“The only journey is the one within.”                       -Rainer Maria Rilke

Not all journeys we go on involve our physical relocation from one place to the next. The majority of the journeys we all will experience in life will require us to learn to move forward without the people we loved.

Some years ago while I waited at the airport gate in Grand Rapids Michigan for my delayed flight a stranger made an unexpected revelation to me.

“She’s dead! ” the woman who sat a few chairs away blurted out. “I am going to bury my daughter!” I lowered my laptop screen. She had my complete attention. Upon realizing this, the woman stood up and closed the three seat gap between us. She was a nondescript woman who appeared to be in her mid to late sixties. She wore nothing particularly fashionable or unfashionable. The only visible accessories that she wore was her grief. It was fresh and covered her entire face like newly applied make up. It was heavy and hung around her shoulders in a manner that caused her body to slump forward instead of upright.

“I am very sorry for your loss,” I responded immediately regretting the hollowness of my words as soon as I spoke them. I hadn’t said anything wrong. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to say to ease someone else’s grief? They were the right words, but they felt so inadequate.

“She was such a good girl I really do not know what happened,” the woman continued before breaking down into a fit of spasmodic sobs. Through her sobs she continued to lamented the loss of her beloved child as she questioned how God and the universe could have allowed something like this to happened to someone so young. Stupefied l sat there listening, nodding my head excessively while wishing she had chosen someone else to unload this heavy burden upon.

The weight of her loss was overwhelming. I was conflicted— for as much as I wanted to escape her misery I also wanted to do something to alleviate her pain. As she spoke, I began to visualized my arms wrapping around her as I spoke quiet words of comfort that would hush her sobs.

Unable to align my thoughts with action–I did nothing but nod and listen until I was rescued by another stranger. A man had been watching the scene unfold from the other side of the waiting area. He identified himself as a minister, sat in the empty seat next to the woman and softly began to speak to her in the same manner I had envisioned myself doing only seconds before. I waited several minutes before I slowly extricated myself away from the melancholy scene. I hoped that my movement went unnoticed as I relocated to the other side of the waiting area.

Even though I convinced myself that it was an act of divine intervention that sent the minister to aid us both, I still felt like crap for cowering away from another person’s grief. There have been many moments since that day that I have been plagued by the could haves, should haves wishing I behaved differently. It would be many years before I would be able to understand the truth behind my inaction.

The truth is, most people do not know how to deal with other people’s grief.

The stranger’s grief was a tangible reminder of my own impermanence. It made me uncomfortable because it rankled against the one thing I did not want to consciously think about–death.

At the time I may not have truly understood the depths of the woman’s loss.

I do now.

After experiencing a seven year period in which I consecutively loss six family members and three dear friends– thoughts of the airport encounter have often crosses my mind. As much as I may have wanted to help that bereaved stranger along her journey, I know now that she had only travelled a few steps along the emotionally winding path towards the reconciliation of her grief.

Following the deaths of my mother, father and younger sister those closest to me wrapped themselves around me in a blanket of support. For me, their attention, solace and presence were the salve that temporarily soothed the slow healing wound created by my loss that would have otherwise festered.

So I was not surprised when some of that support trickled away in during the days, weeks and months that followed the funeral.

It is difficult to look upon someone else’s sorrow without being caught in its gravitational pull.

From some of the well-meaning people who wanted to expedite my road to happiness I heard comments such as:

“It is time now. You must get on with your life.

I hate to see you so sad, it is time to move on.

You have to let all of that go and live your own life now.

You were alright yesterday, but what happened today.”

Like most people they believed that grief is experienced in linear stages. All one has to do is to make it pass each one until—BOOM! You are at the finish line —the pain of your loss subsided you are ready to pick up where you left off in life.

If only it were as easy as that…

I possess no academic qualification that would label me as an expert in grief. I am just a person who during a seven year period has grieved the loss of eight people who were once important components of my life.

What I do know is—

My grief is an endless expanse of contradictions.

I have not experienced my sadness in fixed compartmentalized stages, but in waves of emotional ups and downs. There are long moments of calm in which I feel well equipped to navigate the uncertainty of the vast ocean life has placed before me. Then unexpected memories waft through the winds refueling my sadness, anger, and guilt. It is in those moments that I find myself back in the center of a turbulent storm.

There is no expiration date that can be stamped upon my mourning. 

I have no idea how long it will endure. Even when there is a smile on my face—I live my life every day with my loss in tow with the hope that I will come upon a shore where I can lay all my burdens down. All I need from the people who care about me to understand is – that even with less people at my side I am navigating through the waters of uncertainty, despair, and hope the best that I can.

My journey is far from over.