As a species, we have developed so many different ways of navigating loss that the act of grieving itself can feel almost overwhelming in a way entirely independent of the singular uniqueness of the moment that you personally find yourself caught in.
And yet it seems to me that our cultural touchstones could still do a better job of exploring the crushing sense of pressure that grief often creates — the desperation of needing to recall someone in their entirety, to feel and see them clearly as more than a jumbled collection of memories playing silently on the screen of an abandoned movie theater. It is without a doubt the worst word association game in which you will ever have the displeasure of participating: Grandma. Homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Grandma. A screened-in porch on an unpretentious island house. Grandma. Looping, left-handed cursive that took an entire childhood to learn to decipher.
I have been resisting that urge, as I seek to navigate the swirling emotions daily muddying the waters of my consciousness. It will come as no surprise to those who know me that in this moment of grief I am asking myself how a Stoic would handle the emotion — nor will it surprise those familiar with the school of thought to learn that the Stoics, as it turns out, have a lot to say about the nature of and proper response to loss. It is in fact one of the most foundational themes of the philosophy; both the practice of meditating on our mortality (memento mori) and the practice of actively embracing everything that happens in life both wanted and unwanted (amor fati) are guiding tenets of Stoicism useful for those struggling to process their grief.
Grandma. Croquet on a sprawling front lawn. Grandma. Playing piano together, sometimes with my little sister in three-part melody. Grandma. Trips to the local YMCA’s indoor pool.
In a letter to Marcia following the loss of her son, Seneca wrote that “We have entered the kingdom of Fortune, whose rule is harsh and unconquerable, and at her whim we will endure suffering, deserved and undeserved.” He meant it as consolation — a reminder that death is a natural part of life, that people around us will succumb to it, and that it will hurt, sometimes immensely. It may not be something that you would instinctively say to a grieving friend or family member, but the Stoics believed that consciousness of this unfaltering truth can serve as ground solid enough to allow you to get your legs back under you.
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It is always painful when someone dies, but even more so when there is a pronounced sense of wrongness about the way it happens. It is difficult to comprehend the failure of the codes and rules that simultaneously confine and support us — we all put our trust in the systems that underpin our lives every single day, from getting into an Uber with a stranger to ordering food at a restaurant. We go about our lives under the assumption that those around us are just as beholden to the cogs and gears that keep the world spinning as we are, that the forcing mechanisms pushing us forward are steady enough for us to put our weight on, stepping out onto tightrope after tightrope with nothing but a promise of inevitability.
There is a way of looking at the world in which it does not matter whether you think people are inherently good or evil as long as you have faith in the systems that bind us. And if you want to continue to exist in society, that means putting your faith in these systems, relying on them even with the knowledge that they are imperfect and sometimes fail.
And they do fail. And we do live with that knowledge. We might not remind ourselves of it every day in the way that Epictetus or Seneca would encourage us to, but we all take every breath with the back-of-mind knowledge that any of them could be our last. It is an unfortunate yet constant possibility; that your life could end just as easily at the hands of misfortune or simple human error as by virtue of illness or old age.
Grandma. Ordering in broken French at a boulangerie en Bretagne. Grandma. Leaving chicken carcasses out in the driveway for the fox. Grandma. A ghost tour in Savannah before heading back to a must-be-haunted Vrbo to play mafia and eat together.
*****
How often can a heart break in a million ordinary, unassuming ways? How many people in your lifetime will hear you truly sob? How can you find light when the shadow of grief consumes you, a dark monolith that tells you it is taboo to feel joy in the face of sorrow? How do you move when you are paralyzed by loss, when you come face to face with a jagged rift in your world and it is staring you down, daring you to flinch, and you both know that all it will take is one crack in the wall to create ruins of you?
Grandma. A household newspaper that only my family ever contributed to or read. Grandma. Christmas cookies appearing to create new traditions where they had not existed before. Grandma. Watching the Polar Express for the first time in 4D, wind whipping at my face.
The Stoics had answers for these questions, too, and they are once again foundational to the philosophy as a whole. While influencers (and the general public) today interpret Stoicism as a method of suppressing emotions, it is actually the literal opposite — the Stoics lived by a doctrine that allowed them to face, process, and deal with emotions immediately rather than running from them. So instead of hiding from grief, or numbing the pain with distractions, we focus on it. We parse and process what we’re feeling, removing our expectations, our entitlements, our sense of having been wronged. We sit with the grief and accept it as part of life, just as much as anything else.
Grandma. Making jello at home while my sister is born. Grandma. Newspaper clippings falling out of holiday cards. Grandma. Talking through my writing on the phone, interrogating each sentence and word to satisfaction with blatant disregard for the minutes slipping away.
Only then can we begin the work of celebrating the person we have lost. As Seneca wrote to Marcia so many hundreds of years ago, “Has it then all been for nothing that you have had such a friend? During so many years, amid so many close associations, after such intimate communion of personal interests, has nothing been accomplished? Do you bury friendship along with a friend? And why lament having lost him, if it be of no avail to have possessed him? Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has removed their persons, still abides with us. The past is ours, and there is nothing more secure for us than that which has been.”
Seneca, like many Stoics, would chide us for giving into our grief. He actually did scold Marcia for “remembering only that final appearance of Fortune,” telling her that “If you admit to having derived great pleasures, your duty is not to complain about what has been taken away but to be thankful for what you have given.”
This is how I want to respond to loss, whenever it may afflict me again throughout my life. It is how I want to respond to the loss of my grandma now.
Grandma. An accidental four-way call produced by my father. Grandma. Morning glory muffins, checkerboard cakes, and homemade caramels. Grandma. Reading Frog & Toad together in the hammock before making root beer floats in the garage.
My grandma was endlessly and aggressively curious; unrestrictedly patient and warm with every single person she met. She sometimes couldn't stop talking and always felt in perpetual motion. She loved writing of all kinds — I can still recite “Who Has Seen the Wind?” by heart — and I credit both her and my grandpa with my love of reading and writing. She taught me to tie my shoes. She came to visit me at college, where she was thrilled both by the entirely unplanned spectacle of golden retriever puppies frolicking across a quad and by an excellent piano recital that happened to be scheduled during her time on campus. She took me to the Albi on Washington Island for soft serve ice cream, to Bennison’s Bakery in Evanston for breakfast pastries. She and my grandpa kept me and my sister busy creating full meals where all the dishes started with the same letter, sung The Grand Old Duke of York with us walking back from the playground. She made my whole family laugh uncontrollably after a mix-up with one of my friends who decided to stay for dinner and the expression “finger in the dike.” She asked unending questions about a college-years trip to Sri Lanka I took with an old friend. She architected bonfires so that we could sit around them and tell ghost stories. She once made me pore over noticeably outdated maps of Chicago public transit with her, worried about how I — a fully grown man at the time with a working phone, accompanied by my similarly adult girlfriend and sister — would get downtown to see the Second City.
I’ve been struggling with an urge to avoid reducing such a complete person to a collection of personal memories; my grandma was and is so much more than that. But I believe the Stoics would tell me that I am understanding these feelings in entirely the wrong manner; that there is nothing more important than celebrating time enjoyed together and that bearing witness to life does not mean diminishing it.
I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about where I come from and how every single one of us is nothing more than a patchwork quilt of all of the people and pets and moments that we have had the privilege of knowing. It’s easy to forget, I think, that we are more than our own people. And I am unceasingly and unyieldingly grateful for every single influence on the person I believe myself to be today.
I love you, grandma. I’m glad I knew you.