Adjacent Grief
Adjacent grief: what a weird concept, right? We all know what grief is, but what the hell is adjacent grief? Let’s start by defining grief: it is the feeling of deep sorrow, most commonly associated with death (according to google), but I think it has also encompasses loss. It can be the loss of a friend, a relationship, a career, or maybe a prospective future you were looking forward to. In a sense, these can all be considered the “death” of something. No longer being in a relationship with someone who you thought you’d be with forever is the death of the future you wanted or thought you’d have. Losing contact with an old friend that was part of your life for years can even feel like losing part of yourself, and it is. Each person we come into contact with, whom we know and/or love holds a different part of our true self. Losing any of them in any way, whether it be death or a breakup or a simple loss of contact, is a huge loss to us and can feel like a death of part of who we are. We are entitled to grieve them in the same way we’d grieve someone who has died.
So we’re good on grief? Cool. Moving on to what I call “adjacent grief.” Adjacent means “next to” or “adjoining” so you’re probably thinking angles from high school geometry or even connecting hotel rooms. Similarly, people who are next to people dealing with grief experience this “adjacent grief.” It is as painful for someone to watch a person they love mourning a loss as it is for the person who is mourning the loss. Granted, it is a different kind of pain, but sometimes just as powerful. For example, if you (the reader) and I were close friends, and I lost someone very near and dear to me, I would be in immense pain for sure, but it is very likely that you will also feel pain. You might feel pain for me (sympathy and empathy) or you might feel pain for yourself because you feel helpless in comforting me. You might feel even pain in a more complex way: I am changing as a result of my loss and as you and I are so close, that might mean our relationship is changing and unfortunately, there is no preventing that. Adjacent grief. The sadness we feel from watching our loved ones goes through grief.
Some years ago, I lost my father in a car accident (in which I was also injured, but not severely). At the time, I was in college and pretty wrapped up in the feelings I was dealing with and trying to stay afloat for the sake of my grades (which didn’t work, by the way). Recently, as I was reading a story that was similar to mine but written from the person’s friend’s perspective, I started thinking of the concept of adjacent grief. It sounded weird to say out loud at first, but it made sense. A quick synopsis of the story, to give context: it was written from a man’s perspective.
“He was writing about a woman he met in college and instantly became friends with her. At the time, they were not interested in a serious commitment but were best friends all throughout their college career. During her sophomore or junior year, the girl’s mother and two sisters were killed in a car accident and she was, of course, devastated. The author even mentioned that it still hurt him to think about how upset she was. The girl ended up moving back home to help take care of her father and cut off ties with everyone. Two years later, he saw the girl again and talks about how different she was after the accident and he wanted nothing more than to try and fix things for her and him not being able to hurt him more than anything in the world.”
The rest of this story is incredibly sad and if I write the entire plot here, I will be crying too hard to write anymore. It reminded me of my own story and the boy I fell in love with during college and it was pretty similar to ours. We aren’t still together or anything, but I asked him about the idea of adjacent grief. How he must have felt watching me grow through the pain. He said it hurt him too and even back then, I could see on his face that he wished he could make it all better. For all three and a half years that we dated, he always wished he could make it better. But that’s the main point, nobody can make it better. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. My best advice to anyone experiencing this is to ask the person who is grieving what they need and be honest with them about how you are feeling as well. Don’t bottle up those emotions because they will spill over and you won’t be good to anyone, especially not this person you so clearly care about.
