On Grief
Seneca and the overcoming of grief
The loss of a friend or loved one is one of the hardest things that we will have to endure. While we can understand that death comes for us all, when it does in fact arrive, in any capacity, the knowledge of its existence does not necessarily take away the pain.
Grief is something that comes with the loss, a pain and suffering that carries with it many different emotions.
The psychologist Elisabeth Kubler Ross famously proposed the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) but since that time, psychologists have subsequently learned that when we actually experience grief, it does not happen in a linear progressive pattern such as moving from Denial, to Anger, to Bargaining, rather, it progresses in a non-linear way, filled with ups and downs within each emotion — some days our anger is very high where denial is low, the next day, or even within the same day, it can reverse and anger can be low and denial can once again take hold.
Seneca, writing to his friend Lucilius, similarly writes:
“Nothing becomes hateful as quickly as grief. When fresh, it brings sympathy and visits of consolation…”
Sheryl Sandberg, writing about the sudden loss of her husband, captures those early struggles with grief perfectly:
“In those early days and weeks and months, it was always there, not just below the surface but on the surface, simmering, lingering, festering. Then, like a wave, it would rise up and pulse through me, as if it were going to tear my heart right out of my body. In those moments, I felt like I couldn’t bear the pain for one more minute, much less one more hour.”
CS Lewis, writing about his experiences with grief after the passing of his wife, captured the dragging feeling that accompanies the emotion, stating:
“Part of every misery is misery’s shadow… the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer.”
Seneca states that it is time that puts an end to grief, “even if you did not choose to put an end to it yourself.”
The other way through grief is to find a form of gratitude for what was once, as hard that is. Having gratitude helps us through the darkness and reminds us that we have more to our lives.
Oliver Sacks, the famed neuroscientist, perfectly captures this attitude in one of his final works, Gratitude. Writing at the end of his life as he succumbed to cancer, he wrote:
“Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
Grief is a natural part of life. Experiencing it does not make us weak, it makes us human. It reminds us of the transitory nature of life and that the life we once knew meant something to us. And for that, we can be grateful.