What We Have Lost – and Gained

In addition to loneliness, of all the emotions our teams of listeners hear when listening to peoples’ stories, underlying it all is that people are grieving. 

Lost lives. Lost relationships. Lost dreams. Lost dignity. Lost hope. 

And so much more. 

Today, in the United States, is National Grief Awareness Day. It is a day to remind us all that everyone is grieving losses of many kinds. It is lifelong, the ubiquitous proximity of grief. The purpose of this day of awareness is  to educate us all about the many facets of grief, and to create a healthy space for responding to loss and all the ways it impacts our lives. This day also offers an opportunity to become familiar with resources for finding hope in our grief, and an opportunity to share stories of grief and let one another know we are not alone.

Several times this year, we’ve listened and re-listened to the House Calls Podcast conversation between the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and author Susan Cain. Both are bestselling authors – Dr. Murthy, of Together: The Power of Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World and Ms. Cain, of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking and Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. 

Their intimate conversation about loneliness, loss, and grief is one that we keep going back to because it is so powerfully connected to what we are hearing from others about the heaviness they are carrying on their hearts and minds, about the many losses they (and in fact, all of us) live with every day. 

Of particular note in their conversation, is when they speak of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — a metaphor for embracing our flaws and imperfections, and using them to become strengthened and wiser.

Perhaps the most important concept in Kintsugi wellness is kansha, which is the act of expressing gratitude for the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows, that are part of every human life. This concept calls us to realize everything that we have – and not only what we don’t have. When we can do that, the concept contends, we are able to heal faster and be more resilient following a loss. Practicing gratitude is also about living in the present moment, it teaches, and not wishing for things we never had or don’t have anymore.

This is absolutely not to say that we should deny or ignore the sad, angry, sometimes despairing feelings that grief and loss bring. Quite the contrary. We cannot heal if we first don’t recognize and reveal the pain that we are feeling and struggling to overcome. This recognition and revelation is an essential part of the healing process. But so is a recognition of what we have not lost, what we still retain, and what we have learned through the loss. Facing and expressing our grief is a vital realization along the way. 

And when we can adhere the good and the grateful to the painful and the seemingly impenetrable, as Kintsugi teaches, we will create a more resilient work of art and beauty through our lives than we may have ever imagined we could.  

On this day, know that you are not alone in your grief. Know that you can grow better, stronger, and more at peace. Not by ignoring the grief. But by embracing it and molding it into a more beautiful whole, day by day.

We believe that when we listen well and compassionately to one another, we can help one another to begin to put the broken pieces of our lives back together after a loss of any kind. This is some of the most important and vital work that Someone To Tell It To does. 

In their 2017 book, Getting Grief Right: Finding your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss, by Patrick O’Malley, PhD and journalist Tim Madigan – both of Fort Worth, Texas, they write:

… there is also a growing appreciation for the art of good listening. One inspiring example are two men in Pennsylvania, Michael Gingerich and Thomas Kaden, who started a nonprofit business called Someone to Tell It To. Since 2012, the two men, … make themselves available—in person, on the telephone, and via text, email, or Skype—to anyone around the world who needed to be listened to. ‘We all want and need to be heard, to know that others listen and care. We crave intimacy. We are in a constant search for validation and for our voices to find resonance with the lives of others,’ 

… ‘We have seen this need again and again during our years—visiting people who have been homebound
or in hospital rooms, or as we’ve sat with someone grieving the death of a loved one, or comforted
those in distress, pain, loneliness, or uncertainty. We have also experienced this need firsthand as we have grappled with our own families’ challenges with cancer, financial pressures, career directions, and disability. We have learned how all of us at times vitally need to be heard. We need someone to listen so our struggles and questions become shared and not ours alone to bear.’

On this day, when we reflect on the ubiquitous presence of grief woven throughout our lives, we hope that none of us will feel as if we are alone with it. While it may be a constant presence in one way – perhaps in many ways – or another, we hope that everyone will have those golden voices speaking to us and beautiful relationships supporting us that are seeking to remind us that we share in all of it together. And that together, we can create ever more healing works of beauty that are our lives, even in the midst of grief.

Photo by Matt Perkins on Unsplash