How to Carry the Burden of Grief

Grief can take on many overwhelming forms. Storytelling can help ease the pain.

Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• Grief can be an isolating experience.
• Everyone grieves differently.
• Tools such as storytelling and finding community can help lighten the burden of loss.
• Love and grief tend to go hand in hand.

Grief is not something we learn to manage in school. The only place we get to know it intimately is in the school of life. Jamie Anderson once wrote: “Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in the hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

Our lives are framed by relationships and the love we put into them. Whether we live slowly or in the fast lane, loss is indeed a part of life, no matter which pace we choose. If you have ever loved someone, you know how painful it can be to lose that person. After all, none of us get out of life alive. So how do we learn to deal with such loss? How can we identify what it is we need to carry the hole in our hearts?

People grieve in as many different ways as there are people on this Earth. It is a deeply profound, personal experience that can be isolating, as no one can take away the pain of loss. It is a journey we must navigate. Alone.

But there are tools to help us along the way as we learn to live without our loved one who has passed from this lifetime. One method is storytelling: whether telling stories about the person we miss, joining a community of like-minded people who are dealing with similar emotions, or reading stories about grief, love, and loss, such as The Dog Who Followed the Moon by James Norbury. It is a new, beautifully illustrated book about a young puppy named Amaya who is befriended by an aging wolf who rescues her from his aggressive pack. In an effort to reunite Amaya with her parents, the unlikely duo go on a journey, using the moon as their guide. It is a lovely, moving story about death, loss, loneliness, and recovery.

And stories like these help us recognize that while we may feel alone on our journey, we also have friends to help us navigate scary territory.

As Jamie Anderson says, grief is love with no place to go. But once that love and the grief informed by it find a home, they can help us carry the burden a little more lightly. Together.