This is stunning. I am stunned. We lost our daughter last October. Each one of these feels like a little piece of my mind plopped into this essay. Thank you for sharing them.
Thank you Emily. I wasn't too enthusiastic about sharing any of this but I figured if it touched even one person who was grieving in a way that made them feel seen and heard, it would be worth the discomfort and general impression that I'm damaged. His power is perfected in our weakness.
This is exactly why I even started a substack, so I truly feel your heart in this. Bless you brother. May the day of no more weeping and grief come quickly.
I do not usually comment on things as it always feels like I am yelling into an abyss, but I have not read anything that has resonated so strongly in a while. As you're familiar with, there is nothing else to be said past remorseful pleasantries in regard to your feelings of grief, but please know that they are all implied (in our parasocial relationship, I felt as if we were past the pleasantries). I just felt the immense need to let you know (whether for your own benefit or mine is arguable) that I hear you, I understand you, and I too have an endless black hole in my abdominal cavity that is slowly working its way up my chest, waiting until it has enough gravitation pull to swallow me whole.
Thank you Torri. I'm grateful you did comment. Appreciate your note here (:
Also this is alarmingly beautiful: "I too have an endless black hole in my abdominal cavity that is slowly working its way up my chest, waiting until it has enough gravitation pull to swallow me whole."
Just stunningly beautiful, as always, Tommy. You have a gift for capturing the uncapturable, and I always feel less lonely for it.
This one resonated in a major way: "There are some ways in which we do not want to be consoled, refuse to be consoled, get angry and indignant at other people’s seemingly empty, templated, ready-made phrases of consolation. There are some ways we hold onto grief, try to keep the wound fresh. Make the daily sacrifice of a broken spirit."
“Here, then, is the conundrum: the need to articulate an inarticulable thing. All while being careful not to confuse words with the thing itself.”
Tommy please don’t ever stop trying to articulate the inarticulable. First because your humility won’t allow you to confuse your words with the thing itself. Second, because you have a way of occupying a depth of the inarticulable thing that serves, and connects. So to not put it into words and express it outward deprives the world (and little ole me) of the opportunity to deepen our connection in life. And connection is where the divine exists. Lives.
Your words foster connection.
Last - I’m so grateful for your vulnerability. Sharing about your grief and the depth of your grief is, paradoxically, life giving. ❤️
I love all of this and I don’t think it is at all depressing. Loss comes to everyone; I just hope I avoid the most horrible forms (like violent death, deliberate or accidental).
It is very wearisome to keep up the fiction that we will be happy all the time and we will always get “better” - in the narrow material sense - if afflicted in body or spirit or both. And yet it’s hard because I feel that I’ve lost the language to talk about loss meaningfully and so have the people around me.
All your descriptions were powerful but this is the one that I probably relate to the most right now:
“Grief makes you feel alive, unbearably human and aware of the stakes, in a way that seems significant. There was a certain blindness you had before that you can no longer return to. A certain loss of the capacity to delude yourself. This has something to do with wisdom.”
I would only add that it’s not only experiences of death that create this feeling. It’s experiences of love too: being married to my husband, giving birth to and raising my children, experiencing all the good relationships in my life. Because all those things mean I’m deeply involved. They are both strength and vulnerability of the most unavoidable sort.
In echoing the comments that have been made so far, this essay is the closest I've found to what the internal and external world feels like, yet I know there is so much left to add as each moment of grief passes. I have come to realize, for myself anyway, that grief does not come in "stages" or cycles; it seems to linger, subside a bit, and resurface. "Despite my efforts, what is left here is a grief-shaped hole. A small but infinite space where no words can live. Where language goes dumb and mute."...yes...exactly that.
Beautifully written Tommy. Your notes struck many chords of past grief, as a reminder that those tender "bruises" remain and hold influence, even under the bandages of time and space.
Also, I read today that "there are more psalms of lament than any other type" and I thought that was worth mentioning here.
Thank you Erin (: for reading & such a beautiful comment here. It felt kinda depressing and heavy after sharing but then had a friend go through something tragic and was reminded that it's important to talk about these things.
That's a really interesting point on the psalms. Similarly, in the Gospels, Jesus' most common emotion was sorrow.
The physical similes you shared resonate most strongly with me from experiences of secondhand pain - I can still remember the crushing soreness in my chest that followed me all day after hearing about a friend's parents' unexpected divorce, or the sudden death of a mother with two sons, a husband, and a brain tumor...
When grief is yours, it seems inescapable, like you can't climb out of the pit. When it belongs to someone else, you'd give anything to be able to climb in with them, to hold them up from inside. Firsthand grief is obliterating, and secondhand grief is so, painfully... helpless.
Thank God our God found a way to climb into our pit, and hold us up from the inside.
A beautiful confession. Like you, I have tried to capture the experience and nature of grief through words and reflection. Although none of us can capture it, we can share it like you have so truly and deeply, that we’re reminded we are not alone. And if grief can be redeemed, it’s through learning about ourselves and uniting people in the experience of life.
I wonder, is confession synonymous with surrender in this context?
That and learning to let go has been my sparring partner…
Thank you for this. I lost a son to cancer. He was only 5 yrs. old. And now years later im still dealing with that grief. Also another kind of grief that leaves me physically aching. Your words are needed. Thank you!
I haven't read your work in a while, so...if I missed some significant loss...sending love. And extending an offer to talk, if you ever wanted. Also, as a death doula who is currently doing a looooottt of grief work...I absolutely love your metaphors and the ways you describe grief. I might steal some of these for my clients.
I don't think words are enough to describe it. The feeling of being understood and that, no, you are not alone. Of course, not all stories are the same but they all come down to one main root. so deep within us. It is always difficult to express and find words With which to describe . Thank you for being so well able to formulate this post. I will most likely come back to read it again and again.
The way you describe grief as something that lives in the body makes so much sense. So many people try to think their way out of it when it is clearly happening in the gut, the lungs, the jaw, the nervous system. I see this tension often between analyzing pain and actually letting it move through. The line about needing witnesses feels true, especially when loss can make someone feel cut off from everyone around them.
This is stunning. I am stunned. We lost our daughter last October. Each one of these feels like a little piece of my mind plopped into this essay. Thank you for sharing them.
Thank you Emily. I wasn't too enthusiastic about sharing any of this but I figured if it touched even one person who was grieving in a way that made them feel seen and heard, it would be worth the discomfort and general impression that I'm damaged. His power is perfected in our weakness.
This is exactly why I even started a substack, so I truly feel your heart in this. Bless you brother. May the day of no more weeping and grief come quickly.
I do not usually comment on things as it always feels like I am yelling into an abyss, but I have not read anything that has resonated so strongly in a while. As you're familiar with, there is nothing else to be said past remorseful pleasantries in regard to your feelings of grief, but please know that they are all implied (in our parasocial relationship, I felt as if we were past the pleasantries). I just felt the immense need to let you know (whether for your own benefit or mine is arguable) that I hear you, I understand you, and I too have an endless black hole in my abdominal cavity that is slowly working its way up my chest, waiting until it has enough gravitation pull to swallow me whole.
Thank you Torri. I'm grateful you did comment. Appreciate your note here (:
Also this is alarmingly beautiful: "I too have an endless black hole in my abdominal cavity that is slowly working its way up my chest, waiting until it has enough gravitation pull to swallow me whole."
"Anger appears, often without announcement. An instinctive response to abandonment." I'll be thinking about this one for awhile.
Just stunningly beautiful, as always, Tommy. You have a gift for capturing the uncapturable, and I always feel less lonely for it.
This one resonated in a major way: "There are some ways in which we do not want to be consoled, refuse to be consoled, get angry and indignant at other people’s seemingly empty, templated, ready-made phrases of consolation. There are some ways we hold onto grief, try to keep the wound fresh. Make the daily sacrifice of a broken spirit."
Thank you Alex, means a lot man. Especially the less lonely part, that's always been something important to me in writing, keeping me writing.
“Here, then, is the conundrum: the need to articulate an inarticulable thing. All while being careful not to confuse words with the thing itself.”
Tommy please don’t ever stop trying to articulate the inarticulable. First because your humility won’t allow you to confuse your words with the thing itself. Second, because you have a way of occupying a depth of the inarticulable thing that serves, and connects. So to not put it into words and express it outward deprives the world (and little ole me) of the opportunity to deepen our connection in life. And connection is where the divine exists. Lives.
Your words foster connection.
Last - I’m so grateful for your vulnerability. Sharing about your grief and the depth of your grief is, paradoxically, life giving. ❤️
Thank you James. Someone wise once said vulnerability is the heart of leadership, I think.
I love all of this and I don’t think it is at all depressing. Loss comes to everyone; I just hope I avoid the most horrible forms (like violent death, deliberate or accidental).
It is very wearisome to keep up the fiction that we will be happy all the time and we will always get “better” - in the narrow material sense - if afflicted in body or spirit or both. And yet it’s hard because I feel that I’ve lost the language to talk about loss meaningfully and so have the people around me.
All your descriptions were powerful but this is the one that I probably relate to the most right now:
“Grief makes you feel alive, unbearably human and aware of the stakes, in a way that seems significant. There was a certain blindness you had before that you can no longer return to. A certain loss of the capacity to delude yourself. This has something to do with wisdom.”
I would only add that it’s not only experiences of death that create this feeling. It’s experiences of love too: being married to my husband, giving birth to and raising my children, experiencing all the good relationships in my life. Because all those things mean I’m deeply involved. They are both strength and vulnerability of the most unavoidable sort.
Thank you Síochána. For reading & your beautiful words here.
In echoing the comments that have been made so far, this essay is the closest I've found to what the internal and external world feels like, yet I know there is so much left to add as each moment of grief passes. I have come to realize, for myself anyway, that grief does not come in "stages" or cycles; it seems to linger, subside a bit, and resurface. "Despite my efforts, what is left here is a grief-shaped hole. A small but infinite space where no words can live. Where language goes dumb and mute."...yes...exactly that.
Thank you for reading & the beautiful reflection here. Linger, subside a bit, and resurface feels exactly right.
Thank you for this.
Beautifully written Tommy. Your notes struck many chords of past grief, as a reminder that those tender "bruises" remain and hold influence, even under the bandages of time and space.
Also, I read today that "there are more psalms of lament than any other type" and I thought that was worth mentioning here.
Thank you Erin (: for reading & such a beautiful comment here. It felt kinda depressing and heavy after sharing but then had a friend go through something tragic and was reminded that it's important to talk about these things.
That's a really interesting point on the psalms. Similarly, in the Gospels, Jesus' most common emotion was sorrow.
The physical similes you shared resonate most strongly with me from experiences of secondhand pain - I can still remember the crushing soreness in my chest that followed me all day after hearing about a friend's parents' unexpected divorce, or the sudden death of a mother with two sons, a husband, and a brain tumor...
When grief is yours, it seems inescapable, like you can't climb out of the pit. When it belongs to someone else, you'd give anything to be able to climb in with them, to hold them up from inside. Firsthand grief is obliterating, and secondhand grief is so, painfully... helpless.
Thank God our God found a way to climb into our pit, and hold us up from the inside.
A beautiful confession. Like you, I have tried to capture the experience and nature of grief through words and reflection. Although none of us can capture it, we can share it like you have so truly and deeply, that we’re reminded we are not alone. And if grief can be redeemed, it’s through learning about ourselves and uniting people in the experience of life.
I wonder, is confession synonymous with surrender in this context?
That and learning to let go has been my sparring partner…
Thank you for this. I lost a son to cancer. He was only 5 yrs. old. And now years later im still dealing with that grief. Also another kind of grief that leaves me physically aching. Your words are needed. Thank you!
Ah, number 9. hello old friend.
I haven't read your work in a while, so...if I missed some significant loss...sending love. And extending an offer to talk, if you ever wanted. Also, as a death doula who is currently doing a looooottt of grief work...I absolutely love your metaphors and the ways you describe grief. I might steal some of these for my clients.
I don't think words are enough to describe it. The feeling of being understood and that, no, you are not alone. Of course, not all stories are the same but they all come down to one main root. so deep within us. It is always difficult to express and find words With which to describe . Thank you for being so well able to formulate this post. I will most likely come back to read it again and again.
The way you describe grief as something that lives in the body makes so much sense. So many people try to think their way out of it when it is clearly happening in the gut, the lungs, the jaw, the nervous system. I see this tension often between analyzing pain and actually letting it move through. The line about needing witnesses feels true, especially when loss can make someone feel cut off from everyone around them.