Grief…Our Timeless Gift of Love

Laurie Taylor

Each year, I talk with hundreds of grieving people. As I listen to their stories, I can almost physically touch their pain and devastation…somehow feeling the profound depth of their love for the one who died. These beautiful, brave mourners have taught me that grief and love are not just intricately connected, but are one and the same.

When we think of love, we often imagine hearts and friends and family and romance. We certainly don’t have images of the immense hurt, sadness and despair of grief. However, I believe grief is love that becomes so painful we no longer recognize it as love and, thus, label it  “grief”. 

Grief is firmly grounded in our capacity to give and receive love. Even though all relationships end in one way or another, the great majority of us choose to love. And when the end comes, we grieve in direct proportion to the depth of the relationship with the person we love. We have the amazing capacity to simultaneously hold both the heartache and the gratitude of having had that person in our lives. And beneath the feelings of isolation, sadness and loneliness is love.

When someone we love dies, the intensity of the pain surges to unbelievable levels. As long as the pain remains severe, we feel deeply connected to them. However, as the intensity lowers and we experience fewer times of intense grief, we often fear that we are losing our connection with them. We don’t understand that we aren’t losing our connection at all. Love is simply returning to a less painful, more tolerable level. Eventually, we begin to recognize it as the love we’ve always had for them.

Grief is our timeless gift of love. Where there is deep grief, there is great love.

If we allow ourselves to love, we must also give ourselves permission to express our grief. To continue to live well and to love well depends on it.