My Tiny Griefs & Me: Lessons Learned in Year 2 of Grieving

Writer’s Note: I don’t see a lot of Black people holding space for (or writing about) mourning. They’re a lot of white grief therapists and creators online who write of bereavement. But just like everything else…I’m learning that even differential experiences of grief happen at the intersection of the color of your skin. So, here’s to every Black person and their own tiny griefs. No one will understand Black death like we do. I hope this holds a little, if not a lot of, space for you.

My grief isn’t gone…it’s grown.

Being Black and grieving is this giant, political conundrum. After all, we don’t just grieve one dead homie. We bury caskets in our hearts with family, friends, OG’s, and neighbors down the block. This is in addition to the understanding that most of our losses are tied to an intricate history that is larger than all of us. A web that was colonized and spun with stolen fabric. Our tears are also leaking with history, labor, and pain. Our bones quake with our failures to be “model citizens” while pushing back against being tokenized. If Regina King had it right, that grief is love with no place to go…Then…it is also seeds of agony waiting to be watered. And they’re buried deep…inside each and every one of us.

Last year, I survived my first lap of a life without my Papa, the man who was one of my few surrogate fathers. During that lap, I ran with a colossal of emotions, including sadness, terror, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and more sadness. It was also during this lap that I realized I wasn’t just mourning one man. I collected more deaths over one year than I ever imagined. And there were other names tattooed on my heart that left way before him…that I didn’t allow myself to feel. I didn’t think I could. In actuality…no one told me I could. The truth is…I’ve been carrying tombstones inside me all this time, and no one taught me how to give them proper burials.

With the support of family, friends, and my therapist, I’ve tried to cast a light on and push back against what the world demands from us, takes from us, and ignores in moments where all we’re trying to do is rebuild and better yet…survive until the next day after a loved one transitions. And if your skin dares to be as dark as mine, you know this isn’t easy. Because no matter how vast your sadness extends, your grief is no excuse for your labor to discontinue. And your pain is no reason for you to stop producing. The historical underpinnings of this are deafening in this country, while Black people’s disenfranchised grief is continually overlooked, neglected, and silenced. So, I carry this with me. I carry not just my new lived reality with loss, but I pivot daily with the fact that people’s expectations of me during this loss are tethered to systems founded on racism and anti-Blackness. And that I must hold myself with the tender love and care needed for my own unique and unparalleled experience with death.

I must have my own grief etiquette.

Therefore, when I’m struggling to get out of bed or I think about the loud playing of my Papa’s music, the smell of food in my uncle’s house, or a loud ‘RAWR!’ from my high school English teacher, Ed, when he’d read something he was trying to wrap his head around …I think about how I’m trying to embrace and wrap myself all up in my grief. How I hope to stick myself under a well-lit tree. Maybe with messy wrapping paper. Or maybe tucked neatly with a pretty bow. Either way, I don’t want rushed processionals and funeral programs that I put away in a memory box for later. Nor do I want to build a border wall around myself trying to patrol where the journey takes me. And I refuse to whip myself into always working to ‘become’, when really….I can finally (and deserve to) just be.

As I jog through my second lap of grief, I’m still focused on being and learning. Still learning about the importance of choosing me over and over again. Still learning that everyone grieves differently AND different versions of the people we lose. Still discovering that I cannot hurry grief. And most importantly, still accepting that I am no longer…me. The “me” before my losses. And often that makes my grief feel more harrowing. Here I am trying to ‘keep going’. And here’s my old self just bringing her ass right along with me. No matter what I feel or how tired I am, she’s always here. Accompanying me, taunting me, and begging me to just be and do what I used to. But I can’t.

It’s been a challenge trying to lean into the realization that grief isn’t just losing a person, it is also losing pieces of me, how I previously defined myself, what I used to like, and how I’d show up. I’ve tried to meet this challenge with intention, even despite masses of guilt, wanting to people-please, and desires to hold on to people, places, and things that may not be a good fit anymore. Through it though, I just try to have this constant reminder…that I can start over as many times that I need to in this life. That I can do hard things. And grief? No matter what lap you’re on… is DEFINITELY a hard thing.

More Lessons from Grief

1. Just like our healing and self-love journeys, grief isn’t linear either. I can recall working through all those damn stages of grief. Anger. Denial. Sadness (LOTS of sadness!). Depression. Acceptance. Consciously, I don’t think I intentionally thought to be ‘done’ once these were over. I knew it wouldn’t be ‘over’ over, but I damn sure didn’t expect to go back to different stages. Like starting the new year off mad as hell. And mad for so many different reasons. Mad that my Papa left me. Mad that I didn’t get the life I wanted with him. Mad that he wasn’t better to me. Mad that I had to start a new story without him. All my sadness from my first year had metamorphosed into anger this year, and I’m okay with this. I had to permit myself to really feel what frustration felt like for me and why. I’m understanding more and more that each lap doesn’t always mean taking giant leaps. It’s baby steps to this grief thing, too. And there’s no finding your way back to what you used to know (or be)…there’s only finding your way FORWARD.

2. I don’t have to always find solutions. Grieving while Black is one thing. But grieving while Black and trying to work, heal, AND take care of yourself? Whew. It’s something completely different. There are a lot of days that I’m exhausted. And I don’t have the energy to do anything but the bare minimum. While a day in bed sounds lovely (and it is), it isn’t easy when you grew up high-achieving and with the message that being Black meant working twice as hard daily. I was the kid into everything and did everything. And had the grades. And just did ‘the things’ (whatever ‘the things’ are). So, to even admit to myself now that “I’m tired” or “Actually, I think I need a break” or better yet “No”? It’s rough. Sometimes, it feels like I’m not just pushing back against what people and systems expect of me. Sometimes, I’m fighting to push back against ME. And the spiraling thoughts telling me I’m not going hard enough. And the to-do lists I write. And the unrealistic expectations that I have for myself. Instead of viewing the state of my everyday being as a problem, I’m trying…to just breathe and be.

3. Anticipatory grief is a thing, too. The thing about losing multiple people back-to-back? You not only realize how little control you have over life. But, you also realize…death could happen at any time. Since losing my grandfather, uncle, and teacher-turned-dear-mentor-and-friend, I’ve become more fearful of losing more people that I love. Especially my grandmother. As she ages, the reality sinks deep and her transition also gets closer and closer. And apart from her aging, if the Grim Reaper can really come at any moment, then no one is immune (young or old). My friends too. This part of my grief is tricky. While it’s allowing me to be more present in the times I am afforded to spend with people, it’s also highlighting where I sometimes push the people I love and care about away as if I’m trying to avoid the sting of inevitable loss and hurt. Like I’m trying to shield myself from grief’s destruction again. This lesson, for me, is perhaps the most challenging one to work through and understand. Because if grief and love are all entangled in each other, isn’t it better for us to have love and be love now….than to wish we had done more later?

in the same breath that i love ferociously, i inhale and retreat out of fear. so, sometimes distance feels like the solution to protect myself from the blunt force of inevitable loss. sometimes I find myself crying over deaths that haven’t even happened yet. the mere thought of knowing the people i love could be snatched at any moment…is often paralyzing. so, i keep myself safe with isolation. because if i can cage up my heart and all my ‘i love you’s’, maybe goodbye won’t hurt so bad. even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. the truth is…even when love was silent and withheld its words of affirmation from me…grief was still loud. loss was still screaming at me. looming over me. terrorizing me with the love I wanted to give but forcibly couldn’t.

If you’ve read this and you’re on your own grief journey, I hope you take the shape of whatever grief tries to mold you into. I see you.