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Why You Should Call Yourself a Student of Grief
What if you allowed yourself to learn from loss?
I was a student when my mom died. Twenty-one-years-old, I was in my senior year of college and hurling myself towards the golden future I’d decided for myself.
Of course, her death brought that future crashing down. Seemingly overnight I became lost, angry, unmoored, and a frequent member of the dark-pit-of-despair club. Nothing made sense, and every day I woke up with the sense that I would never be able to shake the oppressive, heavy pain that pressed down on my body.
After I graduated college—on Mother’s Day 2014—I moved to Chicago and, tended to my fresh grief by poring over books at the local library. Everything from memoirs to spiritual guides to self-help manuals was fodder for my brain. I felt a little unhinged, devouring book after book in an attempt to make sense of the loss that had swooped in and permanently changed my life. I felt crazy, fixated as I was on grief, grief, and more grief.
One day, as I was inhaling yet another grief book, I had a realization: I feel just like I did when I was in school. Holy hell, I feel like a student.
As the weeks and months went on, I playfully began referring to myself as a student inside my head. When I visited yet another grief…
