This is absolutely the best description of grief. From someone who has experienced the loss of someone so dear to them., eight years ago. It never goes away Thank you
I agree with Susan K. This is the very best description of grief that I have ever read. Grief is different for everyone and grief is different from day to day from feeling blessed and laughing at the good fortune of having that person in your life to absolute buckled over sadness and despair. A friend called me after losing his father. He wanted to know what he had sent me when I unexpectedly lost my father so many years prior - a fruit basket he asked? He called to apologize. He said he had just joined a club of which he did not want to become a member. He apologized that he was not more empathetic, he said he had no idea of what I was going through. That phone call helped me immensely. I was the first one of my contemporaries to lose a parent. I had so much support, but it bothered me that some people, who I considered the dearest of friends were not being who I needed them to be. I didn’t even know what I needed them to be - it just wasn’t who they were being at the time. That one phone call helped me understand that unless you have experienced grief you may have little appreciation for it. That one phone call helped me to have more understanding of others. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Exquisite in expression and emotion. And a familiar understanding that I've acquired an intimacy with over the years of loosing the beloved in my life, from those too young to have died and those while not young living their best life and still snatched away at a moments notice. We've come a long way from Elisabeth Kubler Ross's five steps - though I credit her with bringing the dialogue of grief into our social consciousness - and your beautifully written experience of grief illustrates just how far we have evolved into understanding the true meaning of grief.
Thank you for being a most extraordinary writer. You’ve brought me to tears at 10 am.....and here I want to stay for a good while, as I process my grief(s), and have a really good cry.
My head is spinning with all you wrote. I lost my Dad August of 2021, I had tears when you mentioned Gin, my Dad a non alcoholic as well, loved a great gin and tonic. I always loved to provide a fresh slice of lime to my Dads Gin and Tonic. He taught me the greats Tony Bennet,
Billy May, the big bands the list goes he had a beautiful singing voice , singing as he would clean the kitchen up after the dinner my Mom would make. We lost my big brother this March 5 2024
( my only sibling) to side effects from proton radiation he had years prior. Needless to say death sucks, the loss , the presence of having my Dad and brother. Forget the Holidays this year Christmas will be treated as just another day. The unbearable frustration of going to my brothers condo and moving his car and he is not there !at least at his condo I cry and cry in alone time.” I’m so sorry Joe this happened “ Life forever changed, life slipping away, as I slip in a fleeting existence myself now. Grounded by my wonderful Son, Mom, cat and friends.
Questioning it all, I have faith it will all be well someday in some reunion with all we have loved and lost. Thank You for your words, so beautifully expressed.
I lost my mother to a car accident. She died like an animal on the side of a two lane highway having been thrown out of the back windshield. I could not finish reading. I understood too well. I am sorry for our loss.
Elissa Altman: Yours is the most insightful essay I have ever experienced relative to the experience of grief from the loss ofma loved one.
I love the photo of your Dad‘s Naval aviator jacket!
How accurately you describe those you „could rely on,“ who were exactly the persons who were indifferent during your time of need.
I am really glad you have the love of your understanding wife.
What a truth you speak here:
„Grief scrambles your ability to think straight, to make sense of the words that people are speaking to you and you to them; it results in a kind of syntactic aphasia, as though the language of your birth is no longer familiar.“
Thank you, this was very helpful, I too lost someone unexpectedly. I cherish the 20 minutes I was able to be with him, rubbing his feet as they worked frantically at his chest, it was in the aftermath that the behavior of others twisted the path of my grief to the road of rage and I cannot forget nor forgive that. The comparison to waves is brilliant.
"For the most part, people just don’t want to hear about it, or talk about it. It’s like a virus: get too close to someone who has it, and you might get infected."
When my young son's cancer became terminal, we were warned by the paediatric oncology social worker that most of our friends would distance themselves after his death. We insisted she was wrong. She wasn't.
Thank you for writing this beautiful piece about loss and grief.
Thank you for this masterful description of the felt experience of grief.
I'm in my late sixtied and still working through the horrors of my brother's suicide in my teens, my beloved father in my forties and my husband in my sixties. There have been other deaths along the way but these are the seismic ones after which there was no returning to 'normal' life.
It took this long for me to be able to truly feel all the associated feelings and emotions, including rage at being abandoned. The ground felt like it was shaking under my feet for nine months after my father departed- he was the tie that connected me to homeland and family.
My husband's death necessitated a complete uprooting within months, back to the homeland I had left thirty years before.
What I did accept long ago was the lack of understanding on the part of others. When death is so dramatic they run away, terrified. I coped by shutting down and presenting a cheerful exterior to the world. It worked for a very long time but like all facades it eventually cracked.
With a lot of deep work and the skilled support of professionals I've been able to unwind and face the buried pain. Whenever it presents I am able to sit with it and allow it to complete and move on. It took returning to the place where it began to accomplish this. What a gift. 💗
Thank you for the space to say this. Thank you for your beautiful gift with expression. I wish you comfort and peace whenever the grief revisits ♥️
Thank you for laying out in profound precision the painful reality of the “waves” of grief. I’m nodding my head at each word and sentence which resonate so deeply. Grief is so powerful. It’s so all encompassing. Love and loss are so intertwined. If, as I choose to believe, there’s a big place above, your father is toasting you from up there with a big smile, his gin and tonic in hand, and jazz playing in the background.
This is a fantastic, heartfelt, brilliant piece of writing. It reminds me of losing my father, whom I worked with for over 35 years in our garden center business. Thank you for sharing this.
What a beautifully stated description of grief, and such a loving tribute to the relationship you had with your dad. It won't surprise you that in her final days, Kubler-Ross admitted that she was wrong about the stages being actual stages, but rather as experiences that can occur in any order. In general, psychology doesn't think in stages anymore, rather as complicated processes that may contain familiar repetitive patterns in any order they occur.
This is absolutely the best description of grief. From someone who has experienced the loss of someone so dear to them., eight years ago. It never goes away Thank you
Thank you -
I agree with Susan K. This is the very best description of grief that I have ever read. Grief is different for everyone and grief is different from day to day from feeling blessed and laughing at the good fortune of having that person in your life to absolute buckled over sadness and despair. A friend called me after losing his father. He wanted to know what he had sent me when I unexpectedly lost my father so many years prior - a fruit basket he asked? He called to apologize. He said he had just joined a club of which he did not want to become a member. He apologized that he was not more empathetic, he said he had no idea of what I was going through. That phone call helped me immensely. I was the first one of my contemporaries to lose a parent. I had so much support, but it bothered me that some people, who I considered the dearest of friends were not being who I needed them to be. I didn’t even know what I needed them to be - it just wasn’t who they were being at the time. That one phone call helped me understand that unless you have experienced grief you may have little appreciation for it. That one phone call helped me to have more understanding of others. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Sometimes, it's just one phonecall --
Exquisite in expression and emotion. And a familiar understanding that I've acquired an intimacy with over the years of loosing the beloved in my life, from those too young to have died and those while not young living their best life and still snatched away at a moments notice. We've come a long way from Elisabeth Kubler Ross's five steps - though I credit her with bringing the dialogue of grief into our social consciousness - and your beautifully written experience of grief illustrates just how far we have evolved into understanding the true meaning of grief.
thank you -
Thank you for being a most extraordinary writer. You’ve brought me to tears at 10 am.....and here I want to stay for a good while, as I process my grief(s), and have a really good cry.
Thank you - x
♥️♥️♥️
My head is spinning with all you wrote. I lost my Dad August of 2021, I had tears when you mentioned Gin, my Dad a non alcoholic as well, loved a great gin and tonic. I always loved to provide a fresh slice of lime to my Dads Gin and Tonic. He taught me the greats Tony Bennet,
Billy May, the big bands the list goes he had a beautiful singing voice , singing as he would clean the kitchen up after the dinner my Mom would make. We lost my big brother this March 5 2024
( my only sibling) to side effects from proton radiation he had years prior. Needless to say death sucks, the loss , the presence of having my Dad and brother. Forget the Holidays this year Christmas will be treated as just another day. The unbearable frustration of going to my brothers condo and moving his car and he is not there !at least at his condo I cry and cry in alone time.” I’m so sorry Joe this happened “ Life forever changed, life slipping away, as I slip in a fleeting existence myself now. Grounded by my wonderful Son, Mom, cat and friends.
Questioning it all, I have faith it will all be well someday in some reunion with all we have loved and lost. Thank You for your words, so beautifully expressed.
Susan
thank you -
I lost my mother to a car accident. She died like an animal on the side of a two lane highway having been thrown out of the back windshield. I could not finish reading. I understood too well. I am sorry for our loss.
I'm so sorry -
Elissa, this is a stunning, devastating piece of writing. You always inspire me to be a better writer. Thank you.
Thank you -
Ah, my heart! Feeling for yours. You’ve brought your daddy back to life over and over…..in that way he’ll never be gone. Simply lovely.
Elissa Altman: Yours is the most insightful essay I have ever experienced relative to the experience of grief from the loss ofma loved one.
I love the photo of your Dad‘s Naval aviator jacket!
How accurately you describe those you „could rely on,“ who were exactly the persons who were indifferent during your time of need.
I am really glad you have the love of your understanding wife.
What a truth you speak here:
„Grief scrambles your ability to think straight, to make sense of the words that people are speaking to you and you to them; it results in a kind of syntactic aphasia, as though the language of your birth is no longer familiar.“
Thank you, Armand -
Thank you, this was very helpful, I too lost someone unexpectedly. I cherish the 20 minutes I was able to be with him, rubbing his feet as they worked frantically at his chest, it was in the aftermath that the behavior of others twisted the path of my grief to the road of rage and I cannot forget nor forgive that. The comparison to waves is brilliant.
Just devastatingly gorgeous. Thank you for putting words to the indescribable waves of grief.
Thank you -
"For the most part, people just don’t want to hear about it, or talk about it. It’s like a virus: get too close to someone who has it, and you might get infected."
When my young son's cancer became terminal, we were warned by the paediatric oncology social worker that most of our friends would distance themselves after his death. We insisted she was wrong. She wasn't.
Thank you for writing this beautiful piece about loss and grief.
Thank you for this masterful description of the felt experience of grief.
I'm in my late sixtied and still working through the horrors of my brother's suicide in my teens, my beloved father in my forties and my husband in my sixties. There have been other deaths along the way but these are the seismic ones after which there was no returning to 'normal' life.
It took this long for me to be able to truly feel all the associated feelings and emotions, including rage at being abandoned. The ground felt like it was shaking under my feet for nine months after my father departed- he was the tie that connected me to homeland and family.
My husband's death necessitated a complete uprooting within months, back to the homeland I had left thirty years before.
What I did accept long ago was the lack of understanding on the part of others. When death is so dramatic they run away, terrified. I coped by shutting down and presenting a cheerful exterior to the world. It worked for a very long time but like all facades it eventually cracked.
With a lot of deep work and the skilled support of professionals I've been able to unwind and face the buried pain. Whenever it presents I am able to sit with it and allow it to complete and move on. It took returning to the place where it began to accomplish this. What a gift. 💗
Thank you for the space to say this. Thank you for your beautiful gift with expression. I wish you comfort and peace whenever the grief revisits ♥️
And you—thank you for writing 🙏🏻
Thank you for laying out in profound precision the painful reality of the “waves” of grief. I’m nodding my head at each word and sentence which resonate so deeply. Grief is so powerful. It’s so all encompassing. Love and loss are so intertwined. If, as I choose to believe, there’s a big place above, your father is toasting you from up there with a big smile, his gin and tonic in hand, and jazz playing in the background.
This is a fantastic, heartfelt, brilliant piece of writing. It reminds me of losing my father, whom I worked with for over 35 years in our garden center business. Thank you for sharing this.
What a beautifully stated description of grief, and such a loving tribute to the relationship you had with your dad. It won't surprise you that in her final days, Kubler-Ross admitted that she was wrong about the stages being actual stages, but rather as experiences that can occur in any order. In general, psychology doesn't think in stages anymore, rather as complicated processes that may contain familiar repetitive patterns in any order they occur.