Grief is a glimpse into darkness

Grief is a shadowed experience, but it’s not our home

It is a wily weather morning, with my backyard wind chimes pealing rapidly as the 65-mile-per-hour wind gusts pummel each of the five percussive pipes. Tree branches, bare in their Winter absence of buds or leaves, are responding to the gusts precursing the arrival of another anticipated snowfall over the next two days. At 6:30 AM it is still quite dark.

But regardless of weather and regardless of lacking light, a pet parent (I still struggle with that phrase, but it does sound better than “owner”) has a responsibility, so I retrieve my Shi-Tzu/Maltese puppy Otis’s excitedly panting body from his overnight sleep enclosure, and march him into the elements.

He surges boldly ahead, his nose in the air, his ear peaked to listen, their silky strands fluttering in the breeze. Locating his favorite pit stop location, he rapidly takes care of his morning business, scans his limited horizon, and bounds toward the darkness.

He glimpses the darkness for only a few seconds, satisfying his momentary curiosity, and then executes an about-face maneuver to the door, his two-inch stubby legs propelling him to a known place of comfort and security: the home he shares with me.

As I ponder what I have just observed, I realize it’s not unlike my own journey with grief after significant loss. There are some days in this experience that are, emotionally, “big weather days.” My awareness is peaked, my sensitivity is enhanced, my inner world is stirring with angst. I feel surrounded in shadow, but I do what I need to do, trot forward a little to acknowledge the ebony hue that grief suffuses. And then I stop.

I stop because I have a choice to make. I can pause, taking in the mottled uncertainty of the moment; I may even feel drawn to step in the shadows just a little deeper, attempting to lose myself in the overwhelm, wondering if feeling my pain even more deeply will make me feel, paradoxically, better.

Having spent more than my fair share of time in grief’s abyss, I can choose to over-grieve in that moment, or I can choose a return to my known place of Security. Do I linger in the pain, or do I stretch forward?

By this point in my momentary revelry, Otis is at my feet, expectantly waiting for me to open the door. Sitting on his haunches, looking at me with knowing trust, I turn to the door, twist the knob and we leave the morning shadows behind.