Grief is a gift
“Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it… Every lament is a love-song.”
― Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
How is your tender heart these darkening days of autumn?
Today is All Hallow’s Eve, the eve of the Christian church’s holy day remembering the dead, born of an even more ancient Celtic tradition known as Samhain (pronounced Sow-wen).
Samhain is a cross-quarter day marking the midpoint between the fall equinox and winter solstice. It ushers us into the darkest months of the year. It is a time where the veil between the worlds is said to be thin.
It is also the 20th anniversary of the death of my younger brother Nathan. He died in a violent accident at the tender age of 18.
My grief for my brother mixes with the grief for all the lives being lost even now as I write. The violence happening in the middle east is heart-wrenching. And rather than push the pain away, today I welcome my grief. I light candles, let my tears and wailing flow, and sit in the space where there are no words.
For many years following the death of my brother, I didn’t know how to be with my grief. I was afraid it would swallow me whole. I was afraid I would be forever stuck in the pit if I allowed myself the decent.
And so, for a long time, I did not dare go there.
Yet, I have learned that grief is not an ending. Rather it is the medicine of healing. It is the path of transformation. Grief is how we alchemize our loss to integrate and include the trauma of what has happened into our story of self.
Grief is always born out of love.
In my Irish heritage, grief was a communal response to loss. And it was the women who led the corporate grieving through heart-wrenching keening. They would send their wailing up into the heavens, and their song would cause the community to find access to their own tears.
Their grief was their gift.
This ancient practice reminds me that part of the medicine and power of grief is that is joins our broken hearts together.
Grief is not meant to isolate us, but to connect us to the universal pain and love that mark this human existence. When it feels as though loss, death, or suffering have cut the cords, our grief weaves us back into the web of belonging.
The death of my brother was my initiation into Mystery, to the place where words and ideologies crumble.
Today, I feel those old unanswerable questions rising up again in me and joining the chorus of humanity shouting in protest…why? Why the pain? Why the senseless killing? Why the suffering? Why the violence?
No easy answers come. Our cries ring out into the night.
“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul.”
Loss unravels us. Strips us down. Exposes us to the harsh elements where our bare skin rubs raw against the harsh realities of this life. We are taken to the very end of our own understanding.
And in some strange way, I have experienced that surrendering into that darkness is surrendering into love.
The times are intense, dear one. So may you go gently.
May you make space for the ways your own tears need to flow; the ways grief rises as a wail or a protest on your lips.
And may you honor, too, your need for rest and close the blinds, turn off the screens, and let yourself drop into a soft cradle of sleep for awhile.
I leave you with a poem I wrote about the death of my brother. May it be a blessing.
a drum song of grief
True
by Stephanie Jenkins
I used to think that truth
was a stone I could hold in my hand,
comforted by its weight and solidity.
I would turn it over and over
polishing it with my attention.
Truth grounded me when I felt
I might fly away with the wind.
Truth protected me; a weapon
I could hurl with the strength of my own arm.
I could aim truth at the forehead of the giant
and be the victor.
But the broken body of my brother
and our mother’s piercing anguish
tore the sky open
and the earth swallowed me.
Flailing into darkness,
the polished stone slipped from my fingers,
falling
falling
all was stripped away.
With nails and fists and accusations,
I resisted the decent.
Grief broke through like a strangled bird
flapping wounded wings.
The darkness swelled with blood and feathers.
Then exhaustion came
and I surrendered to the sleep of death.
When I awoke, seemingly years later,
the darkness was swimming with stars—
trillions of blazing bodies held in the cradle of night
and one truth surfaced in that infinite expanse
in the Mystery before me, vast and wild:
I too was held.
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Hello, dear one. I’m Stephanie.
As a Soul Companion, educator, and sacred space holder, I am passionate about deepening our connection to the earth, our bodies, and the divine mystery that dances in all that is.
Let’s journey together into the sacred wild!
