Grief is Love

Grief is Love

 “Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” – Jamie Anderson

I vividly remember the virtual counseling session thanks to the pandemic, in which my counselor said, “Pain is proof of love, and for love I am grateful”. I scrambled for the closest piece of paper and scribbled that down. That small lined, flower bordered pale yellow scrap piece of paper still hangs in my home today. It was the first thing someone said to me that gave a purpose to the pain and grief I had been so devastatingly feeling for 13 weeks. My pain was my love. No wonder it was so strong and consuming.

Next that wise man quoted Jamie Anderson. He told me that my grief is my love that has nowhere to go. So, it goes back inside of me, where it is not meant to be. Things inserted into the body that are not meant to be there often come with some level of discomfort or pain. Pain is proof of love, grief is love that has nowhere to go, for my ability to love I am grateful, so I must honor my pain and grief. In that counseling session I had my first experience with transforming my suffering, and learning to honor it.

In my next session, it was decided that my love had to find somewhere to go. It could no longer remain inside of me; I would not have survived much longer because my love was great and my suffering was equivalent. I had to find something that I could nurture, care for daily, and pour out my love onto. A puppy was not an option, so a plant it was. I was intentional in my plant selection and spent hours researching. I knew it was said that plants do well when spoken to, so I decided a plant with a name and an ability to nurture, and talk to like someone I love was the solution. So, a plant with a name and purpose it was.

Bonnie the Bonsai. Bonsai plants require great effort and attention. They are finicky plants that need help being guided and shaped in which ways to grow, they demand appropriate lighting and watering schedules. Then came Clyde the succulent. Succulents thrive on neglect. Both were dead in a month. One I tried with all my might to love in the way it needed and could not because I was loving from a place of despair and desperation. The other I loved too much, clung too tightly.

I was defeated but through learning to transform my suffering, I redoubled my efforts. Bill the spider came next. I loved this one well. I found the window and the watering schedule that best suited Bill, because after all, caring for this plant was about this plant’s wellbeing and not me. Before I knew it, Bill was so big that he was split in two, and then I had Bill and Bob, the spider plants. I added a third plant with a name and a purpose and learned how to best nurture this one too. Weeks of trial and error were spent getting to know this plant. Once I had plant number three figured out, then came four. Those four plants were well cared for, watered and pruned, talk to and nurtured just like I would care for someone I loved. They thrived while I started to heal.

As I healed, I was able to become a part of life again. A real part of life which meant a fuller schedule of more commitments, added responsibility and accountability. Nevertheless, I added plants five, six, and seven. The seven dwarfs thrived because I knew them all well, and I healed. I was learning to laugh again, returning to the things I once loved, working more, and still allowing my love with nowhere to go to go the plants and the people around me. Counseling sessions lessened, life increased, 7 plants became 11 and they all were well taken care of and perfectly pruned. The plants thrived, life went on, and I healed.

Seasons changed, and so did my habits and routines as my career evolved and my personal responsibilities increased. Before I knew it 11 plants became 20 all with a name and purpose, because now I realize with each change, I had to learn to grieve with new guilt all over again. Those 20 remained well taken care of, perfectly pruned and loved. The plants thrived, life evolved, and I continued to heal.

Life continued to change; moves were made. More plants were added again and again, each with a name and a purpose, gotten to know well, talked to as I would someone I loved. They thrived and I healed. Until one day I realized that Bill was not perfectly pruned anymore. Brown ends on some of the foliagemade me realize that as life evolved, I did not stick as rigidly to the watering schedule I had in the beginning, I didn’t need to. Caring for those 40 plus plants taught me the lessons I didn’t know I needed to learn which led me to the healing I didn’t know was possible. The healing I thought was unimaginable.

I learned that just like it is okay for a plant to have a few imperfections, it is okay for me to feel hurt, loss, sorrow, despair, and devastation. I wasn’t clinging so tightly to making sure I didn’t lose another thing I loved, that I was able to just be. In that ability to be, I realized that loss is supposed to hurt. None of us make it through life without some pain and suffering or scars and marks, not even Bill the spider plant.

Those plants also taught me that I can honor my grief and my pain in beautiful ways. Each time I hold a door open for a stranger, I’m opening the floodgates so my love can pour into this world. Every kind word spoken to another is my griefs way of saying “I need this as much as you do, too”. Every attempt to add love and kindness to this world, honors my grief and allows my love to continue to grow, bloom, and stay with me for another day, just like the plants.

The most recent lesson those plants taught me was on that day I noticed Bill the spider plant looking, sad. That eldest plant taught me that as I continue to heal and become well, I must remember to do the things that helped me heal and aided in my wellness. I must do the things that helped me get well in order to stay well. I must continue to nurture those plants in order to nurture myself. Recovery from anything, including loss and grief, is not linear, it is not a destination, it is not a checklist to be completed once. It is an ongoing, ever evolving, multidirectional and multifaceted path that I have to make sure I’m ready to walk each day.

The greatest lesson, however, was the first lesson. The lesson that while this journey was about my healing, it had nothing to do with me. My love that no longer had no place to go, was never about me, it was about the love and the loss. Learning how to care for something other than me taught me to care for me, but it was always about the plants and the people that came into my life, never me. As long as I stay so focused on me, my thoughts, my feelings, my loss, the my’s and the me’s, I remain consumed. When I start to focus on others, they thrive and I heal.

Grief is love that has nowhere to go, and for me that hasn’t gone away because my love still lives on today. Even though I have found new places for that love to go, sometimes my love still gathers in the corners of my eyes, just as it is right now as I write this. Love still gets lumped up in my throat when certain songs come on and I don’t have it in me to say “this was your favorite” because then I would have to tell new people about you and that is still too heavy to explain some days. I still get that hallow feeling in my chest on the days my body remembers anniversaries before my mind looks at the calendar. But today, my grief has places to let my love go, and on good days I can let some of it come back to me too. Grief is felt and honored, love pours, the world thrives, I heal.

-Tyler Hindinger