What Our Grief Can Teach Us

How grief serves as a reminder to appreciate what we have.

There are days when the world turns and you feel its rotation, every degree of shift measured not in time, but in absences. Days when the sky appears vast not because of its infinite reach but because it holds space for our collective gloom, each cloud a testament to what once was but no longer is.

Me and these sorts of days are on a first name basis.

I recently learned that my dear friend, Lenny, passed away. A day later, I learned that a friend of my mother’s passed as well. Both of which happened just days after learning about the murders of Angela Michelle Carr, A.J. Laguerre, and Jerrald Gallion, at the hands of a white supremacist in Jacksonville, Florida. Which was days before I learned about the murder of Ta’kiya Young and her unborn child at the hands of a police officer in Ohio. 

These deaths, and so many others, have left me lingering in the halls of grief, where the paint of yesterday peels off, revealing layers that can't be held or contained, only felt. Amidst national tragedies and personal heartache, where there are silhouettes of lost friends, family, and moments. Where we are asked to acknowledge the injustice, the absurdity, and the sheer randomness of existence. 

The quiet gravity of this place has forced me to stay a little longer, to sit a little more contemplatively in these yawning corridors. But this place – it’s not just mine, it’s ours. We’ve all, at some point, brushed against the cold walls of grief, hoping the warmth of our palms might chip away the frost. 

I've spent most of my life tracing the outlines of our losses, and while I could fill pages with my reflections, I first want to pause and tell you something my grief has reminded me. Something that we must say to people far more often: you are appreciated. 

Whomever you are, with whatever histories you hold, with whatever shadows linger behind your eyes — I appreciate you. 

Maybe you've traced my thoughts through the pages of my books, maybe you've donated to an effort I've championed, or perhaps you simply wandered here through word-of-mouth. Nonetheless, I’m thankful.

In a world filled with chaos and uncertainty, where stories become whispers and whispers become silences, grief has taught me that the act of appreciating can be radical. A rebellion against the fraying threads of connection, a reminder that in spite of the voids, we can still reach out and find a heartbeat resonating with our own. The world demands from us many things—courage, resilience, change—but perhaps the most profound of all these demands is to appreciate and be appreciated. 

Each departure we face becomes an echo, and these echoes construct a chorus. They sing of missed birthdays and unlit candles, empty chairs at dinner tables, the spaces where laughter once cascaded but now silence flows. But what if these departures, our oceans of grief, also remind us to be truly present when the birthdays are happening, to buy the largest candles we can find, to host more dinner parties, to laugh a little longer? 

Perhaps when we hear the echo in the emptiness of those we’ve lost, we should remind ourselves of the beauty in that echo, the poetry in their absence having such meaning. 

Grief, with its tender weight and quiet reckoning, seems always just beneath the skin, an undercurrent to our every motion. It’s as if when we lose someone, a layer of our world peels away, revealing a deeper level, one more raw and undiscovered. It’s in this rawness, this almost unbearable sensitivity, that grief teaches us its harshest yet most vital lessons.

The wind becomes more distinct after loss. The sun, even in its blazing glory, seems dimmer somehow, filtered through the veil of memories of our loved ones. But even as the world feels drained of some of its brilliance, our lost ones whisper to us, they twinkle in every we see. It’s the void they leave which amplifies our awareness of the space they so wonderfully occupied.

Even when we don’t fully grasp the importance of that space.

Learning of my friend Lenny’s passing reminded me that while we clutch onto the milestones, the grand moments that beam like lighthouses in our memories, we must also cradle the softer notes of our songs. The barista you see each morning, the staff at your favorite date-night restaurant, the tailor you visit when you buy new clothes. It's at these seemingly inconsequential intersections of time and heartbeats that we often find the most profound truths. For in the spaces where moments feel too small to be seen, there lies the boundlessness of our shared human existence.

Sometimes, it's the unnoticed that anchors us, reminding us of the beauty in the minutiae.

You see, Lenny was my barber for nearly fifteen years, most of my adult life. Until just four days ago, each week I would step into his shop, where the sound of clippers intermingled with stories of the weekend past and the week to come. Fifteen years of exchanges with him ranging from the profound to the trivial. From dreams and fears to what restaurants we had tried lately. From conversations about whether the Mets will take it all this year to whether we should still be Mets fans after they seemingly give up.

Fifteen years of Lenny carefully cutting my hair before pivotal moments: the most important first date of my life, the nervousness of proposing, and the whirlwind of my wedding day. 

One day I was the client of a barber in his early twenties who had just moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic and was renting a chair in someone’s barbershop. Then before I knew it, I was the first customer of a friend in his mid-thirties who purchased his own barbershop and was hiring people from his hometown in the Dominican Republic. The same shop where each one of the books I’ve written were strategically placed by him on a shelf — an ode to the unspoken bond we shared. 

To simply say Lenny was my barber is like saying New York City is just a city. True, on the surface. But delve a closer look, and you'll discover the expanse of an entire universe in any given neighborhood.

His death has refined my understanding of the significance of my various relationships. The realization that those weekday visits, those shared tales and confident trims, will no longer punctuate my routine is, in its own right, a seismic event. One's world doesn't collapse in dramatic, cinematic moments. Rather, it erodes quietly, in the mundane routines disrupted, in the chairs that remain empty.

As I pass barbershops, their neon signs illuminating the early evening, I will be haunted by the thought of a different chair, different hands, a different voice. Not Lenny's. Never quite Lenny's.

Today, as I stand on the edge of memory and reality, I find solace in believing he knew how dear he was to me. Yet, in the hushed tones of regret, I can’t help but wish I had spoken my gratitude more often. The grief of his passing, in its unwelcome wisdom, nudges me to look beyond the fog of my pain to the radiance of how I can do better. It nudges me to love fiercely, to hold tight to the moments that fleetingly pass, and to find gratitude even in the heart of my pain. 

Death is an inexplicable thief. It does not discern; it does not choose based on worthiness or love. It comes uninvited, often at times when its presence is the most jarring, the most inconceivable. And so, as I ponder the lives lost to the unfathomable randomness of fate, I am reminded that our time here is limited. But our impact, our legacy, the love we give and receive—that can defy the very constraints of mortality.

What if, instead of an anchor, we envisioned grief as a cocoon? Tightly wound, concealing the potential for something transformative within its silken threads? The heart, after all, is not so different from the fragile evolution hanging precariously from a branch, swaying with the breeze. Both contain within them a process of metamorphosis, of change, of rebirth.

This is not a call to glorify pain or romanticize suffering. The sting of loss is real and profound, and no words can truly encapsulate its depth. Instead, this is an invitation to view grief through a different lens, to see beyond its immediacy and recognize its potential as a catalyst. For in grief, we have the opportunity to reshape ourselves, to emerge with a newfound understanding of our place in the universe, and to embrace the fragile beauty of our daily existence.

From a distance, our sorrow may seem like a bleak and endless expanse, a barren landscape without purpose or promise. But come closer. Walk with me through the mournful valleys and over the cresting hills of your heart's lament, and you will see that grief is not just an end—it can also be a beginning. A genesis of new understanding, a cauldron in which the raw materials of pain and loss are melted into the gold of wisdom, resilience, and deeper compassion.

Every tear that slides down our cheeks is a droplet in a vast ocean of mutual mourning, each ripple a proof of the universal nature of loss. And yet, each tear is also unique, carrying with it the specific gravity of personal memories, of moments shared and love felt. Like stars in a midnight sky, they are both individual and part of a greater whole, illuminating the best parts of being human. 

So, next time you find yourself cradling the cold weight of sorrow, remember this: your grief, in all its dark splendor, can be a lesson—a doorway to deeper understanding, a bridge to compassion, and a testament to the importance of appreciating who and what you have.

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