Grief Is Love

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Grief Is Love - book except

One thing is certain: Grief Is Love. When we mourn our dearly departed, we long to hold them again, kiss and hug and continue with life, but we cannot. We’re left with no outlet for the love we feel for them, except to hold that very love in our hearts. Facing that they are gone, being unable to express that emotion to them, causes grief. Grief is love.

This book is both a tribute to Ronald Jerome Holte, my partner of thirty-one years, and it’s a memoir meant to offer aid and encouragement to survivors who endure their own period of grief.

I must warn you that some of the writings included here are sad and heart-wrenching while others may simply be emotionally raw. I am baring my heart. If I can’t do that, then what is there with which you who suffer and seek support might find rapport and validation for your own grief and nearly unnatural experiences? As I am learning, grief is not something anyone should have to do alone. The creation of this book comes from a place of pain. Most books I’ve read dealing with grief and bereavement are written, perhaps a year or more after the author has developed a better grip on their own anguish. Yet, the writing seemed sterile and formal, at least to me. I write this book from inside my pain, while it is ongoing and, at times, maddening.

One thing I ask is that you not feel sorrow for me. While I am normally quiet, meditative, positive, even passive-aggressive, I am never the narcissist. I write this book to give insight into the moments of acute anguish and desolation to which you may relate from your own place of distress and find validation for your heartache. Almost everyone in their lifetime will face a period such as this. Some will move through it well. Others, like myself, will have great difficulty enduring it. I bare my soul that others will find validation for their immeasurable sorrows.

If you are squeamish about emotional instability, the process of dying, the torment of grief and suffering, and medical procedures, maybe you shouldn’t read this book. I lay my emotions bare to let you know that what you may be experiencing from losing a loved one is not much different than my heartache. All the upheaval that you’re enduring through your loss is okay, anyway you choose to express it.

As a book on immediate grief, I write a lot of my emotions and moods through poetry, which you will find here. I’ve written poetry in the past but am mostly a book-length story writer. With Ron’s passing, a new door has opened and my feelings pour out in verse. The poems aren’t presented in any chronological order following occurrences and changes that I’m going through. They are written whenever emotions and feelings overwhelm me or when my mind dwells on something painful and expresses what I’m feeling through words. They are like snapshots of turmoil welling up at unexpected moments.

I hope I have written the kind of poetry that you can feel. All poems and essays are my own except where the author is noted. I’ve filled in some blanks of Ron’s and my life together, only for continuity. What’s important here is to assure you, the reader, that any grief you’re experiencing, however devastating, is normal, and that you are not alone. I am going through it too.

Also included in this book are messages that I’ve shared from some friends of Ron’s and mine, in their own words, who’ve also lost loved ones. My son, Dean Alan Deal (himself a magnificent writer), lost his father. You’ll find some of his responses included. Ron’s and my friends come from different countries and cultures. You may read varying opinions and outlooks about death, grief, and bereavement, and maybe varying religious practices. Some believe in an afterlife; others do not.

I have gleaned a lot of information for this book from listening to how friends have dealt with their grief processes and wish to pass their solutions along to others. My counselor, too, is a veritable fountain of knowledge and encouragement.

My hope is that you find something among these pages which helps you understand that your grief is completely normal, as you may come to understand from the widely varying experiences of a few others. Despite the anguish, we will all adjust according to what our life situations require for us to live with the memories of those we have loved and lost. Be open-minded and find the validation that you deserve.