Quiet Spaces

[Finding Peace: source]

 Quiet spaces can be a blessing or a curse when you're in mourning. They can give you a chance to reflect on your loved ones, including the ones you're mourning. They can give you a chance to dwell on your blessings and joys. Sometimes, they can be your survival when the noises around you are loud with voices that aren't helpful, with questions or phrases that hurt you more than help you like when people are trying to tell you how to mourn or asking why you aren't over it yet. Or even asking how you are when the speaker doesn't want to hear the real answer. Quiet spaces can allow you to reflect, to meditate, to find peace.

[Alone in the Darkness: source]

But also, that reflection can also lead you to very dark places. People in pain can get self-destructive or filled with a maelstrom of painful feelings. Quiet spaces or even loud ones can feel painful when all you have are the curves of your emotional roller coaster taking you in and out of anger, pain, loss. Triggers are very real, thoughts, sounds, items, anything that triggers another loop on that roller coaster of grief. And when you're sitting in your quiet spaces, those loops can be overwhelming. With no one to hug you to help you hold your pieces in, no one to listen to your pain, these quiet spaces can be hard. If the person you lost is the only person who was there to listen to your pain, like a significant other or close friend or sibling or parent, these quiet spaces can echo particularly loudly. 

[Balancing Silences and Comforting Voices.]

When I was in the depth of mourning, I found it helpful to seek out quiet spaces but also to find a break from those quiet spaces. I sought those voices that supported me, the ones I could trust. I sought the voices, including the spiritual and internal ones, that brought me peace. I'd pray our read scriptures that brought peace inside my heart. That isn't a solution for everyone. Sometimes, finding a mourning support, counseling, or other group can provide that comfort. I found I needed a balance between quiet spaces and comforting voices. Ponder where you have quiet spaces when you need them and where you can find voices to help you survive the pain when those silences become too loud or agonizing. 

Mourning in Many Flavors

[Moving--source]

My best buddy of 30 years moved near me recently with her children. It's been fun. But it's also been hard to watch her whole family go through mourning. They probably haven't thought of it as such because of society's very narrow view of mourning. Most people think of mourning as coping with death, their own impending death or someone else's, often coping a death that has already passed. 

[Flavors of Mourning--source]

But there are so many other flavors of mourning and grief. If your expectations and hopes are yanked from you, your life as you know it fundamentally changed (by choice or otherwise), you will often go through a grieving process. You still have to process the changes, which often comes with deep pain. But because the people around you don't see it, many times, you feel like you're feeling wrong, that you are suffering for no reason. Anyone who has undergone loss deserves acknowledgment and empathy if they need it. 

[Joy Shatters-source]

My buddy's marriage is on the rocks. She had expectations of a future together, and she's facing loss of her expectations and hopes. Her kids, meanwhile, are reeling with the loss of their friends, their comfortable life, their home of 13 years, their peace, nearness to their father. But the situation is such that none of them really have a choice. And that's hard. One of them embraces and celebrates the change. This, too, is a valid response. But the others are struggling more. All they knew before is just cut off. And there is a deep sense of mourning for all that was. 

[Support-source]

What can I do? It's not my loss. Really, it's a gain because we've been strategizing on how to live closer together most of the years we've known each other. But I can feel their pain, show empathy. When I was younger, we moved a lot. I have nothing but empathy for this kind of loss of everything, all friends, all comfort from before. I can be their friend while they seek new friends. I can be there for them and pray for them. There's always something an outsider can do for those who have lost.