I wrote this piece after attending a grief ritual on Lummi Island this spring. At the outset of the ritual weekend, a group of us took a small ferry to the island. On the boat, a friendly older lady asked us what we were doing on the island, and consumed by anticipatory excitement, I blurted out, “We’re grieving!’

The group laughed uncomfortably, and the woman seemed confused. Then she said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that. And I’m glad that you’re doing that, it’s important that people do that.”

I thought that was a pretty good response. And after that exchange, it occurred to me that we have no standard response for community grief work, probably because we don’t typically talk about grief in public. So I came up with my own:

Thank You for Grieving

May you soak the earth with your tears

may you tear up the soil with your clawing hands

may you seed the torn ground with your screams and laments

May you till the soil of our collective heart

so that something can grow out of all this frozen ground

this dead grief, this zombie world

this medicated world, this unfeeling world

Somebody has got to cry for us

Somebody must open the tap

Before the pressure crushes our hearts,

crushes our joy, crushes the life out of us

So thank you for grieving

Because there’s no shortcut to acceptance

There’s no shortcut to healing

This isn’t Hallmark card bullshit

This is a trust fall into the part of you that says NO to all of this

To this sick world, to every wound you have received

To every wounding that you have witnessed

Helpless to change anything

It’s letting the No, the Hell No, the God No

Move through your body,

From the soil of your soul, up through your belly and lungs

Out through your clenched teeth

In a sob, in a scream, in a wail that is unmistakable

*That* sound

That sound

that is grief

And when you let it move you,

Rock you

break you down

From the ashes of you

You will find

Your beating heart

Having met the dragon,

You will wake up from your nightmare

Your eyes open at last

The morning on your face

You’ll take, maybe, your first breath ever

As someone who is truly here

Truly with the horror

And the beauty of what This. Is.

And there you will find

not grief, not sadness, not pain

but true Thanks. Giving.

celebration for all of this

Because when you embrace the monster we call grief

And when you let it drag you into the cave

On the other side, in the light of day

You’ll see its other face

Which is beauty unimaginable

And hear its other name

Which is: Praise