Grief is like a hangover

Grief is always there to remind me to temper my jovial and carefree ways these days. Time spend on vacation in Arizona was joyful and inspiring, but the return to the house-without-Chip in Virginia and to work life in my sunroom without him nearby was a downer, to be sure. The day-to-day activities that bring me joy, such as the work I do with the babies, toddlers, students and families, time spent with Stella and Sam, and checking in with friends and family, highlight the empty hole left behind by Chip’s passing at points, and seem to tell me “Don’t imbibe too much joy or glee…the grief hangover will make you regret doing so.”

Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay describes grief well. She wrote "Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell." I couldn’t agree more with Ms. Millay. Feeling light-headed when I allow myself to be light-hearted, I inevitably stumble into the hole in the darkness that she writes of after the boozy effects of happiness and peacefulness wear off.

Artist Albert György depicts the hole left behind with his first wife’s passing in his sculpture “Melancolie,” which now sits in a small park on the promenade along the shore of Lake Geneva. The statue embodies the concept of emptiness that is always there when you lose someone you loved so deeply. The sculpture reveals that although those who have lost a loved one may carry on with their lives, and may even have times of joy and happiness, the emptiness is there…all the time. György himself went on to find happiness again after losing his beloved wife, but the empty feeling resulting from his wife’s death remained. His sculpture sums up being out in public, enjoying a walk along a lake or a picnic in a park, or resting on a bench to enjoy the view, while still having that hole inside.

Writer Caila Smith, in her blog post “Why This Sculpture Perfectly Depicts Grief” for the blog Scary Mommy, tells us how the sculpture resonates with her since she knows the pain of losing a child as well as the “new normal” that arises from the loss. She writes:

“György’s sculpture is a valid representation of the toll that grief truly takes — a widened and never-closed hole that we slowly mold, fit and adjust to until we can find a new normal. And while this sculpture does show the devastating effect of grief, it is important to note that this gaping hole is not the essence of grief itself.

Your grief is not a bottomless pit. Grief is a journey, a windy road with no real destinations… just pit stops. I’d like to think that if this sculpture could move through the many stages of grief as we humans do, that it would start to slowly lift its head as time moved on. The hole would still be there, blasted through and unscathed, of course. But it would rise and find a new lease on life… just as the artist has done.”

Aviator and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh concurs with Smith’s and György’s thinking when she writes about separation, saying “"Parting is inevitably painful, even for a short time. It's like an amputation. I feel a limb is being torn off, without which I shall be unable to function. And yet, once it is done. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid and fuller than before." Amen.

Actor Patrick Swayze, who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 57 after fighting to live with it for 20 months, informs me how I and so many others can go on after loss. He reminds us that “when those you love die, the best you can do is honor their spirit for as long as you live.” He continues with “You make a commitment that you're going to take whatever lesson that person or animal was trying to teach you, and you make it true in your own life. It's a positive way to keep their spirit alive in the world by keeping it alive in yourself."

Swayze's words remind me that, a while back, I committed to living life to the fullest for both myself and for Chip. I committed to living for two. Is more revelry and bonhomie making a difference? Yes they do, in the moments in which they occur. One-hundred percent. But, the aftermath of being cheerful, sunny and chirpy will always bring me back to the emptiness ten out of ten times.

This is certainly not a reason to go back on my commitment to live life for both of us. Rather, I have to believe this commitment to living life to the fullest for two is the naproxen, hair-of-the-dog-spicy-Bloody-Mary, or greasy cheeseburger and fries that I need to recover from the melancholy and emptiness that Chip’s passing brings me daily. The emptiness will always come after the elation, just as the melancholy will forever follow the merrymaking. But, grief hangover be damned, I will continue to choose to embrace living life for two.

Poet Dylan Thomas, who is perhaps best known for his poem “Do not go gentle into that good night,” reassures me with his words “Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.”

I will fall back on (or lean into or slump over on) his words, and those of others who know the pain of loss, as my grief journey continues.