Megan Devine

We need to talk about the hierarchy of grief. You hear it all the time__o grief is worse than any other. I don__ think that__ one bit true. There is a hierarchy of grief. Divorce is not the same as the death of a partner. Death of a grandparent is notthe same as the death of a child. Losing your job is not the same as losing a limb.Here__ the thing: every loss is valid. And every loss is not the same. You can__ flatten the landscape of grief and say thateverything is equal. It isn__.It__ easier to see when we take it out of the intensely personal: stubbing your toe hurts. It totally hurts. For a moment, the pain can be all-consuming. You might even hobble for a while. Having your foot ripped off by a passingfreight train hurts, too. Differently. The pain lasts longer. The injury needs recovery time, which may be uncertain or complicated. It affects and impacts your life moving forward. You can__ go back to the life you had before you became aone-footed person. No one would say these two injuries are exactly the same.

Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

When you try to take someone's pain away from them, you don't make it better. You just tell them it's not OK to talk about their pain.

True comfort in grief is in acknowledging the pain, not in trying to make it go away. Companionship, not correction, is the way forward.

What we all share in common - the real reason for this book - is a desire to love better. To love ourselves in the midst of great pain, and to love another when the pain of this life grows too large for one person to hold. This book offers the skills needed to make that kind of love a reality.

Some things cannot be fixed; they can only be carried. Grief like yours, love like yours, can only be carried.Survival in grief, even eventually building a new life alongside grief, comes with the willingness to bear witness, both to yourself and to the others who find themselves inside this life they didn__ see coming. Together, we create real hope for ourselves,and for one another. We need each other to survive.I wish this for you: to find the people you belong with, the ones who will see your pain, companion you, hold you close,even as the heavy lifting of grief is yours alone. As hard as they may seem to find at times, your community is out there. Lookfor them. Collect them. Knit them into a vast flotilla of light that can hold you.

The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can't be cheered out of. You don't need solutions. You don't need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

Every loss is valid. And every loss is not the same. You can't flatten the landscape of grief and say that everything is equal. It isn't.

Acknowledgment--being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one's own life--is the only real medicine of grief.