on grief, and learning, and gold
She said to me, “Peace be with you“ as we were getting off the phone. She did not owe me any such blessing, nor politeness. It was what we call a “bereavement call,” a service offered to the loved ones of deceased hospice patients. Her husband died earlier this month. She told me that before he was disabled by disease, they used to dance in the street together. He would bring her bunches of wildflowers. She’s lost without him. She now exists in a world unfamiliar, a horrifying landscape of unknown. She tried to go to the grocery store, but she did not know how to shop not for her husband. She is wildly alone inside a wildly universal experience.
Brain science tells us that grief is a process of learning. And unlearning. Deep relational bonds get encoded in our brains and bodies. We learn that the world is composed of that bond, and every indicator of it: the low rumble of your partner’s truck pulling into the driveway; the sweet squeeze of your brother’s arms giving you a bear-hug; the anticipation of your mother’s smiling face on the other side of the paint-chipped front door; the way your stomach aches with delight when your best friend makes you laugh; the trusted, charming jingle of your dog’s collar; the ever-reliable good counsel of your 90-year-old grandma; the warmth of your child’s body on yours as you rock him to sleep; the smell of your husband’s hair, hands, breath, for 50 years…
All of this makes an imprint on your nervous system, forms a literal neural network in your brain– aided and concretized by neurochemicals, by reinforcement, by attachment, by love itself…
And then comes loss. A brash, unstoppable interruption of what you have learned. What you have come to trust. How you conceived of the world and how it works. How your heart was shaped, is shaped.
If you have ever loved anyone, anything, you will know loss. Which begets grief. Which requires unlearning, and learning anew. It is a formidable charge.
What comes to mind, so often, when we consider the grieving person is sympathy. We can only imagine the suffering, the twisted and aching heart of the bereaved. What we forget is to behold. To admire and revere– that the person in grief is a person in profound learning. They are navigating new terrain like the fearless explorers of antiquity, those who embarked on uncharted journeys that changed the world.
Ocean depths, mysterious desert, steep peaks, spices, songs, ritual, gods, gold.
And so the griever, too, deserves to be taught about in school, is to be exalted and honored. They are discoverers among us. Of love, of life as it pertains to death, of ferocious humanity.
I do not know how that bereaved woman had the physical energy to talk to me on the phone. I do not know how she could speak words.
I do know that I have an unbelievable amount of admiration for her, based on a 30-minute conversation between us two strangers.
I do know that she should be taught about in schools.
I do know there is gold inside of her.
