When we first moved into our current house twenty-something years ago, we had these lovely neighbours to our right that became like an extra set of grandparents. Bob-Bob would walk their lovely lumbering dog Rufus past our house each afternoon…
… and stop for our kids, usually playing in the front yard, to stop and make a fuss of Rufus. June had been a child nurse in her youth and their own grandchildren lived a plane ride away so she loved being a part of our kids’ lives, watching sleeping babies while I dashed off to collect older ones from school, giving singing/elocution lessons to our oldest and sharing lots of cups of tea. She actually brought us over a chocolate cake within days of moving in. True!
After a number of years, they needed to move up north for Bob’s work. The busyness of the shift eclipsed the sadness of it till they’d gone, but for weeks when I drove round the corner past their house my heart ached and I frequently was close to tears.
It dawned on me with a blast of clarity in one moment – that I was grieving them!
They hadn’t died!
They had only shifted away!
But this was the first time I ever realised you can grieve something other than a death. It felt strange; foreign; to say I grieved
them moving away. But I guess the point
of grief is loss. Or possibly even –
change.
Loss comes in many shapes and forms. And I suspect that many of us have gnawing nameless aches inside of us for these unnamed losses.
Very often I think, the tangible losses are accompanied by intangible losses.
The loss of a child is tangible. The losses of being that child’s parent and all the activities and responsibilities are intangible.
The loss of a husband is tangible. The loss of being a wife is intangible.
The loss of a job is tangible. The loss of connected identity is intangible.
The loss of a relationship is tangible. The loss of the joy of shared memories is intangible.
There are so many intangible griefs. They are probably all precipitated by a specific and difficult event but I think it is helpful to look beyond the major event, and name the other griefs.
Loss of joy.
Loss of trust.
Loss of hope.
Loss of security.
Loss of closeness.
Loss of memories.
Loss of innocence.
Loss of exclusivity.
Loss of future as assumed or hoped or planned. If you’re familiar with that gnawing feeling, try and locate it. Name it. Grieve it. Don’t let yourself stay bogged in nameless sludge. Name it, step forward. The way will get easier.