Grief Graffiti

William Shakespeare wrote, “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” Sometimes it’s just hard to find the words, to express the overwhelming heartache, pain & anguish to explain our grief. I often think I wish I had a translator, someone who “speaks grief”, to put my feelings into words. Not only to help others understand, but to be able to vent it & release it. A verse from the Bible comes to mind; “The spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered“. (Romans 8:26). There’s definitely a need this kind of intercessor in grief.

In her article on this subject, “The Secret Languages of Grief”, Carol Smith says:

In the country of grief, none of us speaks the same language. We have all kinds of ceremonies that come with long-standing traditions to help the bereaved through the initial shock of loss. Funeral processions and memorial services, wakes and shivas, second-line parades—each of these has its own language and customs. But what follows those public outpourings is a long, private stage of mourning. And for that, each of us develops our own secret language.

There is no dictionary for grieving. No word for the crushing weight of absence, no word for the instant of disbelief in the morning just after you wake, or for the fatigue beyond exhaustion that hollows out the bones. In Macbeth, Shakespeare writes, “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break,” My grief was unspeakable. I lacked the vocabulary.

The word grief, for example, comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root gwere for heavy. Gwere – to even say it (as we would pronounce it today) is to exhale sharply as though trying to catch a heavy, falling stone against the stomach, which is indeed what it is like to discover a loved one has died. Gwere evolved into old French grever, the more immediate ancestor of our term for grief. Grever, meaning burden. Yes, that is what it is like. A stone you never put down.

According to online etymology sources, the word sorrow may derive from the word swergh, the PIE root for sickness. That, too, made sense to me. The physical symptoms that stem from mental anguish—nausea and weakness, confusion, the stuttering heart rhythms that leave you faint, the ruthless insomnia—this was what sorrow felt like, my body trying with every cell to reject this new and certain reality.

Loss, in turn, descends from the ancient root leu, meaning “to cut apart.” Mourners in some Native American cultures cut their hair off as a sign of their grief. It used to be customary in New Guinea for some members of the Dani Tribe to cut off the tip of a finger upon the loss of a family member or child. I understood this impulse. Losing my child felt like an amputation. Years later, I would hear the poet Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House and no stranger to grief, say that the word “overwhelm” derives from over-helm, as in the helm of a boat—the feeling of being cast overboard. That, too, approached my feeling during the early days after my son’s death. The sense of drowning. I thought if only I could explain, maybe someone, in turn, could give me language to staunch my pain. But there were equally no words that comforted me.

Thankfully there are people who are good at words, who have a way of speaking the grief so eloquently, whether in poems or songs or blogs, and I love them for it. My younger son went through a period of listening almost exclusively to “Sad Boi” music. This genre is defined as “music that heavily covers themes of love, heartbreak, moving on with life, and personal tragedy”. I became concerned that this music was having a negative affect on him & one day after hearing him play it incessently I asked him why he listened to such depressing music. His answer has stayed with me through the years: “It’s comforting to know that someone else feels this way & is able to put into words what I’m feeling. It actually helps me feel better, that I’m not the only one or that something is terribly wrong with me.” That’s how I feel when I read poetry like this:

Seems like just yesterday you lit up the world with your smile. You never really liked your smile but I did. Maybe it wasn’t perfect but it was yours and I liked everything that was yours. Your smile, your face, the way you walked and the way you talked because only you did things the way that you did them and no matter where I look I can’t seem to find it twice.

But everyday I’m reminded of you by the songs I listen to that you gave a meaning to, the smell of your favorite food and when the rain falls on my roof because ever since you left it hasn’t stopped raining. I can’t seem to sleep at night. I even leave a light on just in case this is all a dream and you come home.

And every year when I celebrate my birthday you won’t be there to celebrate with me. And on your birthday there will be no celebration, just memories of you and a bunch of tears streaming down my face because I love you but now that love has no place to go. I question how many tears you cried by yourself and I wish I could’ve been there to wipe them all away because you were loved and you still are. People care about you, somebody always cared about you.

We miss you everyday and there is nothing we can do about it. No superhero and no prayer in the world can bring you back. I know that everybody’s got their reasons as to why they do the things they do, but you didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to feel alone and face things by yourself, there is always an answer.

Nobody is perfect, and it’s not about being perfect, it’s about being you but now I’ll never get you back. The world will never get you back and it will never get to see another you, because that’s how magical you were. 1 in over 7 billion.

But now you’re gone and I’m here. And I wish you were here with me because life is a beautiful thing and I wanted you to be alive to see it. Darkness doesn’t last forever and eventually it will stop raining, even the rain that’s been pouring since you left.

And I will turn off the light again and sleep at night because it’s not a bad life, just some bad times and right now losing you hurts but I will always carry you in my heart even though I’d rather walk by your side instead.

I wish you could see these clouds pass by but I know you’re on the other side of that rainbow. I miss you. I guess I’ll get to see you on the other side then.

I love you, don’t forget that.

~Jetpack Jay (Listen to it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEVlsqN4P0)