The Language of Grief

Unwritten.

Unteachable.

Instantly understood by those who have endured deep loss.

There are many quotes, articles and platitudes that all struggle to describe Great Grief.

None do.

Not adequately.

Missing the mark of providing a way that someone who is not living with Grief can truly comprehend.

Even as grievers, we wrestle with words – spoken and written – to convey this language.

And we fall short, constantly, continually.

There is no formal grammar, and no standardized vocabulary, for Grief.

Grief speaks in silence, and in signs.

It echoes in the shadows.

It screams from an empty chair, an unused coffee cup.

It torments as our hands reach for the phone, reminding us that our person is not going to answer.

The first words we hear after a great loss are well-intentioned, but little more than a clumsy translation of an alien text.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“They are in a better place.”

“They wouldn’t want you to be so sad.”

“Time heals all wounds.”

These first words fail to capture that seismic shift that has collapsed our universe.

Grief demands its own language – not one born of intellect or even good intentions.

But a language that is birthed in that moment of death deep in our very soul.

A language we never knew existed.

And yet, suddenly, we must learn.

Those who have not suffered such a loss - that changes everything - speak words of “fixing”, of “moving on”, of “getting over”.

We speak the language of enduring, of aching, of somehow surviving the storm and learning to live again in the wilderness.

Grievers have a 6^th sense – to recognize another griever.

We sense their presence in a crowded room, even online in social media.

We gravitate to them, and they to us.

There are fleeting glances, as we search for the empty eyes, the hollow hearts.

The weight of unspoken words now binds us as family.

We have no need with one another to explain the crushing weight of a certain date, or the irrational anger at seeing another couple laugh or argue.

We understand one another’s complex guilt that comes immediately in that moment of an unexpected joy.

We do not try to fix their grief, nor do they try to fix ours.

We can’t.

And that “can’t” is the glue that holds us together.

We sit with one another in silence, feeling the weight of being alone.

Grief becomes the mother-tongue of the broken-hearted.

We write in tears.

We whisper in memories.

We shout into the void.

This language of grief becomes our crucible of sorrow.

This language of grief crosses every barrier – culture, religion, politics, geography, and more.

This language of grief grows from our sadness, our pain, our lostness, our struggles.

Grievers understand and know empathy to one another.

There is a bittersweet sense of belonging.

The language of Grief is, in its own tragic way, beautiful.

Woven with the threads of treasured memories, shared moments and everlasting love for the ones we have lost.

I may not know your loved one, I may not have shared in your memories – but, I get it.

And so do you, for me.

The absence of our loved ones does not silence the love, for grief speaks.

Grief speaks in stuttered sentences, in heavy silences, in raw cries.

Grief is not incoherent.

Grief is the poetry of love, refusing to be silenced.

The grief language that we speak is a testament to the depth of what we held – and what still holds us. Love.

In speaking this grief language to one another, there is a glimmer of hope and solace. 

We are not alone.

While every loss is as individual as each love is, the language of Grief is spoken, heard, understood, and grasped as a life-line.

A solidarity born in the storms, grown in the wilderness.