Bearing the Length of Grief

Elizabeth Leon offers three approaches to surviving the ongoing weight of grief.

We all love the New Year. A fresh start. An invitation to leave behind the struggles of 2022 and hope for greater peace and joy in 2023.

But what about the struggles that always stay? The load that can’t be put down or freshened up? The heaviness that no brave resolution can take away? There are many terrible realities that come from the grief of child loss, but one of the hardest for me to accept is the length of it.

Have you ever picked up something that was heavier than you should be carrying alone? It takes all your strength and you can barely manage, but it is just for a moment and then you can put it down.

Not so for grief. For many of us, grief is the heaviest thing we will ever carry and there is no end in sight. No fresh start. No clean calendar pages. Grief has written itself in to every day ahead, as far as the eye can see.

So, what do we do? How do we survive the crushing weight of grief, day after day? Year after year? Here are three approaches I have found valuable that I pray will support you in your journey through grief.

Practice Radical Acceptance.

Try to give your grief what it needs each day without judgement or criticism. In early grief, everyone expects you to be flattened by sorrow, but grief has no timeline. There is no limit. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Give yourself permission to need what you need or not need what you don’t need.

Watching sad movies and reading books about loss helped me process my feelings and begin to integrate them into my life and body. That might be too much for you. Maybe you need distractions or more space to take long walks or pour your grief out in a journal. Maybe you need to talk about your loss with a friend or counselor or maybe you are tired of talking.

Be curious and kind with yourself as you let your grief have its say. Your heartache deserves to be held with gentleness, love, and acceptance.

Take it to Jesus.

Isaiah 53:3 says the Messiah will be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Jesus is our Savior and knows the depths of pain in our hearts. He knows grief. He weeps with us (John 11:35). He longs for us to fall at his feet and tell him everything that is in our heart. (Mark 5:33). If the Lord allows suffering in your life, He wants to carry it with you. We are meant to yoke ourselves to Jesus so He bears the weight of our load (Matthew 11:30). Uniting our suffering to Jesus will always bear fruit. It is the promise of the resurrection in your life and in your grief.

Find Small Moments of Beauty.

Grief isn’t something you move through, but something you learn to live in and live with. When I feel crushed by the heaviness of my grief and the exhaustion of carrying it day after day, I try to change my perspective. I find relief when I shift my gaze from the endless years ahead to the present. I think not just about today but this precise moment. Most often, there is no suffering right now. My suffering usually comes from longing for what is gone or fearing the future. And while that is understandable, especially in grief, it can be too much to bear. I find relief in the beauty of the present moment.

I use all my senses to take in the physical place I find myself. The practice of mindfulness and deep breathing soothes our limbic system by reducing activity in the amygdala, the brain region associated with stress, trauma, and grief responses. I used to roll my eyes at mindfulness, especially in grief, but the science is sound. The simple practice of closing my eyes and taking slow, deep breaths re-grounds me in the present moment. Then I try to find beauty in the details of the world around me: the flicker of a candle flame, the warmth of the blanket on my lap, the dried grasses blowing slowly in my yard, the gentle ring of wind chimes on my front porch.

This practice reminds me that even though my heart is broken, the world is still beautiful. Learning to carry the heaviness of grief means integrating it into my life—and through integration, I learn to bear the complexity of holding joy and grief, beauty and tragedy, love and loss all at the same time.

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If you are weighed down by the length of grief, you are not alone. #CatholicMom

Carrying grief is hard, holy work. It has been five years since my son died. I don’t miss him any less today than the day he died, but I have learned to make space for my grief. I have grown and stretched around it and become more the woman I am meant to be because of it. If you are weighed down by the length of grief, you are not alone. May you let yourself be loved in the place you find yourself, take your grief to Jesus, and find small moments of beauty to sustain you.

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Leon
Images: Canva