Jasmine's Journal: The Five Stages of Grief in Forbidden Love

Jasmine's Home, October 1, 2011

Dear Spirit,

           

People say, “It’s better to love and lose than to never love at all.”  What about to love at a distance and to never get close enough to “lose”?  What would people say about that?  A month and a half has passed since I shared with You how it feels to be like a fisherman who makes the catch of his life and the captain says, “That fish is protected.  You have to throw it back.”  This fisherman is not done grieving yet, Spirit.  According to Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessle, grieving people go through five stages of grief: (1) Denial, (2) Anger, (3) Bargaining, (4) Depression, and (5) Acceptance.  Are there five stages of grief for people like the fisherman too?  For forbidden lovers?  You know the type, Spirit, the old-fashioned ones, the ones who are not permitting themselves a true expression of their love.

            If you ask Google, forbidden lovers don’t get the stages of grief.  I asked and got nothing. I googled for “Five Stages of Grief” or “5 Stages of Grief” AND for “Forbidden Love.”  Google popped up the usual list and also links for stages accompanied with “break up.”  But break up does not touch the unique quality of forbidden love.  The grief of break up is over a love that had been and was then lost.  The grief of forbidden love is over a love that could have been, but never gets to start. 

            Of the usual five stages, at least two appear to be the same for forbidden love, so I’ll begin with those: Anger and  Bargaining.  Are you ready, Spirit, for my “Anger”?  Why didn’t You introduce me to Davie ten years ago?  Why, Spirit, did you allow us to each get married before we met one another?  Why did you dangle the most amazing treasure of our lives right before our eyes only when it’s too late, and tell us, “I know you love this more than anything you’ve ever seen or experienced, but you can’t have it.”  Why?

I know part of Your answer is that we wouldn’t have chosen each other ten years ago.  True.  Ten years ago, in my insecurities over “thinking at odds,” Tim was the stable force I was seeking.  A straight-forward, simple, here’s-how-it-is thinker who was both confident and self-assured, but also charmed by my complexities, was exactly what I was looking for ten years ago.  Today, I’m proud to be thinking at odds.  Tim was great for me ten years ago.  And I still like him today.  But You have helped to transform me into a stronger woman.  I don’t need Tim now like I did ten years ago.

Yes, Spirit, I get why I chose Tim.  I get why I might not have chosen Davie a decade ago.  And I get that I would not have wanted to wait until my 30s to find a man.  All right, that releases at least some of my “Anger.”  But it brings me straight to “Bargaining.”  You’ve heard my Bargaining: How close can I get to him?  When and where can we be alone?  As close as our souls are, shouldn’t we get at least a little private time – that cherished feature for every couple who feels the way we do? How physically close can we be?  Is it okay to hold hands?  Can we be arm in arm?

I bargain and bargain for something, anything, that opens a window into what could be.  If we weren’t forbidden, what would we be?  Can’t we at least take our index finger to the curtain covering the window to open up a peek, a glimpse through the window of what could be?

Please, Spirit, hear the irony: normal couples date and do everyday life things together.  They go grocery shopping together, and they make dinner together, and they eat it together – after burning it together and having an argument over that.  Real life.  Normal couples do real life.  They do their laundry and clean the house, and they overstuff the washing machine and it goes bonkers, kicking and jolting and making a ruckus so loud they think a bomb hit the house.  And the vacuum cleaner gets so clogged with cat hair, the vacuum’s stuck, it won’t budge, and they try to force it, and it screeches at high pitched torture, then it goes silent.  Dead.  And they scream, first at the machine, then at each other.  Real life.  Normal couples do real life.

Spirit, please hear me: forbidden lovers need real life too.  We need it more.  Real life tests the couple.  Not all couples meet the test.  Some fail.  In real life, some couples discover they are not meant for one another.  We are forbidden.  Doesn’t that mean we are also not meant for one another?  If not, then let us find out!  Let us face the tests of real life.

Bargaining is a non-stop “stage” for me, Spirit.  All through the other stages Bargaining pokes its head; it’s there; it never was not there, and it never leaves.  Does that happen for people grieving loss too, or does that make the process different for forbidden love?  Will it still pop in during “Acceptance”?  Right now, I cannot imagine Acceptance.

Then we have the other two stages, the first and the fourth: Denial and Depression.  For forbidden love, these two are there, but are these the right words? Again, this is forbidden love that is not pursued.  I’m not writing about the forbidden lovers who have an affair, then repent, and then go through the normal Five Stages of Grief when they part ways.  I’m talking about the forbidden lovers who don’t have an affair, who don’t let themselves discover what could be.  We’re an endangered species, but a few of us still remain.  Is “denial,” then, really the right word to mark the first “stage” for us?

For us, it’s not a denial that something bad has happened.  It’s a denial that something good cannot happen.  That gives it a very different shape and color.  Instead of a denial that is intermixed with sharp pangs of loss, it’s something else intermixed with sharp pangs of love.  It’s intermixed with joy, euphoria, celebration, and the inexplicable elation of being in love.  When you’re in love, everything looks brighter.

Until you realize you can’t pursue the one with whom you’re in love.  Until you realize he’s the fish who’s “protected” and has to be thrown back into the sea. That’s more than “grief.” That’s “anguish.”

So what kind of “denial” marks this type of anguish?  Could another word replace “denial” that captures both the celebration of being in love and the anguish that it cannot be pursued?  Something like “illusion,” the magician’s magic trick.  “Magic”: that’s another word that captures it.  Maybe both are needed: Magic and illusion.  Yeah, both are needed.  That’s what I’ll call the first “stage”: Magic and Illusion.

How about “Depression”?  Again, for forbidden love, “Depression” doesn’t quite capture it.  But English has a word that does, one that has been celebrated by the poets of days long ago precisely for the application of forbidden love: Melancholy.

Yes, the “Five Stages of Grief” do look different for forbidden love.  Since Google presents no list, I’ve created my own.  These, Spirit, are what I’ll call the Five Stages of Grief in Forbidden Love:

(1) Magic and Illusion

(2) Anger 

(3) Bargaining

(4) Melancholy

(5) Acceptance

I’m trusting You, Spirit, for that last stage, Acceptance.  I cannot imagine it, but I pray You bring me to it.  Amen.

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