Griefs Unobserved

on the things we hold dearly and silently

I’ve been thinking about hopes deferred and griefs unobserved…

…the precious wishes we don’t speak aloud for fear that vibration of voice will mar their gleaming idealism. That hearing them named will make the loss or the lack more real.

We all have these. Things we hope for but don’t really believe we will see. Things we believed with every part of ourselves would be and remain ours, that dissipate, devolve, disperse. We try to express them to other people and are met with “at least…” and “just be grateful…” and “look for the lesson in this.”

Wishing is not ingratitude. Hoping is not discontentment. Grieving the loss of what you’ve wanted but never held is just as valid as mourning what you’ve had and lost.

In the darkness of January, I think about these things. And I try to remember that we all carry them. In our resolutions and our theme words; in our overreactions and our silent reflections; in the ways we choose to move forward: cautious, care-free, hesitant, headlong, ambivalent, ambitions, unabashed. The people who seem to have “it” altogether are grieving as much as those who speak their pain, as those whose pain speaks for them.

I hold my hopes so tightly sometimes. Not just in clenched fists, but tucked away where no one can seem them. Inside a pocket, zipped closed so they can’t fall out. We protect valuable things, we hide them away, we disguise what they mean to us so no one will try to take them from us. Because we’ve trusted the wrong people in the past, and our hopes have been damaged, our trust has been broken, our safety has been stolen.

It has taken time to build trust with new friends, but I’m learning to let others carry my hopes for me. It’s frightening to glance over and see my longings held in their open hands. There’s a tenderness in knowing someone else sees the value in my wishes, that they grieve the lack and loss with me and continue to hope.

Even better is that these wonderfully wounded people let me do the same for them.

“I’ll hope for hope” is something we say now, because in the darkness and the cold we may not be able to hope for what we want, but we can manage a little spark of hoping for hope. Especially when it’s for someone else.

If your 2022 left you feeling like hope is too heavy a burden, I want you to know this: I will hope for hope for you in 2023. And I’ll help you carry that hope until you believe for yourself.