On grief's sweet sorrow

Abstract

This paper draws attention to a neglected aspect of grief: its "sweet" sorrow. This sorrow presents us with a formidable challenge, namely, to explain how what is bitter-the misery of loss-can be found to be sweet. Those drawn into this sorrow suspect that it is somehow too sweet. Are their suspicions well founded? Why is it and it alone sweet to those who delight in it and why is it not just sweet but companion-like and even dear? Guided by the observations of St. Augustine and C. S. Lewis, I propose that this sorrow is a form of self-pity that displaces the significant other from the center of one's concern and affords an enhanced intimacy with oneself. The proposal vindicates the impression that one finds in this sorrow a companion that can take the place of the significant other and also positions us to address one of the most fundamental questions that might be raised in connection with grief, namely, whether the one who has died is a proper object of concern or whether our grief is ultimately for ourselves, for a loss that is ours and ours alone. | INTRODUCTIONGrief is sometimes classified as a sorrow, one felt in response to the death of a significant person. This sorrow is not simple or uniform in character, however, but multifaceted. There is, for example, the fresh sorrow of grief, 1 the sorrow that surfaces from the depths, 2 the sorrow that we do not recognize as our own, 3 the sorrow that leads us to search for the dead, 4 and the sorrow that leads us to stop searching. 5 Some of these sorrows have been catalogued.They have received names like "anguish" and "despair," recalling those that have traditionally had claim to philosophical attention, adding to the impression that the sorrow of grief is, invariably, difficult to bear. But the sorrow of grief is not always without charm. Perhaps the most neglected sorrow of grief is sweet.One of the few discussions of grief's sweet sorrow appears within the philosophical tradition, in the Confessions of St. Augustine. In Book IV of this work, Augustine recalls his grief after the death of a close friend. "[W]hatever I