Grief Keeps Us Close To Those We've Lost

 Steven Petrow writes in The Washington Post:

Long before my mother died, I’d read a slim book, “Grief: A Novel,” by Andrew Holleran, that long stayed with me. Holleran, whose earlier work chronicled the AIDS epidemic, creates characters for whom grief serves as a lifeline, ironic as that sounds, to those whom they’ve lost. The novel focuses on two men — an exhausted, lonely professor whose invalid mother has recently died and his new landlord, a fellow who has lost most of his friends to AIDS.

In one passage, the two characters discuss the nature of grief, ironically framing it as a way to maintain connection with the dearly departed:

The professor: “[G]rief is what you have after someone you love dies. It’s the only thing left of that person. Your love for, your missing, them. And as long as you have that, you’re not alone — you have them.”

The landlord: “But they’re gone!”

The professor: “Not if you grieve. . . . Your grief is the substitute for their presence on earth. Your grief IS their presence on earth.”

In the years since my mother died, temblors of grief have continued — sometimes on the surface, but more often deep within me. That they can come on without warning is no shock. That they pain me is also expected. The unfolding surprise has been that they no longer upset me. I’ve allowed myself to feel the pain of loss and I came to learn, albeit slowly and painfully, that grief is not to fear. If anything, it’s to be embraced. Grief had become an unexpected and comforting way to stay connected to the mother I’d lost.