Grief, an Act of Justice

“This didn’t bother me before,” they* state, eyes downcast and shoulders heavy.

I pause, witnessing the emotion present in the room with us. It is slow and painful, yet it is calm and warm, too.

“You didn’t know how wrong it was,” I quietly reply, and we sit together, grief swirling in the air around us.

It doesn’t matter what it is. It might be a broken relationship. A frustrating boss. A persistent eating disorder. A past abuse. A painful church hurt. Regardless of the issue bringing someone into my office, the person sitting in front of me will eventually, almost always, encounter grief.

And it is almost surprising, how this emotion arises. We think we are over something, or an event in our past is not necessarily important. And yet, our emotions tell a different story. One of grief. We want to push back against it, get over it, somehow avoid it. Move on.

But we’d be remiss to try, for grief is an act of justice.

Grief is an emotion tied to loss. Many of us were unable to grieve the wrongs we experienced, simply because at the time of their occurrence we did not know they were wrong. We might not have had the brain development necessary to understand the breadth of what occurred. We might not have had the permission to believe ourselves. The pain might have been too much. Acknowledging the wrongness of an experience might have been scary, maybe even earth-shattering to our worldview or foundational relationships.

And so, grief waits. It is patient, biding its time as it abides in us, until we are ready and able to acknowledge it’s breadth and depth. We become adults grieving our childhood selves, our teenage selves, our early twenties selves, our yesterday self. We experience grief for the past in the present, allowing it to move through our bodies and teach us. Grief provides us with an opportunity to enact justice on behalf of our past selves, with the simple acknowledgment that this was wrong.

This should not have happened.
This was not okay.
This is sad.

Grief tells the truth about the impact of an experience, and that in and of itself is an act of justice. A justice that many of us need. So, for whoever needs to hear it:

It is just to grieve the abuse you went through.
It is just to grieve the way your parents failed.
It is just to grieve the hopes you’ve lost.
It is just to grieve religion.
It is just to grieve the person who is gone.
It is just to grieve whatever it is your soul compels you to grieve.

Grief might just be the justice you needed.

*As always, these are amalgamations of different clients and counselling sessions.