The Mathematics of Grief

mathematics of grief

August 19, 2024 / Full Moon

Five years, three years. Those numbers keep announcing themselves in my head, without any volitional effort on my part. It’s like the ticker that runs at the bottom of a news screen, endlessly looping to remind me what was going on in August of those years.

Five years ago this week I was in Southern California, working with a crew for one long week to clear out the house where my parents lived for nearly 60 years and getting it ready to be sold. Earlier that August I had boarded the Southwest Chief at Union Station in Los Angeles with my mom and dad, bringing them to their new home in Santa Fe, closer to me. They moved into an assisted living facility where they would reside for 17 months before dying of COVID, within two weeks of each other. More numbers

The backstory is what makes those numbers so poignant. That story includes decades of witnessing my mom and dad hoarding every possible item until their house was literally bursting at the seams, and the years just before this train ride to New Mexico when their lives were falling apart, unpaid bills and health crises piling up. It took dogged persistence, community support, and miracles to break through their denial (and my own) and move them into a safer environment. That’s what I feel and remember when I look at these photos just after we boarded the train:

August three years ago, I was visiting my dear friend Katya for the last time. I flew to Rochester, New York, and spent a few days with her at a hospice home. Ten days after I left, on September 7, 2021, she died after a seven-month journey with cancer. More numbers.

Katya’s story is inextricably tied in with my parents. Her friendship was crucial in nudging me to continue engaging with mom and dad when my baser instincts were to walk away from the whole matter. When they arrived at their new home in Santa Fe, Katya helped with organizing their belongings and making them feel at home. Just before the pandemic, she stayed with my dad on a December day when I took mom to a dentist appointment. When we returned, the two of them had decorated a tiny Christmas tree in my parents’ apartment. Katya was the one who took care of my dog Lucy when I spent a week in Santa Fe so I could be with my mom while she was dying. Never in a million years would I have imagined she would die just eight months later, nor did she.

I actually have a bit of an aversion to numbers, something that I learned from

Chris Guillebeau

is called dyscalculia. I find it hard to wrap my mind around equations. But these numbers, this mathematics of grief, comes without bidding and seems to serve a kind of healing function as I continue to metabolize the loss of those beloveds.

Through most of my life I have been lucky to have not lost many people to death. That shifted the past three years, but still I recognize so many have lost so much more. I don’t mean that in a competitive way, just a simple recognition that we’ve all been touched by grief and some of us have gotten hit pretty hard.

I think of the story about the Buddha when he was approached by a young woman named Kisa Gotami. Unable to accept the reality that her very young son had died, she was carrying the boy’s body in search of a medicine she hoped would revive him. When Kisa Gotami met the Buddha, she asked for his help. He could see how much pain she was in. He directed her to find a white mustard seed but—this was the important part—he specified that the seed had to come from a household that had not experienced death. Kisa Gotami took on the task and went door to door. While everyone was ready to give her a mustard seed, there was no family that had been untouched by the loss of a loved one. When she realized this, she experienced a kind of waking up and was able to finally touch in to her own grief, accept her son’s death, and literally lay down his body. It was the truth of interdependence and the realization that she was not alone in her grief that were the potent healing factors.

As the years go by since those Augusts three and five years ago, I notice the quality of the grief changes. But it never disappears. The first year after I lost my mom, dad, and Katya, I was in a kind of shock. It was hard to function, things that used to come naturally like having a good memory and being able to multi task were no longer present. A skillful grief counselor and a circle of dear friends helped me find my way through that year.

Katya had much more experience with death than me, having lost several family members to cancer and having worked as a hospice social worker. Long before her own journey with cancer, she once said to me that the second year of grief was often harder than the first. I didn’t understand what that meant until my own second year. After the shock gradually wore off, the harsh reality of life without my parents and my dear friend sunk in. It was brutal in a different way than the first year.

This is now the third year. While in many ways things feel more “normal,” there are moments when grief visits again, often with a punch. This month, with these cellular memories of five and three years ago, I find myself surprised by the emotions arising in me. Anger is a big one, especially around Katya’s death. My mom and dad made it to their 90s, they lived full, good lives. But my friend died at 58. She was taken far too soon, at least that’s what it feels like to me, and I am pissed at God. Which is ironic because I don’t actually even believe in a “God.” But it feels like the anger has to go somewhere.

All the meditation practice in the world doesn’t prevent these feelings from arising, but it does help with being in a relationship with emotions that can lead to compassion rather than devastation. And when we are lucky enough to practice in a community of people, that web of connection will give us strength and comfort in the depths of our grief. The mathematics of grief changes from “one” to endless multiples of compassion and lovingkindness.

I wonder about this “mathematics of grief” – is this something that you have experienced as well? I would love to hear your stories.

There are some beautiful human beings writing about grief in this place… here are a few pieces that have touched me deeply in recent days:

• “I didn’t know if my heart was bursting or breaking” by

  Tanmeet Sethi, MD

• “bone, feather, and wing” by

  Chloe Hope

• “My mom died and I didn’t write a newsletter for 2 months” by

  Emily McDowell

• “Two More Weeks” by

  Elena Brower

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