A Curious Form of Grief

 Grief is a curious thing, universal to so many, yet claimed by none. 

Yesterday, the 15th of May, marks the 77th year of the commemoration of al-Nakba ‘the Catastrophe’ of 1948. The event that saw the massacre and banishment of entire villages of the Palestinian people and still leaves gaping wounds and lasting scars. A day of mourning and rememberance, it made me think of grief. Who can demand the grief of others to be silent and not offend, either ethnic or disabled, when the world cares so little?

The phrase disabled grief is perhaps paradoxical. How can grief be disabled? Or queer? Or ethnic? It is but a feeling, devoid of descriptive agency or claim. Who can claim grief as their own?

I categorize disabled grief in this instance as the grief of a hypothetical past, not a marred present or bleak future. Perhaps stepping on several academic toes, even within my own field of study. Who claims to know grief, truly? As impossible as knowing the mind of a beetle or a bat is to a human, it is incomprehensible for the ablebodied mind to know the disabled. So too is it with our grief.

Centering my own experience (I can do naught else), I often catch myself wondering. Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) in 2016 at age 21, I was left with burning questions. What would my life be like, were I diagnosed earlier? Would it be radically different from the life I lead now? Would other doors have been opened that were closed due to poor grades or the perils of masking? Would acquaitances turned foes be turned friends? Would friends turned ghosts turn corporeal? Would teachers who turned their backs on my ostracism be compelled by duty, if not some smidge of compassion?

Such grief has all too often been pathologized alongside our bodies and mind. One ought be lucky to be alive; too much introspection turns the mind selfish; others have it so much worse; cease your complaints and exclaims. And other such quaint phrases meant to lend support and empathy. To lead the mind away from self-pity and dwelling on one's own woes. And this if the condition impacts the visible body. If the condition be invisible... Readily accused of laziness: of shrinking work, duty or vocation: of having to make the best of a bad situation, or making much ado about nothing (the speaker's aunt's cousin-thrice-removed's daughter's son's little nephew has autism and he manages just fine!). Other such charming encouragements. I lose count. 

Disabled grief is, therefore, the grief of the past unrealized. What one could have done or been or realized one's potential early. And I dare say, internalized ableism is a dismal consequence of grief. If you your whole life have been viewed as quirky, odd or strange, people take you to be foolish. And few people listen to what fools say, lest it is something they think for themselves, or believe they themselves have thought of. That perceived foolery turns to shame. That shame becomes stronger and stronger the more one is dismissed. If and when a diagnosis comes along, the first few years are spent in a kind of daze. Am I really clever and not stupid? Can I now be the soul I was meant to be?

One search on ‘disabled grief’ yields sites dedicated to handling the grief of a caregiver or a newly disabled person to mourn their ‘loss’. This view seems somewhat simplistic, as if one becomes lesser by acquiring another condition. This ties into the concept of the disabled person as a burden to those around them and society in general. The grief is that of society, not the person at large. It is the loss of able hands or diminished capacity for labor, to take a capitalist view of things. An able mind, none takes too seriously. It is but a mind, after all.

Perhaps I could take a more rosy view of grief? Ought I do so? When the world has proven itself again and again to take the grief of those marginalized and dismiss it? One is to grieve so that no one sees it, to not let the cracks show in polite society and hold one's tongue in case grief spills out unbidden. Daintily and sweet, not to be a bother, supress oneself in the name of the almighty enduring status quo. A true paradox, to hide one's grief and be afforded aid just when the cracks become too large for the world to ignore.

As a wise lion⁽¹⁾ once said: “No one knows what could have been”. I am inclined to agree. It does one no good to dwell on ghosts and guesses. Let the past bury its dead. 

Remarks

1) The one and only Aslan of Narnia fame. The quote is from C. S. Lewis' fifth book in the Chronicles of Narnia septology, The Horse and His Boy (1954).