I Went to See a Movie About Grief
Witnessing
seeing, observing, viewing, noticing, watching, experiencing, appreciating, feeling, knowing, receiving, comprehending, understanding, acknowledging
Last Monday, Mary and I had a movie date, and even though the world is so incredibly heavy lately, and Monday was a grief anniversary for me, I said yes to seeing a movie that I knew would bring on the tears.
Mary handed me tissues as I sobbed through the gorgeous Hamnet, a film about Shakespeare’s wife Agnes (aka Anne Hathaway) and their family, but really mostly about love, loss, grief, and how we move through all that.
The gem I didn’t know I’d find in it was about witnessing grief.
Witnessing someone means seeing them. Being witnessed in grief is being seen, known, and acknowledged for the deepest and most painful pain you can have.
When someone shares their expression of grief—their art journal pages, for example—they are sharing the most tender and vulnerable parts of themselves. They're sharing their story and emotions, questions and memories. This is a most intimate disclosure. Witnessing someone’s expression of grief, has the potential to bring us together, unite us.
On Sunday, in my mind/body/heart/spirit practitioners’ program, Fill Your Well, a new participant said, “I’m here for the witnessing” and I wanted to jump up and hug her. Witnessing is possibly the most powerful part of my grief programs. But most people don’t get that until they experience it.
Most people are afraid of your grief. They are uncomfortable with it. They’re impatient and intolerant and avoidant. They go quiet and don’t want to see your grief.
The thing is that in a world fiercely grief-avoidant, grieving is incredibly lonely.
Finding a space in which it’s safe to cry, where you are encouraged to cry, is a hallelujah moment. A hell yes. A miracle. And crying in a circle that can hold you and be with you in your grief—without trying to fix you or cheer you up—that, too, is a miracle.
Finding a space where you are encouraged to make art with your grief and your anger, your pain and tears...There's not really much else like it.
Being witnessed in your grief is a way to end the isolation. It’s like being accompanied on your long, dark journey into the sun.
When we left Hamnet I felt so seen. The author of the book, the producers and directors and actors—they got it. They got that witnessing someone’s grief and even their expression of grief can heal and transform us.
