My beloved dog, who has been my best friend and favorite person for the last twelve years, suddenly passed away three weeks ago. My whole family is devastated, and I am especially bereft. He was our family dog, but mostly he was my dog. For the last eight years I’ve either worked from home or been home with my kids, and he was my constant companion. Since he died, I’ve found myself completely unable to adequately describe both the intensity of our bond and the magnitude of my current suffering.
Last week I ran into one of my yoga teachers and in greeting, he asked me how I was. I made an unhappy face and said, “ehhhh.” A look of confused concern came over his face and he asked, “Why? What’s going on?” and I replied, “My dog died.” He said, “I know, but I didn’t think you’d still be…” and after an awkward pause he said with a smile, “Do you need a puppy?” I allowed him to change the subject because I didn’t have the emotional energy in that moment to defend my grief.
Grief, like any other feeling, does not expire. But I can already feel the mental time limit being imposed, not just by others but by me. Like, I need to get back to real life and being functional already. Of course this is false, and I understand the truth that my grief will hang around as long as it needs to—if I allow it. I know that there’s no magic time limit when it will suddenly dissolve and I’ll be “normal” again. And yet, I feel this subtle pressure to be over it, to recover, to move on.
The implicit expectation that we get over our pain and loss quickly, and the idea that doing so is a sign of strength, is completely contradictory to our humanity. It’s rooted in the same fear of feelings and vulnerability that pervades our society. We could ruminate forever on where exactly these ideas and fears come from, why our culture is the way it is, but the reality is that this is the world we live in and we need to figure out how to be humans in this context.
I often wish the world were different, more feeling, more gentle, but I think the solution to this problem actually lies in me relating to myself and my feelings differently. The shift towards a more sensitive, feeling, compassionate world is a grassroots movement. It starts with each of us being willing to feel our feelings as honestly as we can, and to be open about our feelings with the people around us.
If I shift, you’ll shift—whether you want to or not, whether you realize it or not. We’re all continuously affecting each other. If I can be honest about who I am and how I feel, you may feel more free to show up authentically as, and for, yourself. This is how we inspire and support each other. This is love, and it will ripple through all of humanity.
So, out of love for myself, for you, for all of us, I’m committed to feeling my grief as long as it’s here. And telling you about it, because pretending I’m over it when I’m actually not does us all a disservice.
A beautiful friend of mine recently wrote to me, “The world asks us to move on but the truth is the grief transforms us, it never really leaves us.” I think this is true for most hard things—if we allow it to be true. And sometimes that transformation takes a lot of time, because there’s no expiration date on our feelings. Even if the experiences related to them are long past, the feelings stay fresh until we’ve felt our way through them, until we are transformed.
