Can You Do It Alone? Does Grief Need A Witness?
I recently heard someone say “grief needs a witness” in a YouTube video. At first I got a warm feeling all over, as if my body was agreeing. A sudden epiphany bloomed like, why yes, grief does need a witness! This is beautiful. Then my cynical side, that critical little devil on my shoulder, piped up and said, “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t have that! Not everyone has a witness, but thousands of people are grieving. This is so unfair!”
To be told there is something essential we need in order to fully feel, to process, or to heal our grieving hearts feels like a kick in the teeth.
“Grief needs a witness” reminds me of the saying ‘if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ If your mother dies, and no one is around to witness your grief, does it still hurt as badly?
Is it better or worse to grieve alone?
Do we need someone to see it?
Do you prefer to hide? Do you need to?
But does grief actually need a witness? I’ve been doing this grief thing mostly on my own since my mom died. I tried to go to therapy for grief support, but ended up spending a year working through my divorce process and never actually unpacked the grief about my mom dying at all.
Even without a witness, my grief was definitely still happening and still hurting.
What kind of witness does grief require? I’ve let my children see me cry, and they know that I’ve struggled with losing my mom. And yet it’s not my child’s job to witness my grief or to fill a supportive role.
My grandmother died in the 1990s, and I don’t remember even a glimpse of my mother grieving. I think she bottled everything up 1950s style and pretended everything was fine. Maybe she leaned on her friends. I know she wasn’t in therapy and my parents’ marriage was a dumpster fire of abuse, so I don’t think she had a witness either. She probably broke down in solitude like I do, and then picked herself up and dusted off the pain enough to go back to momming and working.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If we all grieve our dead mothers while hiding in the woods does that make a sound?
Does it have an impact?
How badly are we hurting ourselves?
What if we have no choice?
I’m not sure why we mask our pain, cover our grief, and suffer in silence as if we are aging house cats with cancer who slink off into the bushes to die alone. It’s probably because as women we’ve long since learned to downplay our needs in service to others.
I certainly don’t think that grief needs a witness for it to happen. Surely humans are often forced to grieve alone, without the luxury of a witness.
Saying ‘grief needs a witness’ is a privileged thing to say. Not everyone has someone capable of standing witness to intense grief. Not everyone has someone who can withstand it.
Well meaning friends might say “let me know if I can help”, but they probably don’t understand what they’re signing up for–that staying calm and steady during persistent, ugly crying and despair is a lot harder than dropping off a casserole.
Being a true witness to grief is a hard task, one not for the faint of heart. It’s excruciating to stand by knowing you can’t truly help because you can’t bring their person back. The grief witness observes one of the most desperate parts of humanity.
It’s maybe more accurate to say that grief wants a witness. Or that with a witness to grief your thundering heart may slow down or ease up. I’ve been doing deep grief for just over five years now, and I can’t imagine anyone would choose to do this alone if they had the option of a supportive, caring witness to this pain.
It must be lovely to have a connected spouse with the bandwidth and ability to support a grieving partner. Or a sibling or friend, willing to stick around through the hard stuff. Or a trained therapist with grief experience. These are all wonderful witnesses, should you be fortunate enough to have them.
But not all of us do. Some of us scream out our pain in the woods where the tree fell and then trudge back inside to start dinner as usual. But it still makes a sound. Grief vibrates the very air around us. It changes the fabric of our world.
Grief puts a new lens over our eyes. Grief is a conscious experience. Grief can feel so loud, even in silent moments.
Does your grief have a witness? Does it help? Or do you wish you had one? Write a comment below and tell me your story and whether you have a witness. Maybe we’ll pass each other one day deep in the woods or in the produce section of the grocery store. If you’re reading this, I see you, from my tiny corner of the internet. You are not alone.
I’m not good with dates so I know my mum has been gone as long as my nephew is old + a year. She never knew he was on the way. He’s about 7 wow how has that much time passed? My grief has been weird. I moved away from my family following a man, I found an amazing community and a home but the man didn’t stick. I have 2 great kids. But now I’m alone. They moved out. I grieve when I can’t make the phonecall that would help the day pass happy, that would help me feel seen. I grieve just a little bit when I see her picture. I grieve when I see my dad alone. I grieve when I see my sisters lovely family, that my mum never saw and share that with my sister. When my daughter produces some awesome art and I know that her love of art sprang from my mum. I mainly grieve when my sister shares the ache she has. When you talk about it needing a witness, I think sharing stories with others, about the person you are grieving, even if they didn’t know them, helps. A person is not truely gone till the last person who knew them is gone. I feel that. I’ve not found anyone, to fill the gap she left. No combination of people seem to fill the role she had but I do find talking and sharing stories helps. She still validates me. I feel her love. I try to share it. I hope your journey gets easier. I think crying is good. Some cultures keen together, that looks like it would feel validating, shared burden, shared loss.
“A person is not truely gone till the last person who knew them is gone.”
^ I think about this so often. It’s heartbreaking to me how quickly people are forgotten. I’m so lucky that my mom’s best friend still remembers her and thought of her like a sister. She contacts me on holidays and days I’d normally hear from my mom. My mom is actively alive in my memory, but it seems like most of my family will only remember her in passing briefly when they’re reminded she existed.
I don’t think anyone can fill that gap. And that is kind of the point unfortunately for those of us left behind.
Sending love and support to you, friend.