'The WandaVision of Grief'

Insights come from all sorts of different sources.

Hello, Dear Reader! Welcome to our new Carer Mentor community members!

I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?

Personal Reflection and Insight.

A small gem of insight into Grief and love was dropped into my head courtesy of 'Vision' when I watched the WandaVision series.

For those unfamiliar with the Avengers, WandaVision is a TV series on DisneyPlus.

A Wikipedia WandaVision summary: Wanda is an Avenger who can harness chaos magic, engage in telepathy and telekinesis, and alter reality. Vision is an android and former Avenger created using the artificial intelligence  J.A.R.V.I.S. and Ultron and the Mind Stone. 

I’m not launching into the backstory or more Marvel or Avengers jargon. But I want to share the dialogue, a lightbulb moment in the story: Vision [the AI] is consoling Wanda after her brother's death and discussing her dark grief. ¹

"Well, because it can't all be sorrow, can it?

I've always been alone

So, I don't  feel the lack

It's all I've ever known

I have never felt the loss,

because I've never had a loved one to lose

but what is grief

if not love persevering."

Me being me, I replayed this short speech a couple of times.

Lightbulb! Exhale! How soul-embracing!

To remember that our grief is love persevering through the feeling of loneliness, sadness and loss.

If it is love persevering, we can anchor to the relationship and connection. Start to focus less on the empty passing and hole that's left.

For me, love offers us a way to forgive ourselves and the person for their passing and everything on the rollercoaster leading to & around the event.

Perspective from a place of love is much more soothing than sitting in grief's darkness, feeling lonely from the loss.

For me, it's also a natural balm to the caregiving painful memories which were jabbing & poking & antagonising me.

Love persevering is a process to help me move through the pain of grief to appreciate the connection & relationship.

I won’t ignore or forget the person or be overwhelmed by sorrow; I will allow the love memories to persevere and live on.

It enables a comforting, compassionate perspective and space from which I can feel whole. It’s part of who I am now.

I'm less ‘brave-face’ and more sitting with my own discomfort, seeing and feeling the grief but also the love that’s still there.

This helps to motivate me to move forward. It’s still painful. I still flinch at terrible memories.

But there’s an overflow of meaning and substance there. It’s not a vacuum of emptiness. The messy grief flows, overspills, and can overwhelm me despite the insights of love-persevering.

Life is growing around the grief. The love is persevering. The grief is still there, just slightly better understood and accepted.

Insights come from the most unexpected places sometimes!

Kudos to the scriptwriters of WandaVision! Thanks.

The dialogue is a helpful reminder about what distinguishes us from A.I. Something to ponder.

A beautiful, haunting tribute. Massive Attack’s Teardrop, sung by Elizabeth Fraser.

Fraser was in an appropriately mournful state of mind when she recorded the song. The words, though esoteric almost to the point of incomprehension, are imbued with melancholy, born from Fraser’s own sadness on learning about the death of her friend Jeff Buckley, who drowned in May 1997.

This is another reminder that the feeling, the memory and the love continue:

‘Love, Love is a verb

Love is a doing word

Fearless on my breath.’

Join the discussion:

What key observation or piece of wisdom can you offer to others? Can you share some empathy with someone seeking answers to a question?

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Navigating Grief in all its forms.

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1. WandaVision Season 1 Episode 8. Where Wanda is confronted with reality.