Nostalgia is, by its very nature, bittersweet, the happiest memories laced with melancholy. It’s that combination, that opposition of forces, that makes it so compelling. People, places, events, times: we miss them, and there’s a pleasure in the missing and a sadness in the love. — Robert J. Wiersema (Canadian author)
Nostalgia is that deep longing, that yearning for what was. When you’re grieving, it’s normal to want your loved one to be with you. Even when you know the sad reality, your heart is longing for what was.
You may have heard Barbra Streisand so beautifully sing the lyrics to the song “The Way we Were.” The first few words: “Memories light the corners of my mind. Misty watercolor memories of the way we were.” These words so clearly describe the feeling of nostalgia and yearning for what was. Normal feelings of yearning are part of your grief.
Nostalgia is both bitter and sweet, and there are other opposites as well — good and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, grief and joy — where love, sadness and joy mingle. So which do you feel — the bitterness of loss or the sweet joy of cherished memories?
To encourage the memory of special times with your loved one, you can practice joyful moments. In fact, practicing joyful moments can become an act of healing.
Practicing joyful moments takes a bit of work. It takes practice to realize that those joyful moments are new, unfamiliar and require some time to grow in the new garden of your heart and mind, especially when you are grieving. Most of the time you don’t even have to look for joyful moments. They often happen spontaneously, like when you are out with a friend and together you laugh or giggle at something or feel joy in watching your child or grandchild innocently play. Maybe you remember feeling joy and excitement when you see new buds opening on the plants in your garden. The joyful moments are all around you. The practice is to just notice and acknowledge the joy of life in the moment. Yes, Joy of Life is still possible even after a loved one dies.
The practice is much like planting a garden. When you care for the health of a plant, you connect with that plant and pay attention to it. Whatever you plant, you check on it, watch over it, feed it and keep it safe. It’s akin to having a new purpose as you find joy in watching it grow.
This can be a metaphor for your own growth and your own self-care. Planting new memories takes care, nurturing and watching over too.
In that planting of new memories, it is possible to acknowledge both the bitter and the sweet emotions. It’s important in healing your grief to allow them both to be a part of the newness and the nostalgia so that they co-exist.
When you just allow your emotions to have a life of their own, there is a certain freedom that happens. As you acknowledge the emotion, accept it without judgement, the feeling will eventually recede and flow more freely. When you fight a grief emotion and suppress it, it’s like a shadow, it follows you and waits for you. It can show up when you least expect it. I’ll bet you’ve had that happen. Imagine that you are in the kitchen washing a dish and suddenly, out of nowhere, tears start to flow. You might be in Costco and see something that your loved one loved to buy… and you suddenly feel your sadness. Yes, grief can even find you in a Costco aisle! Lean into the feelings, they will pass.
Recently in a grief support group, a group member was joyfully sharing about her grandson’s graduation, and she was also feeling sad that her husband wasn’t there. It was the perfect example of bittersweet. At the time, she said it felt more bitter than sweet. Yet, the more she talked about it, she thought of her grandson and how proud she was of him. The sweet was very present… even with the bitter. The group members related and realized that they, too, have had those times when they flowed between the bitter and the sweet and chose to allow it all to be part of their healing.
What was helpful for all the group members was the sharing of experiences. While naming what she was feeling, she was healing and allowing more of the feeling to be felt and shared. Allowing feelings and sharing with others who witness is the conduit to the healing of grief.
Acknowledging changes around you and within you is so important and creates less resistance. Knowing that some changes happen organically and are out of your control is liberating. Pico Iyer, an author, writes in his article, “My Private Cineplex,” that the beauty of change just happens to be the great lesson of the autumn season: “The leaves are giving off their richest, most generous colors as they fall. You don’t know whether to feel happy or sad, which means that it’s a choice, in part — and besides, the seasons will keep turning, the colors will keep flaring, the branches will soon be bare again, and everyone will be covered up, whether you want them to be or not. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Bittersweet memories force us to acknowledge that the positive in our lives is never far from being entwined with something more difficult. But to be open to bittersweet memories is to accept ambivalence: Learning to have two contrasting, opposed emotions about the same thing without disowning either. Both are important, neither can be denied. Neither should be suppressed. Acknowledging grief emotions is allowing what you are feeling to be less scary. Those waves of emotion can be very scary without the acknowledgement of naming it what it is — a grief wave of emotion.
In groups, we talk about having a STUG, a Sudden Temporary Upsurge of Grief. Sometimes labeling it can make it feel less powerful. A group member said, “I had a STUG this week, and because I knew it was a STUG, I got though it without scaring myself.
Your grief and those nostalgic memories are not about forgetting or suppressing. You would never forget your loved one. It’s about remembering in a healthy way.
What new memories will you be planting and growing? What nostalgia will you keep honoring and sharing?