Time in a Bottle (Body): What is Grief and Mourning?
Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/clear-glass-with-red-sand-grainer-39396/
Since Jeffrey died, I have been travelling a lot through time and have meditated on a few thoughts that I will share. These thoughts are not meant to constitute an essay-length, intellectual exploration along with the references to theories and authors that such an endeavor would require. It’s meant instead to reflect my experience. Although as you will see, I can’t extricate myself from theory (warning). My purpose is not to contribute to any theory exercise. Perhaps “mourning musings” captures the gist. These musings are the product of self-talk on my E-bike. I journal some of these thoughts and feelings, my out-loud conversations, as if I were talking with Jeffrey, especially in the mornings; this self-talk is so robust, a typical psychiatrist would prescribe an anti-psychotic! The E-bike is special. After the shiva I got a call from a local bike shop to pick up a gift--Jeffrey surprised me and had pre-bought an expensive E-bike and it was waiting for me to pick up--I have great conversations with him riding the E-bike.
A friend pointed out to me that I was referring to Jeffrey in the present when I said, “I love him,” instead of, “I Ioved him.” Was this a slip of the tongue? Was I not in reality, not hearing the silence and seeing the absence? Denial? I wondered: can it be both, past and present? I dodged a rabbit on my bike path and pondered.
I know about how to theorize the loss of a loved object. Freud’s masterpiece, Mourning and Melancholia (1917), was ringing in my ears. Jeffrey’s embodied presence is lost to me; I get that! No meds, please. I talked my way into a solution to my past and present slippage, though through no help from Hollywood. I have watched dozens of “grief” movies (someone dies, has died) and the bereave follow, perhaps the director conspicuously or inconspicuously does so, Freud’s theory almost without exception. To unpack this, first, two quotes from Freud (I said I wasn’t, but I warned I would).
“Mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as fatherland, liberty, an ideal, and so on (p. 153).”
Okay. Got it. But then on page 166 of the essay, the template for Hollywood was made clear:
“Reality passes its verdict—that the object no longer exists—upon each single one of the memories and hopes through which the libido (libido is much more than sexual pleasure for Freud, my insertion) was attached to the lost object, and the ego, confronted as it were with the decision whether it will share this fate, is persuaded by the sum of its narcissistic satisfactions in being alive to SEVER (my emphasis) its attachment to the non-existent object.”
Bingo! In Hollywood the widow or widower is grieving (gay or straight—we first had gay lovers on screen, which was new, but now that is old hat, so what follows, up next, the gay widower, it does naturally follow.) sometimes angry, sad, depressed, indecisive, lost, lonely, but invariably caught in this mood trap. Sometimes there is a forced change of scenery. A trip to a never visited exotic, beautiful part of the world; it could be anywhere that fits the description. The widow then stumbles by chance into a relationship, at first rejecting it because of the mood, then in the movie’s turning point, the widower finds a shoebox to place all the memories (photographs, mementos) of the lost person, files the shoebox on a shelf, and moves on, forward toward the new love object. Movie ends. Mourning over. Grief conquered. It makes for a sentimental and emotional movie and it’s not all wrong, it’s just half right.
The second or corrective half is where I found my solution to my “I love” or “I loved” slip. There are two components to the resolution. First, I make a distinction between the love of Jeffrey (as an embodied person/object) and the loss of the love, not Jeffrey the embodied person, but the love of Jeffrey, there is a difference. Second, Freud was largely a materialist, searching for the economy of the mind, or an affection economics. The trick is how one places these two ideas side-by-side and creates something mourningly new.
Jeffrey’s body no longer exists; if I acted otherwise, meds might be warranted. My reality checks have worked. I know. I miss him. This is, however, a strictly materialist notion, his body does not physically exist anymore. So, following Freud or Hollywod---it doesn’t matter, my viewing experienced these as one and the same---as I realize that I am still alive, I matter, I am real, I then sever the attachment to the lost object, the real body of Jeffrey, and move on. Evidently, going forward, whenever I produce any sentence about Jeffrey, to be aligned with the reality principle, Jeffrey must be in past tense. Jerry is, furthermore, doing okay because he refers to Jeffrey in past tense; thus, he is effectively mourning or has accomplished the task.
I get that he will not pull up beside me on a bike and begin a live, in-person conversation, as much as I wish he would, it ain’t goin happen. This is the half that is not wrong because our material reality speaks the truth. Nature constrains the body through being a living, animate object. No wish will change this limitation. Mortality is this recognition. You may have more or less time than I do (Jeffrey got less time than me), yet everyone must play by nature’s rules.
The reality or fact that I have limited time-in-my-body means I work against (compete) all the forces that could hasten this inevitable movement toward the end of time in my body. Our time-in-a-body competition is not as obvious as a game of basketball but because time-in-a-body is limited, I compete to reduce or eliminate all factors that can shorten this time. The most common expression of this competition is: “don’t waste your time on that.” Anytime you feel like you are wasting time, you are losing the competition, thus you work to save time. I live according to a reality principle if I recognize that time-in-a-body is limited.
I am going uphill now so it’s time to turn my standard bike into an E-bike and get to the end of this meditation relaxed by recognizing the metaphysical or immaterial side of mourning. The corrective half to Freud’s materialism. Jeffrey is no longer here (the embodied object is non-existent). But what about the love of the object, not the embodied person, but the subjective, metaphysical, LOVE of the object. Do I have to give up LOVE? Is my resistance to declare my love for him gone, put away in shoebox, shelved, and by so doing I sever the love from the object, a recognition of the metaphysical? Is this the force behind my past and present slippage? I think so. There is no limit to love because its essence isn’t material, but subjective and immaterial, therefore, it is not constrained by time, as the embodied self is. Love can have an object, sure, but it’s not the same as the object. These phenomena are not reducible to each other. Love and its object are partners indeed, but they each have their emergent powers and liabilities. The body can lift a hundred pounds but is limited by time. Love can’t lift a single pound but is eternal. Isn’t this what makes it so awesomely beautiful? The LOVE of the object and the object itself (the person) are complementary, interdependent entities, not Subject/Object, separate entities facing each other independently. The Subject/Object opposing assumption sets up the Hollywood trope. The bereaved subject severs the relationship with the dead person and severs the attachment to the object because it can be severed! The subject, the bereaved, is a separate object that has the power to sever. It must stand independent to do the work of severing. If these entities were interdependent, then the LOVE of Jeffrey is eternal, therefore present. I have solved the puzzle. My past and present slippage was not a denial but a recognition of the awesome power that LOVE is eternal.
In sum, about grief and mourning, to me, pride must work for the living, shame and guilt lead to despair and grief forever, pride guides me toward goodness and love, toward some object, project, or person; new, profound, and this matches the love I lost, matches the intensity, but doesn't replace the object, Jeffrey can never be substituted, all I can do is go toward the universal that was lost, goodness and love of the object, and pride is the motivation, that is, I want to be good and proud to keep LOVE alive. My conscience, then, metabolizes the grief. I returned home with plenty of power left in my E-bike.
