How Loss and Grief Create Who We Are

We are of the nature to change.  What is basic to that nature? What is it that allows to recognize defining moments while moving us through the time and space between birth and death? What creates the responses to those defining moments that create our life story? That basic nature, those responses, that movement and creation involves the capacity to grieve each change we face.

Grieving is an experiential process through which we discover what is lost in any change; what remains or can be restored; and finally what is newly made possible.  Grieving is the way we create who we are out of the ashes of what can no longer be. We grieve because we take risks, love and make connections and inevitably lose them. We grieve in order to risk and love again—more wisely, inclusively, with grace and courage.

Risk taking reflects the human spirit of adventure and curiosity. Loving reflects attachments. There are two parts of any risk and any attachment: its form and its meaning. What form does a risk/attachment take? Is it a goal, achievement, role, friendship or job that has been challenged or been lost?

The second part of a risk or attachment involves its place in our life: its reason, meaning or core.  Does it define who we are? Can we live without it? Is it an expression of the best in us?

Sometimes the form of the risk/attachment is lost, while its substance remains. We are traumatized attempting to help others. A loved one dies, but we know them by heart.  Grieving permits us to let go of the form while retaining the essence. But losing the form is the loss of anchors in the material world.

Sometimes the substance or meaning is lost even though to outward appearances, everything looks the same. We go through the motions while no longer feeling invulnerable or loyal. When the meaning is lost, we struggle with an existential crisis, for we no longer have a sense of purpose for our being. 

Then a loss can mean both the form and the substance are gone: a divorce, after bitter and destructiveness in the parting.

Grief is the process by which we come to know just what has been lost, and, when nothing seems to remain, it is the process by which life can take on new form and new meaning. Grief can create a gossamer-like thread, sheer and delicate, that is the unbroken connection to the past and to the future. It is sometimes hidden by fear and trauma. We can’t find what remains. We wonder if it ever did exist.

Sometimes that thread is visible only to those who hold our hope in those darkest hours. Life itself feels broken. We learn to cope, to survive, and to put one foot in front of the other. The very existence of this connecting filament is often a matter of faith, that we cannot hold alone. It is held by those who believe in us, who know we will emerge later, linking loss to story, letting go to forgiveness, meaning to essence. These validators carry for us what was too burdensome to hold.

That tough, delicate fiber may someday become a legacy of hope affirmed and create a personal legend of courage, grace and patience that resulted from most trying life circumstance. That fiber of grief generates reasons for existence less dependent on a particular form, more inclusive that ever before.

Grieving creates an unbreakable strand that weaves through many lives and many events, conjoins us in the tapestry of transgenerational family, multicultural links, the times in which we live and the themes of civilization. Grieving is connection; it allows us to embrace kindness, experience empathy, open to love, healing, hope, courage and peace as enduring human qualities integral to lives.

If this sounds mysterious, implausible, not at all the usual way experts look at grief, you are right! But approaches to grief are so diverse as to liken to the three blind men and the elephant. Most approaches focus on coping and survival. The Kubler Ross model ends with acceptance.

Some talk only of the work or tasks of grief, its complications and potential tragedies. They focus on the existential dilemma posed by a significant loss: the challenge to the very reason for living. Some even say there is no loss so sad as theirs, implying that anyone who grows or moves on from this loss somehow betrays its compelling victimization.

These approaches are all right, but leave other portions of the elephant unexplored: for instance, some people actually thrive on change; that the worst losses can transform some to greater wholeness, more inclusive love, even more significant risks. 

 It is possible for grief to create more out of less, to transform who we are and what we are about. All it requires is a paradigm shift from seeing grief as a process that focuses only on survival, only on awareness and acceptance to one that transforms losses into opportunities for growth.

This transformation originates in loss and the choice to experience life fully.  Survival and coping skills only measure how much we can miss in life and still be alive.  We have to arrive at the point where we can't keep going as before.  Something has to change, and the safety and opportunity are finally right to make that happen.  Most often the last straw holding back awareness is removed by chance, trauma or divine intervention, not by choice. It is an unwelcome gift: an invitation to pass through hell.

When people think of hell, it is the full awareness of loss they usually contemplate. Whenever a momentous loss happens, we are never the same.  There is no going back to the naiveté, innocence or predictability of the past. Like the old Sufi adage, once awake we can never go back to sleep without paying more for attempting to stay the same. For most, these kinds of awareness compose a living hell.

Living life fully means embracing both extremes of heaven and torment and everything in between. Despair, loneliness, death and meaninglessness are realities that commonly accompany noteworthy losses. We give up predictability and open to the modifications and radical departures that grief’s reality dictates. We accept that there is no way to know the future, and life isn't the way it used to be, nor will it ever be. Death becomes a palpable reality. Assumptions and beliefs once thought indispensable no longer offer protection or even probability. Awareness is a discouraging part of the process. But discouragement is a challenge to find courage.

 Sometimes all we have for continuing this journey is that gossamer thread of hope; that we can stand this, that things will be better than they are at the moment. We hope for mending or restoring of what we've lost, for a new vitality from rediscovering integrity, for a new spiritual awakening that allows us to live and love again.

 At some point that hope turns into healing; we cross the river, regain what we can remember of our essential qualities. We find ways to restore, forgive, apologize, make recompense, let go and resume what is essential to who we are. We gain resilience; bounce back from further setbacks and challenges. We are grateful for those who held our hope, who midwife the birthing of our emerging selves.

Remember that hell is a part of the process of grieving. So is heaven; the awareness of deep and enduring connection, of laughter and joy shared with those who witness. Heaven comes in times of solitude and meeting tests of integrity, of choosing peace and paths for redemption. These come not in spite of our losses but because of them. Only then can we embrace loss as a genuine gift, not an unwelcome intruder.

Each loss involves unique experience and expression.  By admitting what no longer is, we can open to what remains and discover what can grow from it.  It may be something momentous, a deeper devotion, less dependence on formula, need, character, or reason, or it may be something minute, a daily reminder to appreciate what we have.

Loss that is grieved liberates us.  We are more, despite having less.

— John Martin Schneider