“Touching the untouchables but they don’t know
Respect the disrespectable’s, but in the end you know
You turn away, what can I say?
You’ll never, never know
You’ll never know
“Touching the Untouchables” – Men at Work (1985)
Lyrics quoted for commentary and discussion purposes.
Grief is a strange mistress.
One minute you’re fine. The next you’re in a completely different headspace and you’re not entirely sure what got you there. It is every bit as confusing as it sounds. One of the things I’ve learned is that grief rarely follows the rules we think it should. We like to imagine it as a series of neat stages that arrive one after another until eventually you’re finished.
It doesn’t work that way.
Even Elisabeth Kübler-Ross acknowledged that the stages of grief are not linear. They overlap, repeat themselves, disappear for months, and then suddenly return. Sometimes you can be experiencing several of them at the same time.
I’ve talked before about my somewhat non-traditional approach to grief. The funny thing is that I don’t think it’s really all that non-traditional. I think we’ve simply been taught that certain kinds of grief are acceptable while others are not.
Of all the emotions associated with grief, anger may be the one that people struggle with the most.
“How can you still be angry? They’re gone.”
I’ve heard variations of that sentiment before. The reality is that being angry is actually very easy.
In my case, the suicide took away any opportunity I had to fully express how I felt about the marriage and how it ended. I know that sounds selfish. Maybe it is. But it also represents a form of closure that was permanently taken off the table.
There were things left unsaid.
There were conversations that were never going to happen.
There were questions that were never going to be answered.
There were hurts that were never going to be acknowledged.
When someone dies, especially by suicide, they take all of those possibilities with them.
So instead, I drag my irritated ass through life carrying around thoughts that don’t really have anywhere to go.
It doesn’t take much for me to start talking about the things that happened during those last years. The manipulations. The lies. The isolation. The things that still bother me. The things that probably always will.
The problem is that most people don’t want to hear it.
Maybe they don’t believe it.
Maybe it doesn’t fit the version of the person they knew.
Maybe they’re simply tired of hearing about it.
Honestly, I understand all of those possibilities.
If you’ve been around me during the last few years, there is a good chance you’ve heard some variation of the story. If that has been frustrating or exhausting, I’m genuinely sorry. I don’t really know what else to do with it. I’m still figuring that part out myself.
What struck me the other night was the realization that we all have our own version of untouchables.
We don’t have a formal caste system in this country, but we certainly have people and topics that make us uncomfortable.
The homeless.
The mentally ill.
People with substance use disorders.
People with criminal histories.
People whose grief doesn’t fit the expected narrative.
Those are our untouchables.
Not because we actively shun them, but because we often don’t know what to do with them. So we look away. We change the subject. We become uncomfortable.
We respect the respectable and avoid the uncomfortable.
The same thing happens with grief.
We are comfortable with the widow who lovingly remembers her spouse.
We are comfortable with stories about devotion, happy memories, and enduring love.
We are less comfortable with the widower who remains angry.
We are less comfortable with stories that include betrayal, resentment, manipulation, and unresolved wounds.
Yet both experiences are grief.
Neither is more legitimate than the other.
I don’t think my grief is any worse than the person who spends years remembering only the good things about someone they lost. Their fixation may be on the comfort that person brought into their life. Mine may be on the damage that was left behind.
In both cases, we’re still looking backward.
In both cases, we’re still trying to make sense of what happened.
In both cases, we’re carrying memories that continue to shape our present.
I don’t think either person deserves criticism, praise, or judgment for the way they remember someone they loved.
Grief is personal.
It is messy.
It is often irrational.
And sometimes it lasts the rest of your life.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that grief isn’t something you finish. It is something you learn to carry.
Some days the weight is light.
Some days it isn’t.
As always, no matter what, my dogs remain at my side. And I don’t think I will ever stop grieving the wonderful person that my mom was.