The Grief We Own: A Reflection on End of Life, Loss, Letting Go, and the Selfishness of Sorrow

We often find ourselves in the midst of loss, searching for the right words, the right feelings, the right way to process an event that feels inherently wrong. But if you listen closely to the laments of the grieving, you begin to notice a subtle, profound truth. The tears we cry are rarely for the one who has departed. More often, they are for ourselves.

Consider two very different ends to a life. In one scenario, a family gathers around a loved one in a Critical Care Unit. The patient has suffered a slow, debilitating decline. Days have turned into weeks, punctuated by the beeping of machines and the futility of repeated interventions. Finally, a decision is made. The family, exhausted and heartbroken, agrees to remove life support. Their summation is one of sorrowful release: "Sadly, he passed away after suffering so much. We thought it was time to let him move on."

Now, look at another scene. A husband is reeling from the sudden death of his wife. There was no suffering, no prolonged illness, no pain. It was instantaneous. Yet, his grief is no less sharp. His complaint is a different kind of anguish: "I did not even have time to prepare. It was so sudden. Had she been sick, I would have been ready to let go, but this was so sudden. I am heartbroken."

What is his complaint? He didn’t get to prepare.

In the first instance, the family had time. They watched the suffering, they participated in the struggle, and they eventually reached a point of acceptance. In the second, there was no such runway. But look past the circumstances and you see the common thread. Both are centered on a single, powerful perspective: my loss. In the CCU, it’s "we had to watch him suffer." In the sudden death, it’s "I didn’t get to say goodbye." The unspoken cry in both is the same: "You are not here for me anymore."

When a person is consumed by this mindset—my loss, my loss, my loss—they are trapped in a perspective that makes true empathy impossible. They cannot step outside their own pain to consider the journey of the one who has actually left.

This is a lesson we must all pray we are blessed enough to learn, especially when we are thrust into the role of a caregiver. It is a lesson I had to confront when my own father was in the hospital.

He was 85, in a state of stupor. The doctors wanted to perform a spinal tap, a lumbar puncture, along with other invasive tests. They came to me for a signature. I refused. The doctor was insistent. "Why aren't you signing? Do you understand what this means?" she asked.

I told her I did. I knew they were looking for a brain infection. But I also saw that they were already treating him for it with doxycycline, and it seemed to be working. So I asked her a question that, to me, was the only one that mattered: "What is the rest of his life going to look like?"

I had seen my uncle suffer from debilitating back pain after a similar procedure. Every single day had become a nightmare for him. My father was 85. He already had his own aches and pains. Was it worth risking a lifetime of that kind of agony just to put a name to an infection that was already being treated? Even if they "figured it out," even if he lived, what would that life be? Would every additional day be meaningful for him?

My reasoning was simple. At that moment, he was unaware. He was in a state where he felt no pain. If he passed from there, I was at peace with that. I was not ready to trade his peaceful stupor for a prolonged, painful existence, just so we could say we did everything. Our job as a family was not to keep his heart beating at any cost. Our job was to ensure his journey was as peaceful as possible.

This is the crucial distinction. For a young child, with a whole future ahead, the calculus is different. You fight with everything you have. But for someone who has already lived a full life, who is past 50, 60, 70? What more are we clinging to? If nature, or destiny, or whatever you choose to call it, is telling us it’s time to leave the bus and make a seat available for someone else, why would we fight that? Why would we insist on dying in a sterile room, surrounded by strangers and machines, rather than in the presence of our loved ones?

No matter how hard we try, the ultimate truth remains. Neither Alexander the Great, nor Hitler, nor Rama, nor Krishna, nor Jesus Christ himself is alive today. The greatest among us have all made the same journey. So, the key question is not if we will go, but how. Why not today? Why not peacefully?

The worst part of a prolonged, intervention-heavy death in an ICU or CCU is that we don't even realize what we are doing. We surrender our loved ones to a world of medical devices. They spend their final moments in the hands of equipment, passing away at a time when we, their family, are often not even by their side. We are relegated to the role of spectators, watching their suffering, unable to comfort them.

We comfort ourselves with the thought that we "did everything." But did we? Or did we simply fail to ask the most important question: What would have been meaningful for them?

It is a difficult question, but an essential one. It asks us to set aside our own fear of loss and truly see the person who is leaving. Because in the end, a peaceful, graceful, and happy departure is a gift we can give. And it is a far greater testament to our love than a signature on a form that only prolongs the suffering.