REALITIES
If Grief Is the Price We Pay for Love, Should We Even Love at All?
In her message to the families of the British victims who perished in the September 11 attacks, the late Queen Elizabeth II famously said: “Grief is the price we pay for love.”
She was paraphrasing a longer quote by British psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes. In his book Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life, Parkes explained that the pain of grief is as much a part of life as the joy of love.
We can’t have one without the other. Grief is the cost of loving someone, and to ignore that reality leaves us unprepared for the losses that we will face in our lives.
If that is true, then why do we sign up for love in the first place?
Grief Is the Price We Pay for Love, but It Is Only One Part of It
I met a man named Edwin a few weeks ago. He was in his late 50s, father to two adult children, and has been a widower for nearly a decade.
Edwin told me he wanted to get married again. He said it would be nice if before the 10th anniversary of his wife’s death, he can prove to himself that it’s not too late for him to find a second chance.
In a 2019 survey conducted by AmeriSpeak for WebMD, over half of the participants said that they’ve dealt with grief in the past 3 years.
32% talked about the death of a family member or close friend, while 29% referred to the loss of a relationship.
People who struggled with grief reported having to face sadness, depression, fatigue, and even anger. All of that due to the loss of someone they love.
While we talked, I learned that Edwin’s wife had been in a car accident, and that for years, he couldn’t imagine someone taking her place.
I asked him if he’s prepared for the possibility of meeting someone again only to lose them, since nothing is set in stone. After all, grief is the price we pay for love, isn’t it?
To which Edwin replied: the grief is well worth the rest that love has to offer.
To assume that love is only special if it doesn’t come with pain and sorrow is both a disservice to love and an unrealistic expectation.
If he could meet his wife all over again knowing he’d lose her, he said he’d do it all over again. It’s the same decision he hopes to make a second time. He said it would make his wife proud.
So what if the loss is unavoidable? It doesn’t make the joy of love lesser for it.
Not Letting Fear Hold Us Back
Even if Queen Elizabeth and Dr. Parkes are only two of many who said grief is the price we pay for love and believed it, they’re also two of so many more who did not let that stop them from risking their hearts anyway — from seeing love as worth all that grief.
Queen Elizabeth married Prince Philip in 1947 and shared with him over 73 years of partnership before his death in 2021.
Meanwhile, Parkes built an impressive career in bereavement therapy, helping people and families recover from tragic loss.
Neither of them allowed the inevitability of grief to keep them from loving and sharing their lives with people who matter.
Sure, grief is the price we pay for love, but remember what the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson said?
“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
