As we hope to swim with the current, floating mindlessly until we forget, the tether wrapped around our stomachs keeps us still, advising patience. Through rapids and feelings, we fight until we tire, until we are dragged back so very far that we cannot fight anymore. We stop and let the water flow through our hair, our clothes, feel it on our skin, until our emotions flow with us, until our heartbeat steadies and we can feel the air in our lungs. We are washed onto shore and embraced by the profound silence of tragedy, of grief, of suffering and relief. 

In friendship, in family, in nature and even loss, our deep-rooted instincts can’t help but love. But with this, we have also learned how to feel the harsh aftershock, the most necessary yet terrifying feeling: pain. 

As we hurt, love matures, forcing connections with people, energy and, most importantly, ourselves. As we feel these emotions, we gain the understanding of human relationships that allow us to have a deeper appreciation for the intricacies of the human heart. As we tend to deal with these emotions lightly, the truth is that there cannot be balance without space in between, there cannot be reflection without time to process and there cannot be love without loving oneself first. 

Tualatin High School social worker Emma Fortmiller shared her perspective on the feeling of grief.

 “It really is a beautiful thing to be able to grieve because it means that whatever you are grieving, like the loss of a person or the end of a relationship, it means that you had a really beautiful connection with someone or you had a really wonderful experience that you are now really missing,” Fortmiller said. “It can allow you to have a better understanding of yourself and how you process things or hold memories of people while still being able to move forward and not get stuck in the past.“

 With this being said, processing grief takes time. One Tualatin High School student reflected on a difficult loss recently. 

“Last year I had lost someone very close to me, someone who I’d never thought would leave me,” the student said. “No words could explain the amount of pain I was in and how much I just wanted to give up. But I knew at the end of the day he wanted to see me be successful coming from a family who immigrated here. So I did just that. I continued to do my work in school so I would make him proud and not let him down. He wouldn’t have wanted to see me give up on myself. So others shouldn’t either. We all have different experiences and different life stories. It doesn’t mean we should just stop and give up.”

It is okay to feel the pain of loss, tragedy, news, trauma or anything else in between, and it is okay to leave a space for your grief, so that we can continue living instead of just being alive.