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Michael Estrin's avatar

Lyle, I’m always impressed with your willingness to be so vulnerable in these pieces. Thank for sharing so freely.

On the subject of grief, particularly of a son grieving a father, I’ve been in your shoes. I lost my dad in 2015. That first years was a blur. I felt all of the emotions (and all of the stages of grief because we don’t really process them sequentially), but never felt at ease with any of my feelings. If a happy memory of my dad popped in my head I felt sorrow or melancholy. If a sad memory of his time in the hospital came to me, I felt guilty and sad and helpless.

At the time of my father’s death, everyone told me grief would last a year. My family is Jewish, although not religious, and for Jews there really is a prescribed order to grief that ends on the one year anniversary when you put the headstone on the grave. After that, life is for the living, as they say. But when we were sitting Shiva for my dad (the day after the funeral) my best friend, who I’ve know since we were 14, told me something I’ll never forget about grief. My friend had lost his dad in 2008.

“It takes a year before you feel normal, dude, but actually that’s bullshit because it takes two years, and honestly that’s bullshit too. The truth is, it always hurts, but the rawness fades over time, except that there’s no rhyme or reason to how it fades.”

All of this is by way of saying that in the years since my father’s death I know three things.

First, that quote about grief being love with nowhere to go is right on the money.

Second, my friend was right.

Third, it’s true that grief is different for everyone, but it’s also true that everyone grieves as who they are. In other words, we bring the best and worst of us to grief, and in turn grief reveals us to ourselves. What we choose to do with those revelations, of course, is a different story.

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Edward Rooster's avatar

Lyle, another beautiful thoughtful piece. I'm with you. I have more to say, in private and for another time, but you're right to observe how it is - there's no fitting into others' forms for feeling and experiences. Especially for this.

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