It was a brief conversation I had with a friend as we discussed our common experience.  I had lost my dad a short two years ago and she had lost her mother in the past year.  The discussion was a few sentences of shared feelings, of how we each hadn’t realized how connected to our parent we had been and of how there was a lack of acceptance in our community for our mourning.  And then the conversation moved on, but the words had  intrigued me and I reflected on them for several days. There seems to be an unspoken taboo in our society about showing grief or mourning the loss of a loved one unless it is done quietly, behind closed doors where you aren’t seen.  In general, grief for any loss or transition is not tolerated beyond the first brief time frame of a few days by our society.  We are told to ‘get over it’ , ‘move on’ , ‘they are in a better place’ , ‘everything happens for the best’  or a multitude of other platitudes in an effort to move us beyond this place of sadness.  While I truly believe these things are said in good will, I also believe they are stated because the person speaking them is uncomfortable being in this place of grief with us.  I get it, it is not an easy or fun place to be and I have also witnessed someone being stuck in this place, but overall my experience has been that we hurry through it.  We push the pain away, deny the tears and are afraid to acknowledge the impact or changes in our life as we go about our day to day activities as if nothing is different. 

When the tragic loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, Payton and Sarah Chester, John, Keri and Alyssa Altobelli, Ara Zobayan and Christina Mauser was announced just two days after my conversation with my friend, I was surprised by my strong reaction.  Sure I had watched Kobe play basketball avidly a for a time and had celebrated in his success after his sports career. I felt poignantly for the children, the loss of dreams and opportunities never realized.  There was heartache for the others as well and of course the family members left behind.  But I had no personal connection.  These were not my family, friends or neighbors and yet the initial wave of emotion that struck me reminded me of the sense of loss I had when my father passed.  And so as the days I unfolded I watched in awe and bewilderment the outpouring of grief from so many different people.  Age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, hometown; none of this mattered.  All were united in this process of mourning.  All were publicly grieving the loss of these lives and no one was suggesting it was time to move on.  

This contrast to what I had experienced on a individual basis with loss struck me and I began to question.  Was it Kobe?  Was it the circumstances?  While these details may have some part in what transpired I didn’t feel this told the whole story.  I had witnessed similar displays with other very public figures.  So do we value these people more and therefore it is okay to visibly mourn their loss?  This didn’t feel right to me either.  So I continued to question and arrived at the following.  Because societal parameters dictate we are to grieve our losses in private, behind closed doors and get over the sense of loss quickly, we do not allow ourselves to grieve completely and these feelings remain buried, hibernating if you will.  Yet, when a public figure is lost, society has deemed it acceptable to grieve collectively and thus the outpouring of emotion that appears includes that which we have bottled up and not let out.  It is the tears we didn’t shed and the pain we pushed away in attempting to deny the sense of our personal loss that we are now able to bring forward.  Whether this is true or not for others I don’t know, but I do feel there is truth there for me.  

And so the lesson repeats for me.  To deny what I am feeling and pretend it doesn’t exist will not make the sadness and tears go away to never return.  Instead, suppression leads to delayed reactions that may appear more dramatically than when I first encountered them.  Embracing what I am feeling, leaning into it and questioning what it is trying to tell me leads to healing.  Not always easy and not always doable in the moment but necessary for learning, growing and continuing on the journey.

Wishing you dear friend much leaning in and healing on your heartfelt journey.  ~♥~