“Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”
It is said that every loss is a form of death. In every instance, where there once was something; an idea, experience or person that brought your life meaning and now it no longer exists. Inevitably, coping with loss always involves the same dynamics. Whether you are dealing with the loss of a friendship, job, pet or loved one, we are forced to reconcile with the fact that we will never experience something or someone again. But where there is a loss, I believe there is also the opportunity to rebuild and perhaps even strengthen what once was.
When you’re dealing with cancer or a significant loss in any form, I believe you lose bits and parts of yourself over and over. With cancer, there is the loss of your appearance, the physical sense of who you once were is stripped away little by little, or at times seemingly all at once.
It starts with the three words you have dreaded hearing your entire life, “You have cancer,” and it doesn’t stop. It’s a slow cascade of loss starting with the loss of your current plans, followed by your hair, and for many the ability to work, become a parent, sleep comfortably or move without pain.
But as bits and parts of you get stripped away, I believe there is the opportunity to rebuild what once was into something stronger; a version 2.0 of yourself. Just as scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue in a biological sense, I believe so too is the potential for your body and your psyche to transform for the better during these times.
It starts with the realization that you are strong, and you can handle way more than you ever have imagined. Things will get better. Although, it doesn’t feel like it. It’s not easy, but it gets easier.
Still, sudden loss in any form has a way of ripping you open, making you emotionally raw. Even when you have been carrying on successfully, many years later, a thought or a memory has a way of bringing you to your knees. It’s been 17 years since I lost my loved one to suicide, yet a memory of us has the ability to still make me weep nearly two decades later.
I believe a lot of this pain stems from the realization that we will never see our loved one again in this life, no matter what we do. The word “never” itself is a difficult concept to bear. “Never” hurts because it means that it can’t be changed. While change can be scary, within it lies opportunity. We as humans at some level like the idea of change because it means it’s not permanent, there still exists a possibility. This makes us feel good deep down. However, true loss in a sense means it’s over. It’s gone. You can’t bring a dead person back to life. You can’t redo a past mistake or unsay the words that destroyed a relationship. For when it’s gone, it’s gone, and it will never be the same no matter what you do. In a psychological sense, this destroys a small piece of you. A piece that you must learn to rebuild.
When we lose a relationship, for instance, it’s meaning is stripped away from our lives. Suddenly, something that created so much meaning and purpose in our life no longer exists. As a result, we tend to feel a sense of emptiness where the meaning used to reside. We begin to question ourselves, wondering if we made the right decisions. Sometimes, our questioning turns existential. We begin to wonder if life is actually meaningful at all. This lack of meaning is commonly known as depression. While depression and sadness typically occur together, they are not the same.
Sadness occurs when something feels bad. Depression occurs when something feels meaningless. The difference is when something feels bad, it still has meaning. When you’re depressed, everything becomes a big empty void. The deeper the depression, the deeper the pointlessness of any action becomes, to the point one starts to struggle to get out of bed, shower, eat and even speak to people.
Depression has many faces and moods. It never looks the same. It's also not always obvious. Sometimes it's very visible, and many times it goes unnoticed. It is an illness that can affect anyone, and prescriptions for antidepressants are soaring, yet depression is still badly misunderstood.
Depression does not discriminate. Men, women, rich, poor, white, black. No one is immune. It is not just an illness for people with dark, mysterious pasts or chaotic presents. It is everywhere. It’s your sister, your coworker, your brother, your, wife, your cousin, your mother and the barista at your morning coffee stop. Depression is omnipresent but is still often talked about in hushed whispers, due to the stigma that surrounds mental health.
In recent years, the tragic deaths of Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Kate Spade and now Anthony Bourdain are helping to shine a light on the severity of depression and the reality of suicide. Many people wonder, how could this happen?
From the outside looking in, they appeared to have all the trappings for success which should bring happiness and meaning, yet they still chose to end their lives. But why? I believe the following metaphor sums this up so eloquently.
“When we look at a mountain we see one face of it, and even if we wake up and gaze at that same mountain every single morning of our lives, we do not see its wholeness. We can hike it, fly over it, traverse its circumference a thousand times and still we won’t see its entirety, every layer, every element, every atom. To know a mountain, or a person, is to see a whole being in its fullness at all times in all seasons — every mood, every moment. If there is a God, this is what God sees. But we are not gods, and so our view, no matter how vast, is always partial.”
We all wear masks to cover up our true selves, and we can be terrific actors when we choose to be. Anthony Bourdain left us tragically far too soon, in the same manner that Kate Spade did the same week. It’s, unfortunately, the way many artists, teachers and visionaries have left us, and it is how I’ve lost loved ones and at times even contemplated leaving myself.
Those who turn to suicide often don't get enough credit for how long and how hard they fought the hopeless thoughts that relentlessly tormented their minds. Unless you have lived it yourself, I feel no one can truly understand the psychological agony of living with an unquiet mind. You are truly stuck in an invisible war where every word and every action is scrutinized by an insatiable inner critic that seems hellbent on your destruction. You are fighting the fight of your life every day, against yourself, and against a world that still, unfortunately, doesn’t understand.
Suicide can be an act of depression, of despair and of true belief that nothing will ever improve. It can also be an act of absolute panic. When the noise inside your head gets so loud, or the physical pain seems inescapable, or the abuse seems like it will never end, it is in those moments, suicide may appear to be the ultimate act of relief.
While suicide may appear outwardly as a choice, I tend to refute that notion. I believe the final act was the result instead of an illness that simply got the better of their mental faculties and the ability to make a rational decision at that moment. Just as we would not blame someone for dying of cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, we should not fault or judge one from dying of suicide.
It is neither a failure of character nor an indicator of a genius mind to contemplate suicide. It is just a thing that happens, and it happens more often to some of us than to others. There is pain, and the management of it looks different to all of us, and sometimes the managing of it becomes exhausting. It’s in times like these that the allure of death becomes stronger and one might get the urge to quit fighting.
We all have our battles, our losses we must endure. It’s simply a matter of life, and unfortunately, no one is immune. I believe that you never get "over" losing a loved one, but you learn to cope and heal over time. The wound will scab, but you'll always have the scar.
Scars are a sign of experience and strength, and maybe that's what healing looks like after losing someone you love. Showing off your scars to help others know they're not alone and that they will indeed survive their pain if they ever experience something similar.
In that sense, I believe dealing with loss is as much letting go as it is about hanging on. It’s letting go of what was and hanging on to the possibility that things will get better. It just takes time. And that’s life. We are all given battles we must learn to fight and losses we must overcome. Ebbing and flowing, like the ocean. Sometimes the water is calm, other times it seems it will swallow us whole. All we can do is keep on swimming. The choice is ours.
