Since I walked my father into the valley of the shadow of death five years ago, I have used poetry as a way to process what I was only dimly beginning to grasp. I see it as a snapshot of the things I know are there, but I can't see.

And every now and then there is something I write that is neither a poem nor is it prose. A prose-poem is apparently an actual literary thing.

During Covid, I wrote the following prose-poem where I thought about the feminine characteristics of grief.

The Gifts of Grief

     She comes to you as a crying mess. Welcome her anyway. Her tears will heal and will wash away the soul sludge.

    At times she may feel like an unwanted stranger. But she won’t stay forever. Don’t look down on her bad reputation. Ban her and she will go underground, her energy stored in the earth.

     We miss the ways that she wants to bless us. She helps our spirits to heal; she gives us space to transition; she rightsizes our understanding of time and loss. She gives us a kind of spiritual stretching.

     I want to celebrate her, but she has few friends; better some paper mache over the hole inside than to expose the throbbing.

    When we attach, we assimilate. You connect to my spirit; I invite you to join my spiritual mesh. When you leave, that part of me that attached leaves with you. I don’t just say goodbye to you, but to a piece of myself.

    She is the scab where scar tissue forms. Sometimes I’m a hemophiliac - I just bleed and never scab over.

    But I’ve got scars where scabs used to be, and losses that didn’t heal properly.

    Think about all of the things you loved that you lose. Not just a person, but the quiet thrills of discovering new things about that person. Not just your health, but your ability to run long distances or throw frisbees. Not just your hope, but finding it subtly replaced by cynicism that feels like a rock in your shoe.

    Our pets give us the chance to practice losing. Hamster burials gave way to dog funerals in our home. They didn’t get any easier, but the practice was good.

    Animals suffer too. We see videos of elephants mourning their losses. All creation groans on this side of revelation. Does the groan come from the gap we sense between what is and what will be? Is it the groan of birthing pains?

    We are constantly losing parts of ourselves. We slough off skin daily, giving us the opportunity to transition by degrees to a spiritual realm that stands on tiptoes waiting to receive us.

   I inoculate myself to the pain of loss by practicing thoughts of death. Is that morose or just good metaphysical hygiene?

    My children think they think of death too much - did I bring a grey discoloration to their perspective?    

    Grief is irrepressible. She will always find her way to daylight, even if in a dysfunctional way. Better to make friends with the natural order, choosing to focus our spirits not on the loss, but the transformation. Bodies aging require grieving for the spirit to keep up.

     We need to grieve the lack of grieving. We are losing so much.

Photo - thanks to Dani Franco