"Cry, she's worth every tear"
Whispers from a GG group circle..
There’s moments in my line of work that absolutely floor me.
To be honest, most of my work consists of being floored. Floored not in the way you might think, but floored in the way of WOW. Working with people day in and day out will do that to you. When you get to witness true humanity and introspection near enough everyday, it’s pretty lifechanging.
This weeks flooring moment came from a new group circle attendee in the Mother Loss group circle. I’m of course going to be careful here not to reveal anything about any of my attendees, but there are some true magical moments that take place in these circles that I want to share here where I can. They’re too special not too.
Week one in the group circles is very much introductory. There is nerves and excitement in equal measure. My favourite thing near enough every attendee says on our 1:1 is “I’m kind of excited, is that weird to say?” I often laugh because it might be the 4th time I’ve heard it that week and always respond with “There is everything to be excited about finally meeting people who get it” and that often brings a smile of understanding to their faces. The excitement isn’t perhaps in committing themselves for 7 weeks to look at the biggest pain point in their life, the death of a loved one. But that fact they don’t have to do that alone. They are doing it in true community.
During this Mother Loss group circles first session, one attendee shared about her experience of what the past few years has been like living without her mum. Heads nodded back to her on the screen and with each nod you could feel her confidence grow to keep on sharing. You could feel her shoulders drop.
She shared how the tears still flow, frequently. We again nodded in solidarity. She went on to say how she shared this with one of her mums friend, almost questioning why after all this time she still weeps and weeps for her mum. To which this friend replied:
“Cry, she’s worth every tear”
It floored me then and it floored me now. There was a collective “wow”. You could tell it really landed with a lot of us. Lots of pens scribbling away to jot it down, me included. An absolute gem.
I had to meditate for a bit on why this imbedded itself so much in my chest post the call, and I guess I’m unpacking it now. My connection with this statement is not down to needing the justification of my mums value for my tears. She is absolutely worthy of every gallon of my tears.
It’s the permission.
The permission to let those tears flow without judgement. That it doesn’t matter how much time passes, they are worth your tears. Whether they died 2 weeks, 2 years or even 20 years ago. They are worth your tears. My mum dying, my darling friend Poppy dying will always be the saddest events of my life to date. I’ll never not cry about that. If the goal is to be able to talk about those events in my life and them to be anything but not sad, then I don’t want it. That doesn’t mean I live a sad life or am living stuck. Sad, terribly sad things happen and they can stay just that, sad.
“Both and” is something I bang on about in our groups. It’s the best way I think to truly try to understand what living with pain and joy looks like.
I can say all of what I said above and still tell you I have joy in my life, because I allow both to sit at the table. The world we live in is extremely binary. Good/bad, happy/sad, right/wrong. I think in grief, binary mindset has no place. Grief is grey, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Adapting to a bit of “both and” can make such a difference in trying to carry the load of grief.
I hope this stack in some way has granted you permission. You might not have been looking for some, or perhaps you needed some but didn’t realise like I did on that call. Do it your way, because you and they are very much worth it.
We can collectively thank my attendee for that gem, so thank you N!
If you’ve felt a pull to be part of a Grief Gang group circle after reading this stack, head to the link here to find a group circle that might work for you!
10000%. Sometimes when I was crying I’d say to myself, ‘My sister deserves this noise, this pain.’ Let it out! I wanted her to hear it. Eventually after years of suffering I reclaimed my grief, be it tears or depression, I renamed the pain as love.