Grief is a Boulder

Let’s talk rocks. 

 

Geophysicists have an idea to explain how rocks break down. It’s known as fragmentation theory. I think we all have a general idea how this happens but, according to Michael Welland, rocks go through six cycles of being liberated, buried, exposed, and liberated again as they are shaped by ice, water, wind, and time before they become sand.

 

                        When we’re grieving, I think we go through something similar, with the grit and abrasion of grief. We don’t go through grief once and then we’re done. The first time through, the enormity of grief’s boulder gets broken down into rocks. So, while we don’t have one big thing staring us in the face, we now have dozens of smaller rocks that each demand our attention. This may not feel like progress. Our six cycles (or more) eventually break grief down into pebbles that we can carry in our pockets.

 

When we go to the ocean, we are taken up by the wonder—the hypnotic and soothing movement of the waves, the smell of brine, the feel of open air coming from far away, the curlews and sandpipers running over the beach, the cries of the seagulls. We also sense that we are in the presence of something vast and mysterious, something primordial and ancient, because there is death here as well as life. We see the empty shells and carcasses on the shore.

 

We pick up rocks and sea glass from the sand because of their bright colors, interesting shapes, or because they are stones with layers of different rocks fused together from when the earth was formed. The ocean has smoothed and shaped these rocks into pebbles, including some that are shaped like hearts. Why would it do this?

 

Our pebbles from grief also have variety. Some are pebbles of joy, of lazy afternoons walking on the beach with our loved one. Others are reminders of disagreements. Some pebbles are for when we didn’t know what to do, but we screwed up our courage and took a leap of faith. We want to remember each of them because they are part of the composition of our life.

 

When we go home, we put our pebbles and stones into a bowl, or on an altar, to remind us of how special this day was and remind us that the wonders of life are always around us. Sometimes we forget to look up from our feet to see the ocean in front of us, especially when waves of grief are tossing us about.