Tag Archives: grief

When I Lose Someone

I was thinking about someone dear that passed away recently. I found myself gravitating to his Facebook page, and there were many comments about how we have “lost” him. Later, I was looking at gifts for someone, and a particular item could be given as a gift of remembrance of someone special who had passed away. The reviews were typically, “When we lost our brother…,” and “When I lost my husband…,” or “My neighbor lost her dog last week…,” which really could have been confusing in another context about what really happened.

Saying “I lost ___________,” when referring to someone who died always seemed peculiar to me, though I totally get how it’s more comfortable than saying “died” or “dead.” It just seems less final than the latter. Even when we are afraid someone might perish in the future, we sometimes say, “If I lose you…,” or “The thought of losing you….” “Lost” feels less permanent, a little less real, and lands a bit softer, too.

For me “lost” always sounded in my brain like, “I disappeared my grandmother,” like an action item carried out by me, vs. descriptive about the person who is now gone and where they might have last been seen or been placed. It’s a hard one for me to say because that’s what I hear when I say it, and I know I didn’t actually misplace someone, or have anything to do with where they went. But of course I use the phrase out of respect for others’ ears and hearts.

Personally, I take little solace in someone going to Heaven and still being labeled as “lost.” If there is really a literal place that is Heaven, then they most certainly are not lost, and are definitely, literally in a better place. And if there is no literal Heaven, they’re just gone, not lost. Hopefully they are not wandering around looking for a gas station where they can ask for directions or trying to get better service to view an online map. I picture a man walking in circles, refusing to ask for directions, and ending up back on Earth in another dimension. (Welcome to my brain.)

I have to agree that when someone we love dies, it sure does feel like a loss, a void, having something ripped away without our consent. I think if I were to say it exactly how it feels for me, it would be more like, “I feel lost without ___________.” The loss is definitely more on my end rather than the person or pet who died having gone somewhere where we now can’t find them, or forgot where we last left them.

When someone dies and I say that I lost them, it sounds like there is hope that I will find them again, recover the relationship somehow at some point. Some philosophies say that I might, but even with that I am not guaranteed. What this all means to me, really-really, is that I am in fact the one who feels lost. I am the one who is now wandering through the valley of grief and uncertainty, juggling life between the facts, the must-do’s of day to day life, and calling it whatever it needs to be called in order to tolerate it and accept the void of a missing piece never to be returned to where I think it belongs, to where I want them the most.

Five Seconds to Grief

Grief is a fickle monster.
I am really embarrassed about some of the terrible comments I’ve read about this young man, Stevante Clark, who is wrapped and wound in his grief. To be clear, I’m not embarrassed BY them, I’m embarrassed FOR them – the cold-hearted hypocrites who made/are making them.  I am embarrassed FOR the ignorant, unenlightened, satan-hearted comments about his brother’s death.  #StephonClark  I am embarrassed much in the same way as if you’d walked outside with your bare butt hanging out of your skirt because you accidentally tucked it in your panties on the way out of the restroom, unaware. People are trying to tell you that your butt is hanging out, but you don’t want to listen to anyone trying to save you from yourself. I see you showing your butt, and I’m trying to tell you about it, but you’re just going to keep talking and walking around showing your butt. The HUGE difference here, however, is that your callousness, your ill-informed remarks, your purposeful disregard, your hate, and your complete unwillingness to even consider that someone’s experience of life may be completely different in every way than yours, contributes to this very broken system that causes senseless deaths. 
Yes, grief is fickle, underestimated, and delivers surprises for you when you least expect it. It manifests differently for everyone (EVERYONE) and is completely unpredictable.  Watching this young man, all I keep thinking about is how he doesn’t even get to grieve in his own space like most of us do; how he doesn’t get to keep his grief to himself or share it at times of his choosing, on his terms. You see, people are depending on his grief. Yes, DEPENDING. He and his family are all on display right now, and mainly because (when you get down to brass tacks) our society just can’t stop showing its collective butt. We can’t get it together enough to realize we are ONE, whether we like it or not. We have a planet to share, cities and neighborhoods. We forgot long ago that what hurts one of us hurts us ALL. We forgot that someone made up a terrible game long ago that said we are different, and then made some of us far less valuable than others. We FORGOT for so long that we started to believe in the power of power, and power of the game, instead of the power of community and truth. And then sadly, we made it a game that no one can win.  This young man, Stevante Clark, is grieving; and his grief is no less important or greater than another person’s.  The difference is that his is all out front for the whole world to witness and, unfortunately, JUDGE. So much talk is about how he should be, what he should do, what he shouldn’t say, etc.… AS IF ANY OF US HAVE A SINGLE TINY CRUMB OF A CLUE! Well, the clear majority of us do not.  He and his family are unfortunately in a very elite club, and those other members are really the only ones that have an idea at all. Even still, his grief, anyone’s grief, is wholly personal.
The comments I have been reading are plain disgusting. They are purposely mean, with full intent to cause MORE harm. Yet, those of you making them seem to think you have a right and that you are a step or more above Stephon Clark and his family.  Your ugly words prove otherwise.
I’m going to keep saying these things:  Just because someone’s experience of life isn’t the same as your experience, doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.  We should work harder to understand that.  Your experience of life IS NOT THEE experience of life! Because you can’t understand or even imagine someone else’s experience does not make yours the “right” one, or the only one that’s real or correct.  If you want to expand your mind, take a trip outside of your own shoes once in a while. Also this:  When I uplift even one to equal standing, I lose nothing and gain it all — not only for myself but for all of us. Likewise, the converse is true. Remember that one can and will cause a collective. It is impossible to give more than I have, and completely possible to gain more than I dreamed when I pursue love-multiplied as my only agenda.
I remain completely baffled by those that are completely resistant to change in our policing. I am unable to discern if those of you are resistant because you can’t understand or haven’t stopped to realize that improved policing is improved for us ALL, or if it is just that you are so calloused and simply couldn’t care less if our system affects our black and other marginalized communities quite differently. I am in amazement at the lengths to which people will go to hoist themselves up at the expense of another.
I have been “unfriended” on a few social networking sites in the past few days. I am sure that some of my comments have felt inflammatory, and honestly, on occasion, some of them were meant to be. I am hurting for MY community, which includes everyone.  I am hurting for our injured communities.  I am hurting for my kids and my grandchildren who are living in a world that says and shows that their lives are less valuable than even my own.  HOW CAN THAT BE? I am no different than ANY mother, and that which hurts my children is no friend of mine.  I am happy that some folks go away and out of my life, be it on social media, or any other venue, if they cannot take the idea that the world my loves live in should be as important, as safe, and be filled equally with the same advantages as theirs. I won’t be in the company of or surrounded by those who would make comments about one of my children like the ones that I have been reading about Stephon and Stevante.  And I know they would.  I am content with “losing” so-called friends who would have horrible things to say about me as a parent and about my personhood should a terrible thing happen to one of my kids.  Those “friends” do not leave a hole in my heart; they unplugged an infection and left a space for something better, and room for healing.
I have had anonymous messages sent, one of which is a recording.  My mind is blown at the lengths to which people will go to cowardly let me know how they feel, rather than engaging in a conversation. They are so afraid of me, I think, because they believe I pose a threat to their entitled way of life.  If they could only think past their noses, they would realize that I don’t.  I’m actually proposing a world we can all live in equally, and that would raise them up also – not lose something.
Stevante’s grief is palpable.  His community’s grief is palpable, and thick with hundreds of years of history of grief, brought about in many ways, that some of you won’t even bother to acknowledge. And yet, you believe that somehow you have the right to tell them how they should wear their grief.  You haven’t that right.  You certainly haven’t earned it.
Twenty shots fired in five seconds. Dead.

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Say his name:  STEPHON CLARK!
#SayHisName #StephonClark #NotOneMoreTime #EndPoliceBrutality #TonePolicing #JusticeForZoe #BlackLivesMatter #EndStateSanctionedMurder

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