Tending to the garden of grief

Is there a way to do grief?

Photo by Rafael Rodrigues.

Are you walking into the New Year with grief, too?

And it’s not just individual grief, there’s collective grief as well. I feel all of it inside of my heart—even my bones—as if an IV is infusing me. The relief I felt when my therapist texted to say she had to reschedule because she was sick—I wasn’t ready to tend to my grief either.

While some have the privilege of compartmentalizing individual and collective grief—and I certainly think this is healthy to a degree—how does one do so without negating others? I ask this honestly, as my own contributing factors of grief have only existed in conjunction with collective grief. I remember at the small age of only three or four learning about the atrocities of North Korea, and at that moment, I vowed to myself that I’d be the one to save them. It saddens me now to think that at such a young age, I was taking it upon myself to save people; however, at the same time, I appreciate that I was raised to be globally minded. To not turn a blind eye away from the sufferings of others.

In a similar vein, it was the grief and hell hole I found myself in after my miscarriage that highlighted to me just how important reproductive rights are for women. I found myself drowning in the deep ocean, but when I looked up at the cliff, there was my daughter holding on for dear life. At that moment, I wished my unborn child well as they succumbed to the sea so that I could climb the jagged cliffs and lift my daughter back up onto the grassy field. I would never again allow my grief, a stranger’s grief, or our reproductive grief, to bring other children down. Like glass, a mother’s heart shatters in every direction, so we use our hands to cup water for our children, or our very breasts to feed them.

Individual grief exists as collective grief, intertwining like the willow trees.

For aren’t we all one? Aren’t we all somehow connected? Aren’t we all part of the dust of the earth that feeds the flowers and the bees, the potatoes and the rice, and eventually, our own?

In Buddhism, it’s called interconnectedness. Thich Nhat Hanh writes in How to Fight,

Interbeing is the understanding that nothing exists separately from anything else. We are all interconnected. By taking care of another person, you take care of yourself. By taking care of yourself, you take care of the other person. Happiness and safety are not individual matters. If you suffer, I suffer. If you are not safe, I am not safe. There is no way for me to be truly happy if you are suffering. If you can smile, I can smile too. The understanding of interbeing is very important. It helps us to remove the illusion of loneliness, and transform the anger that comes from the feeling of separation.

I see similar ways of thinking within Indigenous teachings. In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, The Serviceberry, she turns to the Saskatoon berries for advice, recognizing they are just as much a part of her as she is a part of them. Still, I see people shift the blame toward other things or other people, for example, capitalism or the system. But as Kimmerer writes,

There’s merit in that, given the complex layered interactions, but no excuse. Let’s remember that the “System” is led by individuals, by a relatively small number of people, who have names, with more money than God and certainly less compassion. They sit in boardrooms deciding to exploit fossil fuels for short-term gain while the world burns. They know the science, they know the consequences, but they proceed with ecocidal business as usual and do it anyway.

And lately, we’ve been quite literally sitting and watching the world burn, only this time it feels closer to home, because it is our homes. We watch a criminal’s inauguration and we wonder how things are supposed to improve when it’s a criminal who has convinced so many to vote for him. Is this not history repeating itself?

I like how Kimmerer says “with more money than God,” because it challenges the idea of God having the final decision, being the ultimate being or that we can “leave it all up to God.” I’m not making a point about who is or isn’t in control, nor am I saying that we should try and control everything. Instead, I find fault when people leave too much up to fate with the promise of “heaven to come” because it erases what has already been given to us: The Garden of Eden. Was heaven not already created here on Earth? And are we not the ones destroying it?

We do have the ability to create change, and by not creating change and being active citizens, are we not creating hell on Earth? Don’t we see, things are already burning.

Then there’s our own personal grief, which again, I cannot detangle from the world's grief. My wants and desires, while valid, are also exploitative to others, making me a very part of the system. The clothes we wear: sweatshops; the food we eat: poorly paid immigrants; the trees we tear down for bigger houses; the hostage exchange between Hamas and Israel, not without the fact that Israel murdered thousands of Palestinians—a number that is so high it’s greater than the population of the town I live in and it’s surrounding areas.

We are all interconnected.

So what do we do with all of this grief inside of us?

Contemporary research suggests grief has a destination, and the destination is its end. You start at the beginning, in which you’re in denial. Then you become angry, which leads you to bargaining your way out of grief. When that doesn’t work, depression hits. Once all four of these stages have been encountered, finally, finally, you reach acceptance.

And then what? You magically move on?

I don’t believe this is how grief works, and there’s research showing that grief is cyclical rather than linear—something we revisit, time and time again. While it may be frightening to realize that grief is ongoing—there is no end—research does also show that people are able to “make sense” or “make meaning” of their grief and move forward. Move forward, not stop it.

Perhaps this is what Buddhism means when it talks about impermanence. There is no finish to things, and to attach to this idea of finality is only to cause more suffering. Grief will continue to present itself in waves. Perhaps these waves are what can motivate us to continue making active change, too. Perhaps these waves are what can continue to remind us of our interconnectedness. Perhaps these waves are where we can find and bring peace.

¤¤¤

Grief is a garden.

There is no quick fix or end to growing flowers.

Some days you need sun, other days you need rain.

Some days you need to uproot the plant and plant it elsewhere, change out the soil, add nutrients.

Other days you do nothing, but let it grow.

Then you prune.

Let it grow.

Water.

Let it grow.

Then it dies, so you cut it back.

Watch the leaves fall like tiny rainbows. You rake.

The snow buries what once was there as you wrap your housecoat around you tighter.

In the spring, new buds form, but you close your blinds because you aren’t ready to come out yet.

Some buds thrive.

Others die.

You water.

You prune.

You watch the buds open from green to pink and yellow.

You pick one and put it in a vase of water where it continues to bloom, this time fiery orange.

Little bits of pollen residue stain your table yellow.

You dry the wilted flower until you crush it up, return its dust to the garden, water more.

The sun warms your bare shoulders, now pink like a new babe, yet creased and wrinkled from time.

The soil against your feet feels dewy, cool, smooth, gritty—tapioca pudding.

My friend and I watered the same plant. Hers grew. Mine died.

A hummingbird graced my shoulder.