Is Joy Possible After Loss?

Source: Rainier Ridao / Unsplash

I heard something profound in a grief support group this week, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It may surprise you that I still attend grief support more than five years in. To be honest, it surprises me too. I keep thinking I’ll leave the group (part of David Kessler’s Tender Hearts online community), but then I check in one more time and invariably hear something so helpful that I am compelled to continue.

The thing is, grief is perpetually evolving. We mostly picture those early, crippling, sobbing days and years, but when that terrible phase passes, we still face new challenges, one after another. Losing a spouse affects every corner of life. Surprisingly, I have only recently come to understand the extent to which I must rebuild my life and identity without Tom.

A struggle we share

I checked in a little late to this Zoom support group, which is specifically for people who have been grieving for a while. At that moment, a woman I like and respect, who lost her spouse about the same time I lost Tom, was talking about her struggle to feel joy. She identified herself as a “do-er”—she has not let grief slow her down, and she stays busy—but finds that she never feels the level of joy she did when her wife was alive.

Yes.

This is exactly what has been on my mind these days: the struggle to feel truly happy even when everything is going just fine. (In my personal life, anyway. Nothing is the least bit fine in the wider world.)

I feel as though, as I said to my therapist recently, misery is my brand. I have a nice life. A nice house. A couple of knucklehead dogs I adore. Lots of friends. Work I enjoy. But I’m not as happy as I think I should be.

What’s wrong with me?

This was exactly the topic of discussion.

But what if that question doesn’t matter?

What if we just accept what is?

What if, David Kessler asked, this is just who you are now? What if this is who we all are? What if trying to be more joyful is not the answer? What if the answer is to stop grasping for more joy and just feel what we feel? Nothing kills the potential for joy faster, he pointed out, than wondering why we don’t feel more.

Okay, in some ways, this is not what we want to hear, that this shadow of sadness is just part of who we are now. But in a way, it is also reassuring: it is permission to stop fighting and striving and simply be. Be right there, in the moment—whatever the moment is bringing—because whatever that is is exactly right. A moment is perfect only when we don’t try to make it something it is not.

Should we be happier? What is should in this case? There is no objective should when it comes to our emotions. “Should” is just an idea we have each invented for ourselves that serves no useful purpose.

“The only thing that can go wrong with this moment is a thought,” David said. The thought that the moment should be something else, that we should be something else, that we should feel something else.

The pull to the past

Let that sink in a moment, because as profound as it is, it was just the prelude to what really struck deep in my heart later in the session, when another group member quoted David from another time, saying:

Grief is a gravitational pull to the past.

Bam.

That’s it. That gravitational pull is what stands between us and joy.

It activates in the moments when we feel the small tickle of joy, pulling us out of the present and back to the past. It makes us remember that we were happier before, that our loved one is gone, that they are missing what is bringing us joy, and that they will never be with us again. It drags us out of perfectly good moments in the present to remind us of everything we miss from the past.

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I’m not sure there is any cure for this beyond awareness and some brain retraining. David suggests that if you hold any beliefs about an afterlife, instead of thinking about how your lost loved one is missing the moment of joy, think about sharing it with them. I hope you are enjoying this beautiful sunset with me. Thank you for teaching me to cook this delicious dish. Have I got the goofiest dogs you’ve ever seen?

And then, hang on to the present as best you can. Don’t let grief drag you from what is to what was and now is gone. There are times when sitting in your grief is appropriate and helpful, but then there are times, if we are to have any hope of future joy, when we want to be in the here and now. We miss our loved ones, we miss our old lives, and we always will, but learning not to sacrifice now to then is one of the challenges of grief as it evolves.

I don’t say I’m capable of doing this yet, but it sure is something to think about.