An Open Letter to Those Grieving
Dispatches from the Lost Ones Club
Hello. Welcome. Dear —
I was four when my father died. This by no means makes me an expert on loss. It just means I’ve spent a rather extended period of time around grief. It means that, when I was grown-up enough to do so, I was able to choose if and when I wanted to grieve. And I did, as it turned out.
I picked out years spent in, or avoiding, therapy. I decided to crack open the cavity of my chest so the kraken lying there could burst forth to pillage my life. I let those emotional, throbbing, writhing octopus limbs grasp and fling whatever bits of me it chose. I turned that pain to art while sifting through the wreckage of the rest.
I made that choice. Most of you did not — do not — have that privilege.
I do not know which is better but, should you wish to have had that choice, then I wish you did, too.
There are very few times the entertainment industry gets loss right, though they certainly attempt it with enough frequency.
In How I Met Your Mother’s “Bad News,” affable Marshall bounds outside the characters’ episodically frequented bar to call his father with good news. A ritual for him, for them. Father and son. He is listening to the dial of the phone when his wife…
