On the receiving end of a phone call yesterday, I was informed of a death in the extended family. Taking liberties with the use of the word ‘family’ here, but hey. Regardless, something in the way the caller phrased themselves made me think of the utterly meaningless non-negotiables the rules of modern society has placed upon us. Why should anyone have to make excuses for their feelings or reactions to something, just because they might differ from the norm?
I’m talking, of course, about grief. Feel free to check out this surprisingly popular piece I did on loss and grief a while back, if that’s of any interest to you. Anyway, I reckon you’re entitled to some privacy in regards to your emotions, in the same way you should be allowed to express them if it’s important to you. And, if you’re of the mind that bottling up your feelings is tremendously beneficial to yourself and those around you, you can read an article by Wendy Rose Gould, entitled The Dangers of Bottling Up Our Emotions, on VeryWellMind.com by clicking anywhere on this sentence.
Where was I? Oh, that’s right. We all know how important it is to let yourself go through the process of grieving a loss, in order to work through the experience and avoid getting stuck in a sort of grief spiral, where you end up digging yourself a big, old grief-hole of sadness from which you’ve no intention of ever emerging. My thought today is that the same must be true in the event that the need to grieve just isn’t there. Perhaps that, too, is a process, particularly in cases where grief – or at least some level of slight distress – is expected.
On a side note: I am not, for the sake of it, talking about the numbness some of us can experience when something’s just too hard to handle, or delayed grief. Nor am I talking about those few occasions where death can feel like a welcome relief. No, I am talking about the deaths that don’t feel like a loss. Just because you’re closely related to someone – or whatever other reason their life is inseparably interlinked with yours – doesn’t mean you have to love them, like them or even grieve their passing.
See, like with so many other things, the expectation is the big bad in this scenario. I doubt many would expect you to declare your feelings when a family member has died, but I don’t think we can get past the fact that most will expect you to view it as a bereavement, more than anything else. Indifference – or, [insert deity here] forbid, relief – however, would no doubt cause reactions of shock, horror or disbelief. “Surely, you’re just feeling numb due to the severity of the loss” they’ll say. “It’s okay to cry”.
What, then, if you’ve no reason to cry? Why should you feel the need to explain yourself, whatever your reaction (or lack thereof) may be? I’m even inclined to think that any criticism of your reaction, however controversial or unsensational it may be, would send forth feelings of guilt and shame. To the oblivious masses, not realising their criticism is the real cause for your newfound despair, this might even seem as a welcome crack in your armour and a far more appropriate reaction. Whereas you, you will perhaps never be able to live down the shame of not having the common courtesy of feeling even the tiniest sliver of anguish when someone you’ve made your peace with and moved on from finally shuffled off this mortal coil. As it were.
This isn’t really a matter of being right or wrong. It’s about sparing someone the horrific feeling of being a terrible person. You cannot dictate how others should feel – your judgement won’t change how they feel anyway, it just exacerbates the negativity around the sentiment. They’d end up feeling shameful and hurt. Hurt, even, by their own inability to feel the appropriate emotion at the appropriate time. Spiralling, perhaps, further into their bottomless pit of self-loathing, thinking along the lines of something a wise young man once wrote;
“If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way” (Trent Reznor, NiN, 1994). Check out my favourite cover version in the below video.
I shall see you next Tuesday. Over and out.
