Grief and generality

I have been reading many loss memoirs lately, and I notice so many of my phrases in them. Parts of Claire Bidwell Smith's The Rules of Inheritance resonate particularly. My first reaction was a twinge of writerly betrayal, like my beautifully crafted ideas were pre-conceived before I got to them. My deeper and truer reaction, though, is that these feelings are universal, and sometimes there is one best way to express them. Drowning in grief, for example, seems like a metaphor that rings true for a lot of people when they have lost a loved one. Sometimes it's hard to breathe. Sometimes you have chest pain. Sometimes you cry so hard you can't breathe. Sometimes you wonder when the tears will stop, as you watch them springing and trickling through the day like rain on the curves of a car window.

My grief is different from Bidwell Smith's, to be sure. It's particular to who I am and to the person I have lost. It is shaped by my age, my upbringing, my surroundings, and how I spend my time. Ultimately, though, this shared vocabulary helps to remind me that other people have been through this, and have not drowned - or have drowned and come back to shore.