I was born in grief. My father’s mother died not long before I entered the world, leaving for me a fragmented family. Old resentments had flared, folks had squabbled over their inheritance, and some of my relatives still don’t really speak to each other.

As a child, I did not know this, but I felt it. A mystery of loss was written in my DNA, legible in brief excerpts: a black-and-white photo of a grandmother I could not recognize, the cousins I didn’t meet until I was thirteen, an occasional tearful distance in my father’s eyes. If you had asked me about her then, I would have told you how my dad cried about his mom; I had not yet seen this grief was mine too.

Before long I began wondering what would have been. I would search her smiling eyes in that picture in our stairwell and construct some mental image of our relationship. I latched onto the small details my dad shared with me; she had a master’s in psychology, she loved jellybeans, she made ceramics. What would we have in common? What would she like about me? Would she have smiled at me the way her picture did? It was both strange and mundane that I did not know her. I felt her absence in every visit with the extended Jennings family. There was always something incomplete about our time together, like a house party where the person everyone knows couldn’t come. We rarely found the familiar ease that characterized gatherings with my mom’s side, and as I grew older this difference only became more apparent.

In adulthood I do not know my grandmother, but I feel her. Her loss left the blurry outline of a woman who could have loved me, and through conversations with my father I have learned to recognize more of how her life shapes mine. She was one of my nearest relatives to work in the mental health field, she has done much to define Jennings family culture, and the work my dad did to grieve her loss helped him present me a model of emotionally open masculinity. As I come to know her better, I can put the face to a grief I’ve felt forever. Yes, this is my father’s loss, but I’ve inherited the task of mourning her too, as someone she has touched deeply.

Life and Death

Soon I will die. So will you. Death is life’s blurry outline. As children we do not know this, but we feel it. We come from thousands of deceased ancestors we could not hope to count or name, and yet the mystery of their loss is written in our DNA, legible in brief excerpts: stories passed down generations, family traditions no one can explain anymore, pictures and heirlooms you must ask your grandparents about. Furthermore, your future relatives will soon have to cope with your loss. Though neither you nor they know how, you are currently shaping countless lives with your every action and inaction.

I’ve heard people say you die twice, once when you die physically and once the last time your name is spoken. This is short-sighted. Rather, our legacies live on in DNA, archeology, geology, and human consciousness long after people forget our names. Ancient cave painters, the author of the Epic of Gilgamesh, fossilized hominids, these are all people who continue to influence our world and the stories we tell ourselves. Earth is this perfect record-keeping device, where every mote of entropy we perpetuate leaves some un-erasable mark. We may not know this record in full, but we feel it. We feel the weight of generations of human lives past and present, and this leaves us with two choices: either we confront this legacy of life and death and mourn the loss of those who have come before, or we try our best to ignore our grief and live lives determined by unnamed tragedy.

Grief and Life

You were born in grief. You may not know this, but you feel it. If you fear death and refuse to mourn, then you lose the chance to make something of what you’re missing. To move beyond fear, to love life and ground our decisions in our values, we must confront our loss and allow ourselves to feel its effects. Existential therapist Irvin Yalom called this “staring into the sun,” facing and accepting the reality of death to empower ourselves to live meaningfully and purposefully.

When I participate in mourning my grandmother, my life grows richer. I feel connected to my family, and I find empathy for our generational faults. My motivation to make something of my life increases as I gain perspective on my own mortality and my place amidst the generations before and after me. By looking behind, I can look ahead with hope for the future and a desire to create something better for whoever’s next.

Confronting Grief

What would it mean for you to confront your grief? How has loss shaped your life, even where you don’t recognize it? You may not know with certainty, but I’m sure you feel it. If you have the opportunity, consider asking your parents and grandparents what stories of loss have shaped them, and learn some excerpts of the grief engraved in your body. And, as always, talk to someone about this. Speak to a loved one about your reckonings with loss and consider sorting it through with a therapist too. Feel free to reach out to us here at Optimum Joy for some extra support, and please take care of yourself.