Small Comforts
A perspective on grief
Today is a hard day, but yesterday was worse.
I said goodbye to my constant companion for the past 16 years, Bennett.
If a perfect cat existed, he was it - gorgeous, fluffy, smart, thoughtful, well-mannered, unbelievably good behavior, sweet… everyone loved him.
The crushing weight of grief has threatened to suffocate me dozens of times in the past 24 hours. I pull myself together, fray at the edges, break apart, recenter, repeat.
It will be like this for a while, and that’s ok.
When it feels like I’m going to drown, I remember these 3 things:
I would not change a single thing about Bennett’s life or his passing. I gave him everything I could for as long as I could. There is nothing else I could have done to love him harder or keep him healthier.
If he were still here right now, he’d be in pain, barely mobile, and not eating. As death is an inevitability, it is preferable to his suffering.
In this exact moment, I am ok. If I go deeply into the present moment and ignore all attachment to the past or the future, the burden of grief is easier to carry. I only exist in this exact moment, and in this exact moment, I can do this.
It’s not much, but it’s enough.
Loss will come for us all in some way or another.
It’s inevitable - and we can’t fight the inevitable.
The other half of the inevitability is that it will hurt. Fighting the hurt won’t make it go away any faster, but accepting the hurt will help the healing process begin.
We don’t need to bounce back. We don’t need to be ok. We don’t need to do our best work. We don’t need to find the meaning in the misery.
We need to exist in whatever state we are in for the moment we are experiencing.
That is enough.