Grief

Regular readers of this Blog will know already that 2023 was not a banner year for this old codger. Having to deal with some truly heart-wrenching situations, I feel somewhat qualified to profess competency about dealing with grief. The statue at the left circulated Social Media recently and took a hold of my soul, squeezed it firmly, wrung out the remaining tears, and spoke volumes to how I was feeling.

According to the artist's web site, Melancholy, the product of the talented Albert Gyorgy, portrays the void that grief leaves us with. The sculpture depicts a figure made of copper sitting on a bench slumped over, with a giant hole in the center of it. This hole represents the massive void that we all feel when we lose someone dear to us, and many people have expressed their appreciation for the sculpture portraying the exact emotions they feel, but perhaps haven’t been able to quite put into words. Gyorgy felt intense sadness and isolation with the loss of his wife and went on to create this beautiful piece of artwork as a way to cope.

Monica Bobbitt is quite likely the author of the following poem, and although I did find a web site with a post that claims Ms Bobbitt confirmed she was the author, I didn't find anything that definitively confirms it. According to both her Facebook profile and her blog (A Goat Rodeo), Bobbitt is a Canadian military widow who writes and lectures about living through grief and loss. Putting these kinds of feelings into words is appreciated and respected, at least in my opinion. She expressed similar sentiments in her blog post "50 Things I Learned After I Was Widowed" making it seem very likely the poem was her genius.

Grief
This is what grief is.
A hole ripped through the very fabric of your being.
The hole eventually heals along the jagged edges that remain. It may even shrink in size.
But that hole will always be there.
A piece of you always missing.
For where there is deep grief, there was great love.
Don’t be ashamed of your grief.
Don’t judge it.
Don’t suppress it.
Don’t rush it.
Rather, acknowledge it.
Lean into it.
Listen to it.
Feel it.
Sit with it.
Sit with the pain. 

And remember the love.
This is where the healing will begin.

Gyorgy's statue, Melancholy, can be found at Lake Geneva, Switzerland. The artist's own web site claims that the "birth" year of the statue was 2013-14, so it makes sense that it was the inspiration for Ms Bobbitt's poetry which began to appear on Social Media posts in 2020. His web site offers that Gyorgy chose to settle in Switzerland after a childhood filled with discrimination in Transylvania, and travels through Bucharest and Satu-Mare, where he eventually built his own foundry. His web site features a number of thought provoking pieces (CLICK).

My personal thanks to both Gyorgy and Bobbitt for gifting themselves to the needs of other's grief journey. While profoundly personal, our ability to navigate the process with sufficient success, finding the light at the other side of the vortex, is akin to shining a beacon at the exit of a long tunnel, making the journey along the pathway to peace much easier.

Once again, just sharing some of the really cool tidbits out there on the Internet that were just waiting to poke a finger in my curiousity, prompting a flood of personal gratitude for those intent on making the world a better place.

UPDATE:
It seems that I've reached the point in my life where grief comes in regular waves as people I've befriended suffer all manner of obstacles, tragedies, or afflictions. April 18th will always be slightly tainted as the day my 'brutha from another mutha' Jeff Kyle succumbed to his Glioblastoma. Always one to look for the silver lining, these periods of mourning serve to intensify my relationships with those still with us.