I once crossed paths with a very lovely gal who mentioned some bits about her time in the Peace Corps. I asked her to tell me more about her experience. She paused and then said, “It was such a big experience that it’s really hard to talk about.” And she left it at that. She didn’t try and I believed in that moment that it was a big, life-changing experience. Wow. That is perfect.
That fits impeccably with trying to talk about the loss of a child. It is such a big experience, that it’s really hard to talk about. When people don’t talk about it much, it’s not because there’s nothing to say, it’s because there’s too much to say. There is no succinct way to discuss such a big loss. If I run into someone who wants to acknowledge the loss and discuss it in a brief conversation, I always find my attempts are inadequate. I can’t do it justice. I feel like I give the impression of a tidy little package neatly tied with a bow, and that’s not how it is.
Trying to discuss it briefly is like standing in front of a giant sequoia and having someone ask you to describe the entire forest. For a new griever, they are just trying to figure out this foreign place for themselves so it can be nearly impossible to talk about well. For someone who’s been at it for a while, there are so many nooks and crannies, so many different avenues that could be discussed, that it’s hard to do. If you really want to know about the forest, you’ll need a genuine interest and a lot of time to give. This Capture Your Grief project breaks the experience into bite sized chunks. It gives you the opportunity to discuss several different avenues in a pointed way, and as you’ve seen by my ramblings, there is no shortage of things to say on any of them! Even with these bite sized prompts, I have to figure out which direction to take it and how to limit it to a reasonable length. There are still so many parts that can’t be seen in these snapshots, but it does give the opportunity to talk about it in a more detailed way.
