Two Dads dealing with grief

Two dads talking

Two daughters dead

Two men struggling

How should they feel?

But there is no should

Just pain

Pain they want to avoid

Pain they need to take

As the only way

To survive the loss

And maybe one day

Thrive 

***

The writer Taylor Sheridan is responsible for a lot of the drama programmes that I watch on television such as Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, and a movie I’ve just seen called Wind River. Like much of his material there are hugely violent scenes, and there are also deeply moving insights.

In Wind River there are two dads who have both had daughters die by violent means. One says to the other that someone once said to him “I got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that you're never gonna be the same. You’ll never be whole ever again. You lost your daughter and nothing's ever going to replace that. 

“The good news is that as soon as you accept that and you let yourself suffer, you allow yourself to visit her in your mind. You remember all the love she gave. The point is, you can't steer from the pain. If you do, you'll rob yourself of every memory of her, every last one. The first step is to take the pain. It's the only way to keep her with you.”

There is a distinction I explore elsewhere about the difference between pain and suffering. But the simple point from this poignant scene is that life hurts, sometimes it hurts so much that we want to make it go away. And yet the only way to really survive, and maybe one day thrive, is to take the pain.