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When I was 19, I was diagnosed with an incurable degenerative retinal disease, which was about as fun as it sounds. After meeting with a succession of capable but cold specialists, I found Dr. Jacobson, whose compassion was as uncommon as his brilliance. He had to administer the same awful tests his colleagues had, involving electrodes on eyeballs, but unlike the rest, he offered to play my favorite music while he did it. What helped more than the music was the knowledge that this doctor thought of me as a person rather than a collection of damaged cells.
I’ve seen him every year for more than two decades. Over the years, we’ve talked about Philly cheesesteaks and our mutual love of Shakespeare and his revolutionary research, which I was confident would unlock a way to help my failing vision.
And then, a few weeks ago, I found out he’d died. As I reeled from this news, I struggled to communicate the nature of the loss to those around me. I knew it didn’t make a lot of sense. I didn’t know him well. I didn’t know the names of his kids, or how he liked his eggs cooked. But I’d loved him all the same. I’d trusted him to take care of my failing eyes, but in the process, he’d taken care of far more than just that.
So I sobbed as I read and reread the announcement of his death, and when my daughter asked why I was crying, I told her, “My doctor died. And he was really, really important to me.” I don’t know if she understood, but she didn’t need to. She put her arms around me, and it helped.
There are as many kinds of grief as there are people who grieve—and these sorrows don’t only happen after a loved one dies. Our lives are full of other kinds of crushing losses. The unsuccessful fertility treatment you can’t afford to repeat. The novel you spent years writing that never got published. Leaving a beloved community that you called home.
“Grief is the pain that arises when a future we once counted on is no longer available to us,” says Marisa Renee Lee, grief advocate and author of Grief Is Love, “whether it is because of the death of someone you hold dear, a divorce, an infertility diagnosis, or an unexpected disability.”
But because society often doesn’t recognize these instances of grief, people don’t believe they’re entitled to the sorrow they experience, says psychotherapist Megan Devine, author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK. And that—spoiler alert—is a problem. “It’s not in our best interests to pretend things don’t hurt when they hurt,” says Devine. “If we don’t find a way to process the feelings, to name them, they’re going to come out sideways, find other ways to speak.”
The first order of business then, is: Let the grief speak. To that end, we’re amplifying six under-discussed sources of sorrow that demand to be felt and shared.
5 Kinds of Grief Society Doesn't Acknowledge
I’ve seen him every year for more than two decades. Over the years, we’ve talked about Philly cheesesteaks and our mutual love of Shakespeare and his revolutionary research, which I was confident would unlock a way to help my failing vision.
And then, a few weeks ago, I found out he’d died. As I reeled from this news, I struggled to communicate the nature of the loss to those around me. I knew it didn’t make a lot of sense. I didn’t know him well. I didn’t know the names of his kids, or how he liked his eggs cooked. But I’d loved him all the same. I’d trusted him to take care of my failing eyes, but in the process, he’d taken care of far more than just that.
So I sobbed as I read and reread the announcement of his death, and when my daughter asked why I was crying, I told her, “My doctor died. And he was really, really important to me.” I don’t know if she understood, but she didn’t need to. She put her arms around me, and it helped.
There are as many kinds of grief as there are people who grieve—and these sorrows don’t only happen after a loved one dies. Our lives are full of other kinds of crushing losses. The unsuccessful fertility treatment you can’t afford to repeat. The novel you spent years writing that never got published. Leaving a beloved community that you called home.
“Grief is the pain that arises when a future we once counted on is no longer available to us,” says Marisa Renee Lee, grief advocate and author of Grief Is Love, “whether it is because of the death of someone you hold dear, a divorce, an infertility diagnosis, or an unexpected disability.”
But because society often doesn’t recognize these instances of grief, people don’t believe they’re entitled to the sorrow they experience, says psychotherapist Megan Devine, author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK. And that—spoiler alert—is a problem. “It’s not in our best interests to pretend things don’t hurt when they hurt,” says Devine. “If we don’t find a way to process the feelings, to name them, they’re going to come out sideways, find other ways to speak.”
The first order of business then, is: Let the grief speak. To that end, we’re amplifying six under-discussed sources of sorrow that demand to be felt and shared.
5 Kinds of Grief Society Doesn't Acknowledge
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