The box of grief
And when it is unexpectedly opened
I tend to put my grief in a box, sometimes perhaps a bit too soon, and in a box that is a bit too tightly sealed. And even grief that is still fresh, becomes difficult to access. I know I should be grieving, but how do you do that? It’s not like you can schedule time in your diary for 30 minutes of mourning. So I tend to keep it in the box, until something tips over the box, and all the grief spills out.
Recently, I attended a funeral for someone I barely knew. I was there because I know their partner and felt it would be good to show my support. The church was full, and already when I entered, I felt my box of grief rattle inside me: just the energy of all these people gathering to mourn this person touched my own grief.
We all stood up when the coffin was carried into the church and I noticed that this coffin looked almost identical to the one I carried containing my mom’s body. I remembered exactly what the wood felt like on my finger tips. And how I had been standing, holding my hand on the coffin knowing that it was the last time I would be so close to my mom’s body when we had carried the coffin to where she would be cremated. And how it wasn’t until the funeral attendant looked at me questioningly that I realized I still had my fingertips on the coffin, unconsciously wanting to stretch that moment out a little longer.
And back in the church, at the funeral of this person I had only seen once briefly , the choir started to sing. As kids, we rarely ever attended church, but when we did, my mom tended to be one of the first people to join the choir in their song. And I had totally forgotten about that, until in this present day church, the first person started singing from behind me. And inside me, that cracked open the box of grief so unexpectedly. Tears streamed down my face and I felt my body shacking, and I was part embarrassed but also incredibly thankful for being able to access the box of grief and feel close to my mom for just a little while. Because the box of grief doesn’t only contain the sadness, but also memories that seem locked away.
I felt a bit voyeuristic - for lack of a better word -: was I using other people’s sadness and grief as a tool to access my own grief? And is that a bad thing? Because when I walked out of that church, into a sunny spring afternoon, I felt light. It felt freeing to have let a little grief out of the box that is normally so hard to reach.