Because we lost
families and cultures
as children,
before we had words
and could only express
the loss and grief
through our bodies,
crying, acting out,
behaviors that adults want to stop,
we learned we do not
have permission to grieve.
And yet, grief is the holding
of the paradoxical and simultaneous
experience of love and loss.
We grieve because we loved.
We grieve because we have lost that love.
We loved our mothers, fathers,
sisters and brothers. And
we lost our mothers, fathers,
sisters and brothers.
Why not give permission
to grieve that love
that was lost?
This is the grief
that never gets expressed
and released: that turns
into anger, self-loathing, hate.
We have all experienced love
and the loss of that love.
Through a parent,
who did not return our devotion,
a lover, who no longer
matched our passion,
a friend who turned enemy,
a death.
We find it
hardly bearable
to imagine
we loved
so much
and were
so loved.
And not believing
ourselves to be
loveable and loved,
we cannot access
the doorway
that is offered
by sacred grief
because we are in denial
that we were ever loved.
And so, we sit
only with the loss, and
we think we are grieving
all we lost.
But the sacred grief
is the realization:
we are grieving
our knowing
of how much we loved,
of how much we are loved.
Copyright © Hollee A. McGinnis. All rights reserved.
Hollee A. McGinnis, MSW, PhD, is a scholar, writer, healer, and wayfinder. Adopted from South Korea, she has worked for decades in community organizing, policy, and research on childhood adversity, adoption, complex trauma, cultural loss, identity, and mutual aid. As a wayfinder, she integrates Western science and Eastern ancestral wisdom for transformation and healing.
Hollee writes at https://substack.com/@holleemcginnis