The Strange Geography of Grief

Love, Loss, and Learning to Say Goodbye

“I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.” ― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Gustave Courbet, Waves 1870

I suffered the most painful goodbye of my life when I was eleven. Eleven is a tender, open age—still a girl with magical thinking, but old enough to understand the finality of death. I was deeply in love with my father, a simple and enormous kind of love, like the sky. And like the sky, I took it for granted, assumed it would always be there. And then one day he was gone. Just like that. Poof.

I didn’t get to say goodbye. I chose not to see his body—too afraid. I prayed, still hoping my prayers could work a miracle. Eventually, I concluded no one was listening. He wasn’t coming back.

From age eight to twelve, girls experience an intensified emotional bond with their fathers (if they’re lucky). This "daddy phase" is due to neurological changes in the brain, hormonal shifts, and a psychological imperative to form identity and understand relationships. The loss of a father during this developmental window can be devastating, undermining a girl's sense of self and her emotional footing.

I understand this on a visceral level. Since age eleven, my emotional footing has been wobbly and I’ve been terrible at goodbye. That first goodbye embedded itself, and I carry it still, like a paper bag filled with heavy groceries. Sometimes the bag can’t hold, and everything tumbles to the floor. Even short separations rattle something loose. When a loved one walks out the door, grief pulls me under. I imagine the possibility that I’ll never see them again. It’s irrational, I know, but also, in my experience, not.

Grief is a bizarre companion. It’s not consistent or predictable. I can’t bear the grief of goodbye after a visit with my family, but I am steady and present at the deathbed. One rips me open again and again. The other is serene, impassive, even spiritual.

As an oncology nurse, I helped usher many people out of this life. The experience had structure and protocol. It was part of my job. I knew how to do it, where to place my hands, what to say, when to stay quiet. Those goodbyes were something I held, not something that hollowed me out. Until Eric died.

Eric was twenty when I met him, the same age as my little brother. He had Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and had been living with it for nearly half his young life. We grew very close. Too close. I knew his family. I made housecalls. I loved him fiercely. Back then, Hodgkin’s was one of the few curable cancers. Not Eric’s. I had to watch helplessly as treatment after treatment failed. I had to watch him die.

Saying goodbye to Eric brought a tidal wave of grief. He felt like a brother to me, which put him in close proximity to my father. His death pulled me under all over again. I left nursing and became a lawyer. I retreated into my head to try to heal my heart.

But some goodbyes didn’t evoke this flood of grief. My grandfather's death from Parkinson's felt natural. He deteriorated gradually, and by the time he died, he was long gone. My stepfather's passing was duty-bound—I was there for my mother. When my dear friend Inga's mother died, it felt sacred, tender and intimate.

Consciously or not, fear of facing an ocean of grief was the reason I resisted joining the cancer club. But there was no escape. I was in a club I could never leave. At some point, I relaxed a bit and introduced myself. I got to know other members.

Before long, we were texting and calling each other for support. This is a community, and I love the beautiful souls who share it with me. I’ve said the big goodbye to many of them: Martha (myeloma), Colleen (myeloma), Colleen (lung), Kristin (leukemia), John (colon). Not one has sucked me under. All have been sacred.

In the cancer club, goodbyes are part of the landscape. It isn’t episodic, it’s ambient. It’s part of your daily routine, like a housemate. She’s quiet some days, intrusive others. You make room for her at the dinner table, in conversations, in the liminal places.

Each goodbye we experience shows us something different about grief's many textures. Some are quiet, like an unanswered message, a friend who stops checking in, another who wants more than you can give. Others are sudden and disorienting, like one day you’re texting about blood counts or biopsies, the next you’re reading an obituary.

In the cancer club, love and loss are not opposites, they’re companions. They walk hand in hand. So we choose to love fiercely. Loving with all our heart shows grief that we are strong and resilient, that it will not pull us under. It’s the antidote to our fear of goodbye.

Now, I say “I love you” a lot. I reach out. I let hugs last. I make eye contact. I linger in the doorway before leaving, even when it makes me late.

And love is still worth it. It’s everything.