Channeling Grief After Henry

Hiding from grief means hiding from life

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Hiding from grief means hiding from life

I’ve been thinking about the red herrings in my life. The ones that sidetrack my attention from grief. It’s uncomfortable admitting that I crave these escapes. 

How much diversion is healthy? Is the answer different if you’ve suffered a loss?

Distracting from the truth

In the first few months after Henry died, I needed to pull myself away from dark places and unanswerable questions.

If I wasn’t working I was reading, emailing, texting, or speaking with someone. I listened to dozens of audiobooks, some about grief, while I drove or walked. I played podcasts as I brushed my teeth and applied concealer to the dark circles under my eyes. 

I wasn’t just hiding from my grief, I was hiding from my life.

One day, desperate for distraction, I started listening to “Genghis Khan.” Was this really the right time to learn about a Mongol Emperor? The obfuscation had to stop.

Making space for grief

I began allowing moments of silence into my day. I started to deal with a black blizzard of feelings. I also joined grief groups and a grief writing workshop. Gradually, I became more comfortable sitting with my sadness and absorbing my new reality.

Knowing Henry is gone isn’t the same as admitting, “I’ll never see my son again.” 

I started writing about Henry and what his loss meant. The more I thought about my son, the better I could honor him. This helped me plan a celebration of life ceremony. I reached out to his beloved summer camp to launch a gardening program in his honor.

Finding balance

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I’ll always crave diversions from the hard truths of life. Here are some tips that have helped me find an equilibrium.

• Set a routine to kickstart your day. For me, that’s reflecting for 10 minutes, walking my dog Ramona, and eating breakfast. 

• Create a daily space for grief and schedule it. It’s something David Kessler, Megan Devine, and others discuss in their writing. It could be a time to journal, meditate, or look at family photos. I write during this time. 

• Tackle the toughest work when your mind is most energized.

• Use distraction as a reward. I save my audiobooks for the second half of the day after I’ve completed my most important work.

• Curate your news intake. Select the articles you read (online or otherwise) instead of making cable news the background track of your day.

Grieving consciously

In her new book, Conscious Grieving: A Transformative Approach to Healing from Loss, grief therapist and author Claire Bidwell Smith writes about making space for grief. She recommends consciously engaging with our grief. That starts with staying present and getting the support you need to deal with your feelings. She shares a new framework for each stage: Entering, Engaging, Surrendering, and Transforming. This YouTube recording offers a great summary.

Team Molly: How the Steinsapir family channels their grief 

Kaye Steinsapir lost her beautiful daughter Molly on Feb. 15, 2021, due to injuries from an electric bike accident. Kaye and her family channel their grief through the Molly Steinsapir Foundation. In the 3+ years since its founding, the Foundation has raised funds and made countless gifts to support children and families in need. One of the organizations they support is Camp Harmony. Each summer, Camp Harmony hosts 300+ campers from underserved areas in and around LA for a week-long sleep-away camp in Ojai. Molly is helping children and families every day through this work.

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