Classifying grief

I have been thinking a lot about grief this weekend. I haven't slept much since I got the news exactly 36 hours ago, and I've had a lot of time for introspection on grief and the nature of loss when someone close to us passes away. (Thank you to everyone who left kind comments in the previous post, I appreciate your thoughtfulness).

I have been very lucky in life, because this is only the second time I have had to deal with the death of someone close to me (as in friendship, not counting distant relatives I'd never met). The first time was when I was a freshman in high school, a friend of mine, Amber, was killed in a car accident.

As I've tried to wrap my brain around George's death this week, I've realized that grief takes very different forms, depending on the stage of life at which the loved one was lost. The same components are there: the sadness, the shock, the sense of outrage at the unfairness of it all, the inability to picture what the future without the person will look like. The same emotions are there, but their nature and direction is what seems different.

When Amber died, her life was cut off before it really even had a chance to begin. She is now forever fifteen, the bright girl that was not only beautiful but also intelligent with a great sense of humor. The world was a book waiting for her to write in it, until it was slammed shut with the sound of squealing tires and crumpling metal. Here the grief is for a severed future, for all the potential that remained unfulfilled, all the missed chances for her to do, to see, to be.

When Amber died, I grieved for her and everything she lost.

With George, the grief is for everyone else and what they lost as a result of his passing.

It is still unfair, it is still devastating, it still seems like an assault on dignity and justice. But it is different. George had lived a full, long life, doing exactly what he loved. He spent his entire career studying nature and inspiring multiple generations of students to appreciate the natural world. He cherished the task of educating people about the world just as much as he cherished his own research. His not-insignificant physical presence (at least 6'3", the only thing broader than his shoulders was his smile) was dwarfed by his energy and enthusiasm in the classroom. He spent fifty years doing science, and never ever lost his sense of wonder at the very presence and substance of life.

I don't grieve for George. I can only hope I am even half as successful as he was at being a biologist and showing other people how to be scientists, or at least to value nature. He went to work on Friday, attended a PhD defense, had last-minute consultations with students before the end of finals, and carried around pocketfuls of Christmas candy to hand out to students he passed in the hall. At the end of the day he passed away in his own home. He spent the day he died doing what he had been doing for decades, exactly what he loves. I think, if anything, he is to be envied.

In this case, my grief is for everyone else. I grieve for the students that never had a chance to listen to his lecture on demes and metapopulations (featuring a YouTube-worthy impression of a fringed-toed lizard mating display). I grieve for those that missed his finger-twisting pantomimes of circus beetles in his lecture on Batesian mimicry. I grieve for anybody who never got to hear him exalting the talents of burgoomeisters. I grieve for everyone who never got to hear the urgency in his voice when describing the plight of wildlife being wiped out by the river dam system in Alabama.

I grieve for people who will never get to see his face light up with delight and inspiration when presented with a new question or idea. I grieve for the colleagues that can't pop into his office whenever they need a dose of advice, encouragement and humor. I grieve for my university, because they have lost a jewel they will never begin to be able to recover. I grieve for science as a whole, because true, all-encompassing naturalists are becoming harder and harder to find. He was the heart and soul of the biology department, a mentor to students and faculty alike (he had been there when some of the faculty's parents were students). Even though it is blatantly selfish, I won't pretend to deny it: I grieve for myself. I suppose part of growing up is realizing that your mentors are not always going to be there, but it's a hard lesson to learn. Idolizing someone does not grant them immortality.

Amber lost, but George has been lost. Neither case is less tragic for their families and other loved ones, but the differences are both significant to me. Obviously Amber's death involved a loss to everyone who knew her as well, but in that case it seemed like she had been wronged the to the highest degree, while with someone who has lived a complete life it is the people left behind who are to be pitied.

I am not a psychologist. I guess I just felt the need to write out what I have been contemplating over the past day or so. This blog is not a diary, and this will be the last time I post on the topic.