Grief's Quiet Compromise and the World of Art

Few experiences annihilate us like death. It creates an absence, a sudden void impossible to fill, leaving us feeling useless and incompetent. Grief is universal, yet often spoken about in ways that don’t fully capture its complexity. 

When grief is portrayed in the media, we usually see two extremes: heartbreak without end or acceptance with grace. Despite their depth, these depictions can feel limiting, offering no middle ground between complete despair (like in Melancholia or The Sleepless Man) and stoic heroism that can be difficult to relate to.

In reality, grief often takes on a more complicated shape. There’s the initial shock, at which point it’s socially acceptable, almost expected, to withdraw, ignore messages, avoid leaving the house, and stop sleeping or eating. But, eventually, life demands to move on. Breakfast has to be made, laundry washed, and work completed. The routine returns, as it inevitably must. One of my favourite poems by the Italian poet Ennio Flaiano begins: “There is a limit to pain, and within that limit, a dear comfort.” I believe there’s a deep truth in these words. We learn to exist in a liminal state — the space between holding onto grief and moving forward. In this space, compromise becomes survival. To others, it may seem like your life is back on track, but, internally, the story is different.

After all, if pain has no true expiry date, it certainly does in the eyes of society. Particularly today, where the world values speed, youth, and productivity above all else. Advertising, social media, and the workplace all deliver one clear message: live your best life and be the best version of yourself. In this rush, there’s little room for grief with its slow, solitary rhythms. Silence and stillness, which grief requires, feel almost like acts of rebellion against a world that rejects anything that doesn’t scream ‘progress.’

Yet, grief remains. It seeps into every corner of your existence, not in loud or dramatic ways, but in quiet, unspoken moments. Even as life resumes, you continue to be shaped by your loss. And then, amidst all this, questions arise: “Am I grieving the right way?” “Too much, too little?” “Am I moving on too fast, or not fast enough?” Guilt and shame become shadow companions, insidious and persistent. And the cultural media we consume is able to soothe or feed them.

In Nina LaCour’s novel We Are Okay (2017), grief is portrayed with a refreshing honesty that resonates deeply with me. It illustrates the slow process of recovery — the balancing act between continuing life and realising that nothing will ever be the same again. The protagonist’s journey shows how small, everyday acts — buying pottery, rearranging a room, or watching snow through a window — become acts of quiet resistance. These little moments affirm that, despite everything, you’re still here. You haven’t been entirely swept away.

There’s no single answer to how one should grieve. It’s personal, intimate, and cannot be neatly prescribed. But, in my experience, surrendering completely to grief is exhausting, and denying it is futile. What, then, can we do?

Mary Elizabeth Frye offers a suggestion: integrate grief into life, acknowledge it, and let it speak through every aspect of reality. “Do not stand at my grave and weep,” her poem begins. “I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain.” This is a vision of holistic acceptance — not erasing pain or covering it with false optimism, but inviting it into your life as a presence, without letting it define your world completely.

Perhaps, comfort can be found in this middle ground, where extremes give way to a softer, more livable grief. Art, in its many forms, helps us find solace. It reflects the varied shades of mourning, making us feel seen, understood, and validated in our experience. This is why nuanced representations of grief matter so much. 

On our journeys, we continue to live, transforming that void into something that accompanies us. And, though it may never leave us entirely, we learn that it doesn’t have to define who we are.

Illustration by Holly Ward