“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Queen Elizabeth II
“The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact, or to pretend that it is not so, is to put on emotional blinkers which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitably occur in our own lives and unprepared to help others cope with losses in theirs.”
Dr Colin Murray Parkes
The feeling of grief frightens me. It is raw and pure and sharp and smooth. It is both overwhelming and underwhelming. It is often too much, it is often not enough. It is so inexplicably painful, and yet the precious memories that it softly ushers in are so warm and comforting, and so full of love. It is paradoxical that the two can exist together. The warm memories of the ones we love, being sheltered and wrapped in a blanket of pain and hurt. But one can not exist without the other.
I never have the right words to express how grief feels, I struggle to understand it, and I’m not meant to, but I am desperate to. My unceasing need to understand, because to understand, for me, is to control. To shut down. To ignore. To bottle up. To push things so far down that I don’t have to deal with them. I have been trying to do that with grief for as long as I can remember.
And I have been doing it for so long that my grief is now monstrous and I am too frightened to let it out. It paces and snarls and rattles the bars of the cage I have kept it in. Clawing, roaring to be set free. I have been feeding it over the years, letting it grow but always, always keeping it in the dark, under lock and key.
I feel like it has outgrown its cage.
My grief is the penalty I must pay for having loved so deeply, and I think sometimes, the fear of the grief to come inhibits my ability to love deeply and so completely now. I do not wish to get close to any soul because I cannot bear the pain of losing them. I can’t bear to keep feeding the grief, to see it pushed, helpless against the bars of that cage. But what is life without endless, unconditional love? To always feel like you’re reaching for something you’re always only denying yourself out of fear.
To deny myself love for fear of feeling grief feels… uncomfortable. It is so against our nature to not yearn for connection, for love, and I envy those who give and receive it with reckless abandon. Not worrying about the price they’ll pay for it later.
And perhaps maybe that’s the lesson here. Perhaps it isn’t about always needing to reach out endlessly for love and connection but always fearing the consequences of doing so. Perhaps, it’s about welcoming grief with warm, open arms. Perhaps it is setting it free.
Grief is the price we pay for love, but it is a price we pay gladly. It is a price I must not be afraid to pay. For grief to be so unbearably painful, when we can’t catch our breath because it has consumed us so fully, when we feel as if we are drowning in it, dragged down with no hope of reaching the surface again. When it feels like we are caught in its vice-like grip, or being tossed about in its rolling, roiling waves we are reminded that it is only possible to feel the immense depth and power of grief because of the immense depth and power of love.
And I would rather live with love and grief than live without love at all.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return
Moulin Rouge
It depends on how deep you wanna go in this human experience. At first we jump in not knowing there is the opposite side. Lessons of cause and effect and polarity in this human experience. But no matter how deep you decide and feel to go. There is an awareness that stays unmoved. Watching, supporting, nurturing.
Beautiful writing.
I say Love deeply without losing the Center. Your Divine Center.
Stay gracious along pain, disrepute, glory and neutrality.
🙏