Wild Grief

In recent years, a number of books exploring grief have found a wide readership and public attention.

The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller has resonated deeply with those seeking a more soulful and communal understanding of grief.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald brought grief into the mainstream in a different way through the intimate and often raw account of training a goshawk after the death of her father. It has since been adapted for film, starring Claire Foy.

Another widely acclaimed work, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, offers a more experimental and poetic exploration of loss. This too has been adapted for film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

What each of these books has in common is an experience of grief as something wild: something that stirs the grieving person into actions they might never have contemplated before their loss. They tell us not only what happened, but what was encountered, what was learned, and how they were changed.

Interestingly, wild birds feature strongly

In ancient lore, the crow is recognised as a messenger from the Otherworld, often associated with the arrival of difficult or life-altering news. Max Porter writes about how Crow both challenges and supports him in and through his grief.

In H is for Hawk, Macdonald enters into a demanding and consuming relationship with Mabel, the goshawk—learning how to train and relate to her, while simultaneously navigating her own grief. What unfolds is not simply a story of falconry, but of transformation through encounter.

It is a remarkable book.

Today, we tend to speak of processing grief, of trying to understand it, to work it through, to make sense of its impact. Some even speak of “computing” grief, as if it were something that could be resolved through thought alone.

But when grief is treated primarily as something to be processed, the risk is that our grieving becomes harder, not easier.

Because grief does not sit neatly within the mind.

It affects every part of our being.

And yet, in grief, the mind often shrieks for understanding, for explanation, for order, for something to hold onto, when something frightening and wild has swooped in dramatically, seized us, and left us feeling helpless and afraid.

Grief is not rational.

It is organic.

It moves through body, mind, and spirit alike.

In my own work, I have seen wild grief play out in many ways that do not sit easily within rational understanding.

I supported a young parent whose little child had died unexpectedly. She and her husband were broken apart, devastated by their horrendous loss. In the months following the funeral, the mother would visit the grave weekly to talk to her child, spending time, remembering, always bringing with her small things to leave there.
When the child’s birthday came round, parents, wider family and close friends gathered at the grave. They brought a birthday cake, which they shared together, remembering and speaking the child’s name. Small gifts were left on the grave. A similar gathering took place at Christmas.

Another mother, older, mourned the loss of her adult son by visiting his bedroom morning and evening. She would open and close the curtains, greet him in the morning, and say goodnight to him in the evening. She would sit on his bed, remembering him, mourning him.

Her son had been born with a disability which, while limiting in many ways, had not prevented him from living his life as fully as possible. He and his parents were extremely close, perhaps deepened through years of hospital appointments, admissions, and surgeries. After his death, his mother was beside herself with grief for a long time. This daily ritual, which continued for some years, was her way of trying to live with the excruciating pain his death had brought.

I’ve known grieving people who’ve driven to a remote place in their car in order to scream and scream and scream and scream. Why not?

Each of these examples shows us how visceral, how wild, grief can be, like an animal which will not easily be tamed: unpredictable, powerful, overarching, demanding, relentless.

And yet, paradoxically, it is when we begin to engage with and relate to our wild grief that something begins to shift. This isn’t because the grief disappears, but because in time, we may come to sense that it contains wisdom – perhaps a deeper love – along with a new understanding of the complexities within both life and death: that they’re mysteries which invite our exploration, not our control.