The Nature of Grief

Coming to grips with a potent emotion.

Atlanta, GA

October 15, 2024

We’ve reached the stage of life when losing loved ones is increasingly common. This summer, my step-father died. A few weeks later, an aunt departed.

These losses were among a slew of deaths afflicting family and friends the last few years. And they reminded me how great minds grappled with a potent emotion.

The Use of Grief

John Adams once asked a septuagenarian Thomas Jefferson if he’d willingly live his life again. Jefferson assured him he would, while acknowledging that “even in the happiest life, there are some terrific convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account.”

That brought Jefferson, who had suffered considerably, to the question of grief. “I have often wondered”, he said, “for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have an useful object, but what is the use of grief?”

Adams gave a thoughtful response that satisfied Jefferson, who assured his older friend that “to the question on the utility of Grief, no answer remains to be given….I see that, with the other evils of life, it is destined to temper the cup we are to drink.”

Increasing Occasions of Loss

The last few years, I feel like I’ve been informed of more deaths, attended more funerals, written more eulogies, and sent more condolence cards than in any period that came before. Among the living, we’ve learned of illnesses afflicting extended family and friends, and pray they are terminal only to the extent we all are.

At my age, this is all to be expected. The man I consider my dad died this summer. My wife’s father did so four years ago, and her “second mother” departed in December. With disconcerting regularity, co-workers and friends mourn parents, siblings, spouses and…in a few awful instances…kids. 

Obviously, my step-father and father-in-law were significant losses, and leave gaps that will never close. We continue to grieve for them, and to some extent always will. 

But when friends suffer loss…especially ones that are particularly painful…our task is not as clear. Our role seems less to partake of their grief (an effort that can seem contrived and is probably futile) than to support them thru it. The result is often formulaic and trite, but the attempt is usually appreciated. 

Part of the problem is that we don’t know exactly what the afflicted are feeling, or the exact nature of their suffering. But that’s OK. For the most part, they don’t either. And they don’t need (or want) us to tell them. 

Besides, the process varies for everyone, and changes over time, albeit at different rates for each person. To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy people smile in similar fashion, but mournful ones grieve in their own way. 

It’s usually enough for our friends to know that, like a lifeguard surveying a stormy sea, we are there…even if (perhaps especially if) we don’t say anything at all. They may need to soak in their grief. We should simply make ourselves available to ensure they don’t drown.

If You Want the Love, You Have to Have the Pain

CS Lewis made this point in his poignant account, “A Grief Observed”, of his emotional and philosophical struggles after the death of his wife. He said he felt like an invisible blanket had risen between him and the world.

He dreaded his empty house, and wanted others around. He just preferred they talk to one another instead of to him.

Lewis, one of the great Christian apologists of the 20th century, confessed to fearing not that he’d realize God didn’t really exist, but that he’d learn what God was really like. 

His initial impressions, in the wake of his wife’s death, startled and unnerved him. “I turn to God when I really need him, and what do I find? A door slammed in my face. The sound of bolting and double-bolting. After that…silence.”

Had Lewis been worshiping a fair-weather deity? Like a fickle friend, would He be there only for the good times, but vanish when things got rough? Would He join you for drinks at the bar, then slip out the back once a fight broke out?

To Lewis…a lifelong bachelor who had finally been granted true love, only to have it suddenly taken away…that’s the way it seemed. He was asking God for help, or at least an explanation. But he received no answer.

Lewis, during his grief, asked his brother, “If you were God and you had created man and woman, what would you do? Let them love each other, and then lose each other? Or keep them safe from both the love and the pain?”

“I’d let them choose for themselves.”

Lewis agreed, and expressed no regret on his choice. But he then continued, “It doesn’t seem fair does it? If you want the love, you have to have the pain.”

Lewis described his grief as a feeling of fear, or suspense. It was like waiting around for things, none of which were worth starting. Everything was “permanently provisional”. Emptiness was everywhere. Nothing mattered.

Grieving for Themselves

Many I’ve read or talked to have felt the same way the last several years. They may not have lost a loved one, but they’ve lost direction. Uncertainty abounds. Prior plans are suspended. And they have no idea when, or whether, they’ll resume. It’s almost as if they grieve for themselves.

Their world has become unremarkable and bland. A sense of drift and pointlessness slowly settled upon them, like the first dusts of snow that gradually cover a once colorful garden.

What will remain when it melts? Anything? That’s the question so many people ask.

As Lewis put it, will there come a time when we no longer wonder why the world has become what it is, because we come to accept squalor and turpitude as normal? Or are we already there?

Among Lewis’s chief laments was that happiness didn’t come to his wife till late in her life. Then, at long last, she had it all…her “palate filled the joys of sense and intellect, and spirit was fresh and unspoiled”. She was finally in position to savor what life had to offer. But, just as she began to take a bite, “the food was snatched away”.

The Pain Passes

Before long, Lewis, a man of faith who had been so instrumental instilling or reinforcing that of others, started to receive reassurance. Like Jefferson, he began to get answers that, while perhaps not wholly fulfilling, were at least somewhat satisfying.

It occurred to him that to receive more, he had to grab less. That he couldn’t see anything when his eyes were blurred with tears. Like a drowning man who sinks if he clutches too hard, or one who cries so loud he silences the voice he hopes to hear.

Lewis slowly understood that we never “get over” severe loss, much as an amputee never fully recovers a lost leg. Sharp pain of the initial separation would eventually dissipate, and the stump would slowly heal.

The amputee could then continue to function. But he’d never be the same. He’d have periodic pangs when he saw, tried, or returned to certain things. He’d get on with life, perhaps with a crutch or a wooden leg.

But he’d never again be a biped. And to get where he wanted to go, he’d have to go to God, not thru Him.

We expect grief to pass, and it usually does. But the transition probably won’t be striking or sudden, like flipping a calendar or saying a prayer. Rather, as Lewis said, it will be like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight.

By the time you notice, it will already have been underway for some time. 

JD