TAKE TIME TO GRIEVE
SOMEDAY, YOU’RE GONNA LOOK BACK ON THIS MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE AS SUCH A SWEET TIME OF GRIEVING. YOU’LL SEE THAT YOU WERE IN MOURNING AND YOUR HEART WAS BROKEN, BUT YOUR LIFE WAS CHANGING... — ELIZABETH GILBERT
This week, we shall talk about the biggest truth of life — Death. “It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know,” says Lemony Snicket, Horseradish.
Death is so momentous that even in Tarot, there is a card representing Death. In the Rider Waite Deck, the Death card depicts a skeleton dressed in black sheathing, riding a white horse. It holds a black flag with a white, five-petal rose. A royal figure appears to be dead on the ground, while a young woman, child, and bishop seem to be pleading with the skeletal figure to spare them. Generally when this card appears in a reading, Tarot Readers euphemistically say, “Death doesn’t mean literal death, it’s symbolic, relax.”
However, no matter how we soft-pedal it, death represents an ending. No doubt death doesn’t have to be the literal end to someone’s life, but it certainly brings about an end to a phase of life, be it in terms of a relationship, a career, or an important aspect of life. It’s an ending that cannot be dismissed, and so, the imminent grief cannot and should not be avoided. Though death will eventually lead to rebirth and the void will be filled, for now, you must sit with the void, grieve the loss and accept it. Generally, the tendency is to rush through the pain and get over it. This is an unproductive exercise because grief will haunt you until you face it, until you finally sit down, weep and wail and hurt. Then and only then are you free to move on past the loss and begin again.
My dear readers, I wish that you realise that death invites us to wait, to sit awhile in the moment, in that place, let it wash over and through us because denying it is as useless as thinking we can outrun it. So it’s ok to sit and wail and mourn awhile.