TALKING WITH MY GRIEF

RUBY CARMEN explores the often repressed emotion of grief, and shares some ways we can accept it, value the meaning behind it, and integrate it into our being as an expression of love.

- RUBY CARMEN

"Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go."

-Jamie Anderson

Grief, it seems, is often unsaid, unexpressed, and avoided at all costs, until we are overwhelmed and it looms large and can no longer be denied. Since the pandemic, grief has been an undercurrent, and at times the feeling is palpable. It seems that there is little space for it to be expressed, never mind honored.

Grief is understood as a natural human response to loss, and in particular to loved ones. It covers so many situations, not only death or separation; it can be the loss of a dream or a friendship; it can be a divorce, a miscarriage, unemployment, or even retirement. Needless to say, the pain of the loss can be overpowering, bringing us to our knees, both literally and metaphorically.

From a personal viewpoint, I am able to name a number of life situations that have triggered grief in me that can be felt in the heart and in a way demand to be processed rather than pushed aside until a more convenient moment.