Recently, I have been talking about various aspects of grief; how we need the death story to make sense of loss, how we are often in mourning for people and things which those around us may not recognise as important. This week, I have been reflecting on the part that grief plays, in resilience.
So, picture this. It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I walk into a café to have lunch with one of my very favourite people. This woman is one of those people who has had huge struggles herself, but who still reaches out to many. she is the sort of person who has me feeling lucky, just because I have a place at her table.
As we began to eat, we started to fill each other in on the recent happenings in our lives. Put simply, in the last few years, a lot has changed for my friend. Just to name a couple of things, she’s had to contend with the breakdown of a relationship that had been important to her for the best part of forty years. Courtesy of her MS, she has also needed to move from a large family home into a self-contained unit in a retirement village, where she depends on daily carers. And yet, as usual, she’s recreated herself with stunning aplomb. Sensing the aloneness of some of the village inhabitants, she’s making plans for them; while they in the meantime, seeing her efficiency, have her pegged for their social committee. Of course they do, I thought to myself; she’d be on my committee too, were I needing something organised.
As I listened, I noticed that her sense of humour was very much alive and well, but what I also found worthy of notice, was that with it, so was her sadness. I realised that one of the reasons why I ADMIRE her so much, is that yes, she has resilience a-plenty, but she also HAS GREAT HONESTY ABOUT THE PART THAT GRIEF PLAYS IN that RESILIENCE.
To me, resilience generally means that we have at least some capacity to bounce back from life’s most difficult situations. It shows up when We are able to make the best of a sometimes bad deal, and then find our way towards the next step on our paths. Research shows us, as does experience In my counselling room, that grief is made somehow more bearable when we have resilience. What my lunch with my friend reminded me of was that while resilience might be there as we grieve, grief is also there every time we show resilience. My friend might have an amazing sense of humour and capacity to rise from the ashes it is true, but make no mistake, it is not a path which she would have chosen for herself, and this path is littered by grief, as much as it is by funny stories. I have another beautiful friend who shows extraordinary resilience, as she waits to be eligible for a kidney transplant, but again, this is not a wait which she wants; and so as she waits, making the best of that bad deal and going on with her life as best she can, she also grieves the life that she might have had.
Now while you may be forgiven for thinking that the idea that there is grief in resilience is not news, I think it is worth raising here because it is a reality that we often overlook. We can feel amazed, and proud and all kinds of admiration for people like these women whose stories I mention today, but as we rush to share these feelings with them, I think we can sometimes forget to acknowledge the grief that they have also needed to live through, before showing that resilience. In addition, it is worth acknowledging for ourselves; so that each time we show resilience, we can also stop, even if only in our own minds, and be proud of ourselves for the losses that we are also living with.