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Nick Cave’s letter – No, grief and love are not intertwined.

This letter (I’ve included the relevant part) has been shared very frequently this week after Nick Cave wrote it, answering the question of a fan, and discussing the death of his son and his feelings around grief.

“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.”

Often I feel my focus should be purely on talking about healing from grief after a death and how to do it….and not at all on undoing any of the popular ideas that do the rounds. That I should be talking about a new and better way to understand grief, rather than trying to tear down the old out-dated unhelpful information. But popular these ideas are, and the rounds they certainly do….and a lot of damage on their way around. So I feel a need to comment on this, particularly for those of you who feel, who know, that healing totally and permanently from grief is a possibility.

Nick Cave is of course describing his own experience and his own feelings. This blog is not a comment on his feelings and his experience so far – what he feels is what he feels. It is also not a comment on any of his spiritual views.

The problem for me is with the first part, where he talks about what grief is, what it’s for and how long it lasts: “If we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”.

No no no no.

THIS idea is one of the many reasons why most will never give up their grief and abhor the idea of being without it (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously). Because if grief and love are the pact….if they are truly intertwined…..then why on earth would you ever want to be without your grief?! Why would anyone ever want to let it go? And what would it say about you if you did? What would it suggest about your love for that person if you were no longer to be in grief? If you were to heal?

There is no pact. They are not intertwined…unless you decide they are and choose to keep the grief for that misguided reason.

Before they died you didn’t need pain to match the love. Why would this become so after their death – that suddenly the love cannot exist on it’s own?

Hasn’t it always been easier to feel your love for someone without being clouded by painful emotion (like anger, fear, sadness)?

Grief is not love. Love is love is love.

Love lasts. Grief is not meant to. It certainly IS negotiable.

And the great pity, the thing I wish most people knew, is that grief does not help your love, bring it closer, make it bigger, hold on to it.

It does the opposite.

Over time the pain of un-healed grief (that you’ve paired with love) has you pushing down the memories of them, thinking of them less often (because it hurts), and thus tapping in less to that love.

Grief is an experience to travel through after a death. And when you fully have and you’ve done the work to heal it completely – which you can – then all that’s left is LOVE. And this is the most incredible thing. To feel JUST LOVE.

This is the way you honour someone’s memory. Not through staying in as much pain as possible for the rest of your life and calling it something it’s not.

The other issue with this kind of statement is the shame it brings to those who don’t have a profoundly painful experience of grief.

The path of grief is very individual and differs for each person, And many people do not have the intense pain that is expected. Many people are ok, or more ok than they expected. Some even have a peaceful or joyful experience after a death.

Now, the reason you never hear about this is not because you don’t know anyone like this, or that it’s rare. It’s that they don’t share it, for obvious reasons. They keep it to themselves. They don’t share it publicly. They don’t share it with you.

But they share it with me.

I have had countless emails over the years from people after a death – and yes, sometimes parents whose child had died – who aren’t feeling as bad as they expected. They aren’t going through what they thought they would, what they’ve been told they should….and they don’t feel they can tell anyone. Because this narrative that grief and love come together tells them they are supposed to be in pain that matches their love…..and stay that way, and it brings them and their love into question. Instead of seeing their experience is simply being processed differently, they understand that there is something wrong with them, and people may even think badly of them…..because they (and many) believe incorrectly that their lack of pain suggests a lack of love. And this isn’t true at all.

The truth is most people are still stuck in grief, and most will remain there. Not because healing isn’t an option…..but because they don’t know it is and they don’t want it (for reasons like this – they they believe it goes hand in hand with love now.)

Don’t be swayed by their descriptions and beliefs about grief. They describe their pain from inside of it and simply don’t know that anything else is possible other than this. Forever.

There is a reason I do not follow any grief pages on Facebook anymore, and very few death-related pages. Because of the constant sharing of unhelpful grief info which is taken wrongly as truth.

Just because most people believe something, it certainly doesn’t make it true.

Now excuse my bit of shouting here but…

GRIEF IS NOT LOVE. IT IS NOT INTERTWINED WITH LOVE. NO, THIS IS NOT THE DEAL.

LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE. THAT’S IT.

GRIEF IS YOUR EXPERIENCE TO TRAVEL THROUGH AFTER SOMEONE HAS DIED. YOU ARENT MEANT TO LIVE THERE. YOU ARENT MEANT TO UNPACK YOUR SUITCASE AND SET-UP SHOP.

COMMIT TO YOUR LOVE. NOT TO YOUR PAIN. THEY AREN’T MEANT TO WALK HAND-IN-HAND FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

HEAL YOUR GRIEF, WHICH YOU MOST CERTAINLY CAN, AND YOU HAVE FULL ACCESS TO THAT LOVE, WITHOUT ALL THE PAIN.

Don’t be swayed by these ideas about the permanence of grief and it’s link to love.

The greatest way to honour and love someone who has died (and ourselves) is to heal your grief completely so you can love them fully – their life, their death, all of it. Exactly as it was.

I’ve done it. So many others have done it. You can do it too.

Kristie

xx

Nick Cave’s letter – No, grief and love are not intertwined.