Skip links

How Long is Too Long

11/21/2022

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.

-A. A Milne

How many of us have received this question following a loss. Still? Is it still bothering you? Why are you in so much pain?


Still. Yes. Five days, five weeks, a year, you name it. Of course, it still hurts. And of course, I remember.
We have it so deeply engrained in us that any kind of hardship or loss should not last more than a couple of days, weeks, a month the most.


Anything more than that is considered… something is wrong with you. As though the loss is just a temporary inconvenience, something minor, and surely not something that warrants more time to be upset over.


Grieving people are met with impatience precisely because they are failing the cultural storyline of overcoming adversity. If you don’t do it quickly, you’re not living the right story.


There is a gag order on being truthful and recognizing what real life is. The world needs us to just be OK because seeing you in pain is incredibly hard to witness. Our story might be too hard to hear.


What we need is for our friends and family to recognize that pain is not always redeemed. Being brave – is not about overcoming, what hurts or turning it into a gift or a success story.


Being brave is about waking up to face each day when you would rather just stop walking up. Being brave is about staying present to your own heart when that heart is shattered into a million different pieces and can never be made right. Being brave is allowing pain to unfurl and take up all the space it needs. And being brave is being able to tell that story.

This website uses cookies to improve your web experience.