Digging Through Grief: The Pain, the Lessons, the Light

One of the most intricate emotions to process is grief. I have seen people destroy themselves and lose their minds in trying to reason loss.

The scapegoat may vary from the faceless enemy in the tomb of our consciousness to a specific person or people. We love a good scapegoat to blame for all our troubles.

In grief, wars have been fought, atrocities committed, and lives lost.

A few years ago, I lost my father. An enigma that I have tried to solve most of my life. A man who was kind, gentle, and present. A man who withered before my very eyes. Muscle, sinew, and ligament dissolved into bone, and skin folded into a tent for a once vigorous and happy man.   

Standing at the door of a bleak future, I refused to open it. When circumstances forced the door ajar, I came to the same door down the corridor. I was confused, lost, and disoriented—the reverberation of a sheltered life, one where my father, once a provider and protector to many, needed the same in return.

An oasis sustains life and perpetuates abundance in a place demanding thrift. My father was an oasis. A man I looked up to. He personified resilience and a deep desire to help others, almost to a fault.

I faulted him for being too caring and idealistic for a while. He was a good man.

Yet, many good men are a mirage to those who don't understand their intentions. Hordes of opportunists were always close by.

My father was judged harshly by those closest to him, whom he had walked with a perilous journey of rural poverty. He had lifted many as he rose, some spitting back in his drawn hand. 'Who does he think he is?' they wondered. Hate and jealousy brewed where an oasis needed to exist, and as the oasis withered, the desert consumed the abundance meant for family and clan.

I witnessed the ravage on the sidelines and observed an imperfect man seek redemption and build alliances. I saw him laugh with many, then go eerily silent when they departed. A labyrinth that confused and confounded me, yet I was also ill-prepared to take time and unpack the puzzle.  

It was unfortunate that as he lay ravished by disease, months away from his demise, the walls stood impermeable. Alas, I was unable to understand my father's mind. A mind that was slowly ebbing away.  

I lost someone I deeply cared for.

When I lost my father, my grief turned industrial. I found myself busy with the burial preparations to distract myself. I was mad. Mad because I felt he had given up as soon as the doctor gave the disease a name.  

I felt he had chosen to be a martyr when I had hoped he would be a fighter.  This was unfair.

He had said the battle would be pyrrhic. I didn't understand until years later that he had sacrificed for his family.   

As we buried my father, I didn't know how to silence the questions and sense of loss.

We gave him an honorable burial, as near to the house as possible—the house he'd poured his heart and soul into building for his family over the years.

My industry ground to a halt as soon as night arrived. It left with the crowds who'd traveled near and far to pay their last respects.

A heaviness came over me.

Grief lanced with years of not having a father to play with as a child or one to help me make sense of the world around me.

But who was I to ask what he knew not? He had never known a father and was raised by a single mother competing for attention with many siblings.  

He had tried—the Lord knows he did. When he could, he would be there, quiet and distant. He loved silence while with me, which I loathed in later years but embraced as I aged.

Mostly, I had to navigate his silence and discover the world in my likeness. His indulgence in silence was a nod and a smile, but he never gave examples or guidance from his life.

I felt like a stranger trying to discover a new land regarding his past and upbringing. I peered into stories shared by uncles and relatives who were kind enough to mention an anecdote here or there. I gazed at pictures framed in albums and picture frames and told stories in my likeness, allowing my imagination to recreate him.

My father had found Christ later in life and thought sharing his past would corrupt a young mind. I knew not. But it was hard to return once we formed the habit of silence.

 

As the breeze grew strong and the chill burned my skin, a tinge of tears warmed my face.

I had lost a father.

What had I given him back? Throughout my youth, my identity was a battleground, and I desperately wanted his acknowledgment and direction.

But here I was, standing at the edge of his grave. With questions unanswered.

In the following months, I fell into a bottomless pit I had dug myself, shovel after shoveling.

I kept pointing a finger at his ghost, only to see several fingers pointing back at me. I am imperfect and flawed, just as he was. My flaws were hidden in the lies I told myself to keep the lights on. For the first time, I began to hear the advice he had given me that I had refused to listen to, and I realized how hurt he must have felt to see me make my own mistakes. He wanted the best for me while I tried to prove that I was man enough to make my own decisions.

As I fell into the pit, I saw only darkness, impacting many relationships and friendships.

I wanted everything to make sense, yet I was confronting the most fundamental question of our existence: Why am I here?

Grief often prompts us to confront the mortality of our loved ones. When I speak of love, I mean it in all its complexity—layered with the trials and confusion that often accompany our feelings for those we care about. In family relationships, this can be particularly complicated. We may love selfishly or unconditionally, yet still struggle with a flawed understanding of what love truly means.

My understanding of love was flawed, I realized then and subsequently.

Two people loved each other intensely, peacefully, and unconditionally, nurturing their children in a stable home despite their difficult upbringing.

They had done all they could.

I had tried to emulate them and build my haven, and my example was crumbling.

Grief allowed me to ask some very fundamental questions, as it should. Why, oh why, Edwin, do you consider yourself a savior? Why do you think you can fill your father's shoes? And why would you even attempt that, knowing how bitter his end was? Why aren't you following the path laid out for you?

Grief can be so debilitating that we turn it into a weapon against others.

It is at moments of grief when the illusive extended family will turn up, help diligently with burial arrangements, serve the obligatory condolences, and then go back to their travails and struggles. And you cannot labor to castigate them. Because, in the end, we all do the same thing.

You are forced to grieve alone. And when you ask, 'Why are you not there for me when I am grieving?' You will be looked at strangely and asked to move on.

Yet some societies allow people to grieve publicly and, over extended periods, to cleanse the soul.

The discomfort brought by grief reminds us that we are mortal in a chaotic world with winding and unnerving paths.  

Grief led me to discover more profound truths. I began to ask existential questions that were not only difficult but nearly impossible to answer, and they made me uncomfortable. I realized that I had already been in a hole, but the fog had lifted, and I understood that specific actions were now required of me.

Many of us eventually gain a glimpse of the profound depth of the holes we find ourselves in; yet, instead of embracing this realization, we often recoil—eyes wide, we seek someone to blame for our predicament, only to gradually slip back into the comforting darkness of ignorance. Some choose to dig deeper into their despair, willfully shutting their eyes to the reality around them.

Then there are those who, with desperate gasps for air, struggle to claw their way out of the suffocating pit that confines them. It took me an entire year to truly comprehend how deep this pit ran and to summon the strength to embark on a transformative journey of rediscovery and reinvention.

For that awakening, I am profoundly grateful. 

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Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! I'm Edwin Moindi, a Life and Habit Coach dedicated to helping people understand their habits, navigate their emotions, and cultivate emotional intelligence for a happier, more balanced life. I'd love to hear your thoughts—feel free to reach out and share your insights or questions!