On September 5, 2023, I lost my beloved wife CeCe to stage 4 metastatic breast cancer after a long, arduous and courageous fight. She was an incredible spirit whose inspirational life force is a loss that is still impossible to articulate, try though as I may have on several occasions. Perfection in any form is indescribable, and that applies even more so when it comes to love. CeCe and I became as one many years ago, forged by a connection that began as a subliminal whisper when we were children and grew in hope and intuition as we matured and followed our respective paths through life. Paths that would reunite us again, though on a timeline whose limited run neither of us could have ever predicted.
In the midst of this loss, I have come to understand that grief is an expression of love. It’s what love turns into when the lights go out. When the warmth of the sun disappears from your face, and the emptiness you feel in your heart is as intractable as it is encompassing. Like love, everything changes when grief surfaces. The difference is that grief presents itself as a mirror image of love. Colors are not brighter, they’re absent. Sights and sounds are not heightened, they’re muted. Animation turns into resignation, and the optimism of a future released from the fate of a lonely existence becomes a darkened road leading to an inevitable alienation from all that once brought you joy.
Yes, grief born of loss is depressing. The word grief has a lexicon with roots in words signifying burden or grave. It is unquestionably the heaviest burden you will experience in your lifetime; a serious consequence that forever alters your life in ways you cannot imagine or worse yet, dare not to.
But time is grief’s greatest asset. The proverb time heals all wounds is an emotional salve that reminds us that time has the capacity to provide comfort as you move further away from the darkness and despair of loss. More importantly, it provides – it restores – the ability to see what lies ahead. For me, moving on is a misleading term that expresses a need to move past what has happened; to leave the grief behind. But that’s just the thing: You can never leave grief behind; it stays with you forever.
And that is exactly what you want. Grief is a scar you carry in your heart, but it’s a scar that reminds you of the depth the love you once carried held in its place. When you take the grief with you, you’re moving forward. Not without grief, but because of it. Grief eventually provides clarity; it inspires you with courage and conviction. It does so because grief carries the specter of love and knows that you can no longer afford to lose anything else. Adventures, opportunities, challenges, goals – all of the things that help make life worthwhile are needed in order to provide you with the strength to lead a fulfilling life. The very type of life you once lived when in the arms of that special someone who imbued you with unlimited amounts of love. When you were two, love was limitless, joyful, passionate, protective and inspirational. Grief carries the essence of that love of two, except that now it needs to infuse it into a life for one. And if true love is the existence of one soul living in two bodies, how can you deny grief its due?
I miss my beloved more than I’ll ever be able to express. But this short exercise in trying to understand grief was a nice attempt at coming to terms with its principles; a good attempt. This personal journey doesn’t come easy, nor does it provide a direct line of sight to an easy resolution. Like a special kind of love, good grief – restorative grief – takes time. But the journey helps to make peace with the grief I carry; a grief that represents the love I will treasure forever. A love that isn’t lost; merely transformed.
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