, their limbs lost or kidneys damaged... their inability to function or find joy, meaning or energy in life would never be judged as maladaptive. I persist, that is true, but I see no moral or emotional difference between my functioning and if I was non functioning. I so repeatedly see people discount grief, mental trauma and other forms of true tangible loss as if was somehow different from other types of physical loss, but it isn't. To call it an inability to adapt to loss is one thing, just as a head without a body could not open a door with our current technology, but I would humbly suggest that it is too far too call it maladaptive. I loved every person I lost, due to my age for my parents I was quite literally dependent on them, and the sheer force of will required and personal self subjugation I cannot clearly say was worth it, After all, I've never met an unhappy, struggling or grief stricken man in the ashes of an urn. Loss is loss, it is as real as a limb or organ lost. We all have different experiences, but just some thoughts to consider.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  If it was mal adaptive, it wouldn’t exist.
throwa9724567 2y ago
https://music.apple.com/us/album/grief-is-only-love/1692843565?i=1692844742 https://music.apple.com/us/album/grief-is-only-love/16928435...
kbelder 2y ago
"What is grief, if not love persevering?" Vision - Westview, NJ, 2023
PorterBHall 2y ago
That’s so accurate. I think of it as something that happens to you. Grief comes for you, often when you least expect it. It’s a trap door you didn’t know you were standing on. Mourning, however, is active. It’s a choice to turn and face your loss. Grief is your body telling you that you aren’t doing enough to mourn.
rufus_foreman 2y ago
"It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable." -- Nick Cave, https://www.theredhandfiles.com/communication-dream-feeling/ https://www.theredhandfiles.com/communication-dream-feeling/
- fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  Never seen this before, as a person who has grieved considerably but won't/doesn't read grief literature. I came to the conclusion years ago that grief is just unexpressed, unshareable, uncommunicable, thwarted love. It's all the love I cannot give, all the words and touches and moments that fail to alight on the one I love but instead, missing its intended, affix me to the void. So not merely entwined, I think grief is love itself unsatisfied.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    From experience I found the feeling of being in love without being loved back, is very close to the feeling of grief for a passed away loved one. So in summary, both are an excess of love not finding its goal.
rramadass 2y ago
Beautiful and very True. And the worst thing is you really cannot share it with anyone, it is just too personal. There is also a real danger that this can seek outlet via anger against close folks/circumstances/world in general. It has been a little over a year and half since i lost my Mother(i spent the last decade living with/taking care of her) and the grief is still there. I cannot show it (because i am a "Man"), don't know how to process and deal with it but am only trusting to the passage of time to help me forget. "Human Bonding" is not mere words but is really something strong. I used to poo-poo at all sentimental emotions but now i know better through experience. Elizabeth Akers Allen's emotional poem Rock Me To Sleep nicely captures much of the feeling - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52071/rock-me-to-sleep https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52071/rock-me-to-slee...
- rramadass 2y ago
  Addendum to my comment above: I forgot to mention a very important book on the subject of Grief from the great Cicero which is rectified here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40472916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40472916
mechanicalpulse 2y ago
I appreciate this quote, but after looking into it, I must offer some correction regarding attribution. Félix Revello de Toro is a Spanish artist born in 1926. He specializes in portraits of women, including a 1965 one depicting a woman curled up on a chair with her head tilted down so as to permit her long black hair to hang down and obscure her face. Jamie Anderson is the author of the blog "All My Loose Ends". The quote in question is an amalgamation of excerpts from a 2014 blog entry about loss: https://web.archive.org/web/20200720034003/http://allmylooseends.com/2014/03/lights-wink/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200720034003/http://allmyloose...
- temp0826 2y ago
  Thanks for that, I actually don't know where I got that block of text but have been holding on to it for a while.

jiggybling 2y ago

I felt sad for her father's death but then didn't make it through the great length with which she talked about a cat that you knew was going to be dead anyways.

dang 2y ago

Related: The Strangeness of Grief - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21939131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21939131 - Jan 2020 (20 comments)

yanowitz 2y ago

I found The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O'Connor really helpful. It gave me a frame for why grief is a necessary part of our brain processing the loss. It made it much easier to move through the pain.

popalchemist 2y ago
What's the key insight?
- yanowitz 2y ago
  you have to actually remap your world to one where this person doesn't exist--that's a difficult neuro process and grief is part of it

spacedcowboy 2y ago

I’ve been lost to grief for the last several months - when I realised, finally, irrevocably, that my wife was never going to recover from the mental straitjacket she is now in. That the woman I married fifteen years ago no longer exists. Backstory: She went to hospital one day in March last year, she had hyponatremia (low sodium) and they gave her saline solution roughly twice as fast as recommended - they wanted to turn beds you see, like a restaurant turns tables, hospitals are run for profit. She went into a coma, resurfaced a couple of days later, and then they discharged her as fast as humanly possible - oh you can’t walk now, but you’ll be fine in a week or so, they lied. I used to think that having “excellent” insurance would cover me and mine, but it’s not the case. Insurance just pays when something is available to be paid for. When the hospital decide their time is more important than your life, well, you lose. And you lose big. Since then, and never once before, she has had a smorgasbord of mental problems, but since January, it’s mainly been crippling fear and paranoia. She thought people were in the house, that the dog was a robot spy, that I was dead and replaced by an AI. She’s convinced she’s going to be dismembered by “them” at night, and that she’ll be dragged off to “a hearing” to determine her fate. She is not getting better. I have lost the light of my life, and in doing so, feel lost myself. Purposeless. Dead-man-walking. I break down in tears, uncontrollably, randomly. I sometimes wish I were dead, except then who would look after our son ? So I live. I have learnt to live with overwhelming sadness, to present a mask to the world, to cope. Badly, but better than not being there for him at all. I phone her, every night. Now that she’s been moved closer (30 mins away, she used to be 3 hours away) it’s possible to visit in the week - in fact I’ll be going tonight, not just at weekends. But that just rips open the suppurating wound and adds a fresh layer of salt. To see her. Like this. A woman who did a joint JD/MBA, reduced to this. I have tried therapy to try and sort myself out, but what use is therapy against the harsh reality of what has happened, what will continue to happen, what cannot be escaped from. What use is talking against brain damage ? How does talking about it change reality. It can’t. It won’t. What has been written on steel cannot be erased, consequences, like us, be damned. I will not desert my wife - no matter what hardship I feel, for her it is thousands of times worse. She has periods of lucidity when she knows the agony of all she has lost, when she talks, wistfully, of how she always saw herself growing old together, bickering like only old, married couples do - and not locked on a ward put on a cocktail of drugs that keep her sleepy and docile. I am her only contact with the outside world, and she needs that. She will have it. So I force a brave cheer, and talk to her for the allotted 30 minutes, and her life is not quite so dreadful for that short period. This is what I can do, but the toll is terrible. I walk out of that pleasant ward with my soul in ribbons, trying to pull myself together for the short but intense drive home. It is what I can do, it is not enough, but it is what I can do for her. I am flying my son to the UK this weekend because he deserves some time in a house that isn’t as dreary and doom-laden as his own. I can’t stay because I need to be near her so she doesn't think I've left her. I can't take the time off work anyway because they’re busy, and I need my job to fund her healthcare, so I’ll catch the next flight back and repeat the task in a couple of weeks. It’s a long flight, but he’s looking forward to the adventure. For me, it’s just another nail in the coffin - not being able to provide for him as I ought to be able to, but misery is not a zero-sum game, he’ll enjoy the time away, and that is enough. Grief is heavier than a mountain, it sits on your shoulders, and weighs you down in everything you do, or fail to do. Grief that won’t fade with time, that is renewed each evening, and twice per week in person, is not anything I would wish on my worst enemy. I sincerely hope no-one that has read this far (or anyone else for that matter) ever suffers like she, or like me.

throw0101b 2y ago

See also perhaps A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed * https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150436 https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150436 (Canada public domain) * http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pdf http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/PDFs/GriefObserved_CSL.pd...

Spooky23 2y ago

I lost my wife to cancer last year; she was 46. She was my best friend, lover, my son’s mom and one of the greatest people whom I’ve ever known. Q It is a surreal experience. For me it started as shock. I did not eat a meal for almost two months. Lots of people were around and I kept busy doing random things. Then people go away and the random tasks are done, and it’s quiet and strange. I chose to move forward, focusing on my son, fitness (I started running), we did a charity drive in her honor, and we focused on being more social. I have a boy to take care of and responsibilities to be met - but I think this transition is where many grieving people fall into trouble. I’ve lost my dad and my grandmother, both of whom I was very close to. But this hit different. This column, “No Love is Ever Wasted”, captured my feelings well in a unique way. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/style/modern-love-no-love-is-ever-wasted.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/style/modern-love-no-love...

testfoobar 2y ago
I am sorry for your loss.
ckmktua 2y ago
Condolences
magicalhippo 2y ago
Sorry to hear. I lost my dad over a decade ago which I was close too, and a couple of years later broke up with my SO which I'd been with for well over a decade at that point. While nowhere close to your experience, that weird emptyness sounded very familiar. Coming home from work, eating dinner alone and then just "ok, now what?". Suddenly the days seemed to have so many more hours to fill. And that feeling when you had some fun or nice experience and you just want to share and pick up the phone only to go "oh... right". I still get that with my dad, and it still hits hard.
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jongjong 2y ago

I wonder if the reason why some people surround themselves with awful, selfish people is because it makes it easier to grieve them once they leave or pass away. They'll say all nice things at the funeral but actually it takes no effort to hold back tears. Many people will have the opposite problem; they want to show tears for virtue-signalling purposes but find that they can't.

xandrius 2y ago
That would be a really weird way to actively decide to live one's limited life. I'd say the reason is that historical relationships and connections are hard to let go and when you do (saying by moving to a new place,) you're left with whatever you end up finding.
Spooky23 2y ago
I think it's the opposite. The thought of losing even a shitty relationship is difficult to contemplate. You get caught in a trap that's difficult to escape.

agumonkey 2y ago

Huberman made a nice episode about grief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOvi0Aa2EA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOvi0Aa2EA Good quality information in there, saying this after years of trying to overcome a lot of stuff and never really finding anything of value. This was interesting. Hope others find some help in it. ps: I always assumed that grieving is supposed to be done with others, they buffer the loss, share it with you and make your future make sense because your pain is not unheard and thus your emotional self is somehow intact and allowed to be. Without this you may end up as a fake shell unable to find any form of true connection since you've been alienated at your deepest moments.

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rottc0dd 2y ago

> “I love talking about her, by the way, so if I cry, it’s only a beautiful thing,” Garfield explained. “This is all the unexpressed love, the grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, no matter if someone lives till 60, 15, or 99.” “So I hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that I didn’t get to tell her,” he added. “And I told her every day. We all told her every day. She was the best of us.” - Andrew Garfield about loss of his mother

goles 2y ago

https://archive.is/uKsta https://archive.is/uKsta

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

The hardest part of grief for me is the guilt and the anxiety. Yeah for keeping the catholic guilt but not believing so not getting the benefit of 'universal love and forgiveness' and afterlife aspects. I went down a rabbit hole when my mom died of theories of time not being linear just so I could take comfort in all those shared moments still happening, indefinitely.

rramadass 2y ago

On the subject of Grief (and in general Emotions), a study of the works of the Roman Stoics, Cicero and Seneca (and earlier Epictetus) are a must. In particular; see Cicero and the Emotions : Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 by Margaret Graver. - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3641329.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo364132... A good review here - https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002.09.15/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002.09.15/

khjjjukykhhjy 2y ago

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