Grief is not the usual fare for this blog, but it is important, and I don’t want to run from it. We hide from death all the time, and it doesn’t help us deal with it.  I sat down last night to write about the loss of self, the mourning I sometimes feel for the person I was, and what came out was something else, a discussion of grief that prompted some wrenching and beautiful messages on my Facebook page. I write about grief sometimes – my hospice work, my research on grieving for animals for my “Going Home” book. I didn’t quite realize until I read these powerful messages – people losing their mothers, their children, their dogs and cats – that I have not ever quite owned up to my own reasons for processing grief, for coming to terms with mortality and loss. I should.

I lost two children, and I have never figured out how to grieve for them.  No one has ever said a word to me that made sense of it, or made me accept it. Their loss altered my life, my marriage, introduced rage and confusion and depression into my life. Fear, too. They were both so young and it was curious – no one has ever mentioned them to me either, and I have never talked about them or written about them. I’m sure one has something to do with the other.

I closed off a lot of feeling, bottled it up. Men do that, life does that. As I saw in my hospice work, nobody wants to talk about grief or death. Nobody except hospice social workers, saints all.

I doubt I will ever talk about my children or write about them, I’m not sure there is a point to it. And to be honest, I just can’t.  I have learned a lot of things about grief in my life, and in my hospice work. One thing is this: nothing makes us more self-centered or isolated than grieving. It just pulls one right inside the soul.  No one can ever convince me that losing a child makes any sense in any rational way. Some say it is God’s work, but I don’t think my God, the God I would wish to hang around with,  is in the business of killing children.  Life and death are twins, close and entwined, one is always nearby the other. If I love life, I accept death, it is a part of it. There is no place to hide from either. Pity and sympathy are not comforting to me, they are enabling. Grief is personal, a hike up a long hill. I’m not sure anyone else can really come.

I have come to understand that everyone has experienced or will experience grief or is experiencing grief As death is universal, so is loss. This is the narcissistic part, forgetting that everyone has suffered as much or more as I have. Everyone reading this has lost a parent, friend, child, beloved pet, sibling or relative. We are not alone in grief, any more than we are alone in fear. There is, of course, nothing anyone can say to me about the loss of my children, nor should they feel any pressure to comfort me. And what could anyone say, really? It isn’t their job. Grieving is part of the work of life, our tasks as human beings and authentic people. We are called upon to reason with it, make sense of it for ourselves. I let go of the idea that I could rationalize the death of my children. Some things are just beyond that, at least for me.  remember going on book tour for “Going Home” and speaking to an auditorium of more than 200 people – I think it was Columbus, Ohio – and people stood up one after the other and burst into tears recalling the loss of a dog or a cat.

I interrupted one person who was recounting the death of her Lab in horrific detail, lamenting that no one understood the pain of her loss. “Do you know?,” I wondered, “that every single person in this room has lost  a dog or a cat. Or a person?” She did not, she was hurting too much, deep in the process of grieving, which takes all of the energy in the world to survive. She looked around at all of the nodding heads, blinked and sat down. She came up to me in the signing line, and thanked me. “It never occurred to me,” she said, “but I feel better.”

I told her I thought of death as a stream, and one way or another, we would all swim in that stream. We can argue and disagree all we want, but that is one place we will all get to.  It is comforting to me to understand that my loss is part of the experience of being a human being, rich and glorious in its own way.

Grief is an important part of our connection as human beings. And that is profoundly healing for me.  I mark the birthday’s of my children still, and often – always – wonder what they might have been like, what they might be doing, what spouses they might find, what children they might have had. If grief is a natural part of life, it is also an interruption of life.  There is a hole in my heart that will never fill up.  Grief is always personal, individual, different. No two people grieve alike. Losing a child is not the same as losing a parent. Losing a spouse is not the same as losing a dog. Grieving doesn’t always make those distinctions.

In my explorations of grief, I feel the strongest connection to those people who acknowledge their loss and pain, and who move on with their lives when they are ready. The call to life is always stirring, and not just in my donkey Simon. It is glory itself coming from any human being struggling to climb out of the well of grief. Out of my loss, gain. Out of my pain, empathy. Out of my sorrow, joy. Perhaps there is a bit of each of my children in every photo I take.  Grieving is a community, in many ways, we recognize one another when we see each other. There is nothing much to say, only a lot to feel.

I thank the brave and sensitive souls who posted their messages on my Facebook page. Brothers and sisters in life.  The messages are an affirmation of life, not grief. It is also good to be reminded that social media is not only for “likes” and fleeting chatter. There are real messages out there, real human connections.