Letter 63: On grief for lost friends
I am grieved to hear that your friend Flaccus is dead, but I would not have you sorrow more than is fitting.
That you should not mourn at all I shall hardly dare to insist; and yet I know that it is the better way. But what man will ever be so blessed with that ideal steadfastness of soul, unless he has already risen far above the reach of Fortune? Even such a man will be stung by an event like this, but it will be only a sting.
We, however, may be forgiven for bursting into tears, if only our tears have not flowed to excess, and if we have checked them by our own efforts. Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail.
Do you think that the law which I lay down for you is harsh, when the greatest of Greek poets has extended the privilege of weeping to one day only, in the lines where he tells us that even Niobe took thought of food?
Do you wish to know the reason for lamentations and excessive weeping? It is because we seek the proofs of our bereavement in our tears, and do not give way to sorrow, but merely parade it. No man goes into mourning for his own sake. Shame on our ill-timed folly! There is an element of self-seeking even in our sorrow.
I am grieved to hear that your friend Flaccus is dead, but I would not have you sorrow more than is fitting.
That you should not mourn at all I shall hardly dare to insist; and yet I know that it is the better way. But what man will ever be so blessed with that ideal steadfastness of soul, unless he has already risen far above the reach of Fortune? Even such a man will be stung by an event like this, but it will be only a sting.
We, however, may be forgiven for bursting into tears, if only our tears have not flowed to excess, and if we have checked them by our own efforts. Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail.
Do you think that the law which I lay down for you is harsh, when the greatest of Greek poets has extended the privilege of weeping to one day only, in the lines where he tells us that even Niobe took thought of food?
Do you wish to know the reason for lamentations and excessive weeping? It is because we seek the proofs of our bereavement in our tears, and do not give way to sorrow, but merely parade it. No man goes into mourning for his own sake. Shame on our ill-timed folly! There is an element of self-seeking even in our sorrow.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63
Since I have been struggling with the burden of loss for much of my life, I can easily get defensive when someone tells me to overcome my grief. I believe I am right to disregard the heartless and dismissive demand to simply “get over it”, but I should not be so quick to take offense when the advice is about learning to master my passions, instead of being tossed about at their every whim.
It is natural to mourn, and yet it is quite unnatural to be consumed by sorrow. I will be the one to decide how well I learn to cope. While the Stoic Sage may have it within his power to pass through his pain unscathed, I should, for the moment, be content with keeping my heartache in its proper place. I grow better at it day by day.
I have often made the mistake of swallowing my grief, which only meant that it would reveal itself at some later date, all the stronger for being crammed away in some dark hole. Negative thoughts and feelings will just simmer if they are merely neglected. I now know that if there must be tears, they should flow freely at first, and then I can make something better of myself out of that experience.
I regularly find myself turning to the fourth book of St. Augustine’s Confessions whenever my feelings of sadness take a hold of me. Augustine was tormented by the death of a friend, and he eventually realized how his grief was not about the fate of his companion at all, but rather about his own selfish desires. How swiftly pain is twisted into nothing more than self-pity!
What am I really sad about? Is it that another has been denied happiness, or is that I am missing something to which I feel I am entitled? I will only fall into the error of moping over a loss when I falsely assume that the world owes me satisfaction. It has come, and it has gone, as Nature always intended—the obstacle is my stubborn insistence on arranging the circumstances to fit my preferences. It is the gravest of Stoic sins.
What both Seneca and Augustine have to say wounds my pride, as it rightly should. The only solution to grief is to take that agonizing sense of absence and transform it into a reminder of my true worth, as a creature made to give of himself gladly instead of pleading to be coddled. I do myself no favors by confusing sympathy with vanity.
Since I have been struggling with the burden of loss for much of my life, I can easily get defensive when someone tells me to overcome my grief. I believe I am right to disregard the heartless and dismissive demand to simply “get over it”, but I should not be so quick to take offense when the advice is about learning to master my passions, instead of being tossed about at their every whim.
It is natural to mourn, and yet it is quite unnatural to be consumed by sorrow. I will be the one to decide how well I learn to cope. While the Stoic Sage may have it within his power to pass through his pain unscathed, I should, for the moment, be content with keeping my heartache in its proper place. I grow better at it day by day.
I have often made the mistake of swallowing my grief, which only meant that it would reveal itself at some later date, all the stronger for being crammed away in some dark hole. Negative thoughts and feelings will just simmer if they are merely neglected. I now know that if there must be tears, they should flow freely at first, and then I can make something better of myself out of that experience.
I regularly find myself turning to the fourth book of St. Augustine’s Confessions whenever my feelings of sadness take a hold of me. Augustine was tormented by the death of a friend, and he eventually realized how his grief was not about the fate of his companion at all, but rather about his own selfish desires. How swiftly pain is twisted into nothing more than self-pity!
What am I really sad about? Is it that another has been denied happiness, or is that I am missing something to which I feel I am entitled? I will only fall into the error of moping over a loss when I falsely assume that the world owes me satisfaction. It has come, and it has gone, as Nature always intended—the obstacle is my stubborn insistence on arranging the circumstances to fit my preferences. It is the gravest of Stoic sins.
What both Seneca and Augustine have to say wounds my pride, as it rightly should. The only solution to grief is to take that agonizing sense of absence and transform it into a reminder of my true worth, as a creature made to give of himself gladly instead of pleading to be coddled. I do myself no favors by confusing sympathy with vanity.
—Reflection written in 6/2013
IMAGE: William Wetmore, Angel of Grief (1894)
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