So have I seen:
“There is no Emotion. There is Peace.”
I know you know it. At the far end, we find, “There is no Death. There is the Force.”
Yet, for the ones left here, death is real enough because loss is real enough. Grief is real as well, and that is what I have come to discuss.
No one even needs to die; we grieve the living as well. So, there is that.
Perhaps you have told yourself that the Jedi are not meant to grieve, not meant to feel such things. You read the Code and took it to mean that a proper Jedi does not give thought to loss, but give more thought to that reading. Of course the Jedi will grieve, she is committed to others, to service, to looking deeply into the furnace of living.
Yes, a Jedi must let go. A Jedi should waste not a moment on the changes beyond her power. Things will come and go. This includes people, and no one belongs to you. As Jedi, we learn to love with open hands, to touch without grasping, to hold without restraining. It takes profound courage to love someone this way. Life slides through our hands like air. One cannot cling to the air.
Yet we try, and what is the result? The untrained response goes like this: We run from grief as we run from any pain we cannot bear gracefully. My body is inured to certain pains, but not others. I know this is true of you as well. For better or worse, both our hearts are inured to some griefs, but not others. And when you flee from grief, it is generally to anger, victimhood, or denial.
“I have been abandoned. I have been left behind. I will be alone. I will not be safe.” And these things are true, but pulled angrily from context, they do not tell a true story.
Or, “it was never so important. It does not hurt because I do not care, because I am stronger than grief.”
But, however difficult, there is no need to flee grief and no need to overpower it. For what is grief but the making of meaning from loss, and the making of peace with the absence of meaning that we were unable to make? Greif is the means by which we redraw the maps of our lives, re-charting shifting lands and seas. My grandfather’s passing took a mountain with it, but left other, more subtle features to be navigated and respected. I learn from him still. Each moment presents a truth, and Jedi orient our hearts to the truth as surely as we orient them to the Force. So, however harsh, we do not shrink from grief. There is sting and there is ache. Greater pain comes from attempting to possess what has gone. To serenely face our pain requires tremendous courage. Sit with it. Let it be.
To pretend we should not grieve, or to hide behind anger, is foolish. Rather, let us grieve consciously, skillfully, bravely.
As best as you are able, bear witness to the whole truth of this change. The Force flows, the world changes, and death is part of this. Loss is part of this. Do not flee from grief, but let it do its work. Do not make a saint or a demon of anyone. If we love courageously, we accept a person in their wholeness. We must release them in that same wholeness.
Let the grief be what it is. Allow a place in your heart for it without fighting. Allow it to leave without a struggle. Make no demands for sense or order from the process. Grieve in the time of grieving, and stop when you are done.
Hold a peaceful space in the time of mourning, making amity gently because we are all hurting. Others will hide behind anger, but do not punish them or try to teach them in the moment. You understand, after all.
Look deeply within. Make room for what is real. Everything will change. Everything will pass. Love whom you love, but do not seek to own another. When they move on, do not resist. Do not fear it, but face it.
Be brave and resolute. Be gentle.
Be Jedi.
The Force is with us.
