Terry Teachout, Matt Zoller Seitz, and grief

Terry Teachout and Matt Zoller Seitz hail from different spots on the ideological spectrum, I gather, but otherwise they share some striking similarities. Both are accomplished critics: Teachout, among his many accomplishments, writes about theater for the Wall Street Journal, while Seitz is one of the best movie and television critics of his generation.

They have also been recently widowed -- Seitz, unfathomably and horribly, for the second time. And Seitz's father appears to be in the end stages of cancer.

What I appreciate about both men is that they have been willing to share their grief, both through tweets and blog posts. Which seems timely -- there is so much for Americans, and the world, to grieve right now. But we're uncomfortable with grief, uncomfortable with showing it, uncomfortable with seeing it. We want it to fit into a neat process -- the "stages" of grieving -- but in truth, grieving isn't necessarily a linear process. And in a lot of cases, that process never becomes complete. We just learn to live with it.

Here's Teachout in a recent blog post:

And how am I feeling now that I’m back in New York? That’s hard to say. I think I’m starting to find my way out of the bewildering maze of sorrow, for I no longer miss Hilary with the same around-the-clock intensity that came perilously close to sinking me in April. At the same time, though, her memory is never far from my mind, and I’m still as lonely as I ever was. And while I’ve kept myself busy writing about theater webcasts for The Wall Street Journal, I miss going to the theater in something not wholly unlike the way in which I miss my life’s companion.

For my own part, I don’t know how I’ve managed to survive the simultaneous losses of my beloved spouse and the art form to which I have devoted more than a decade and a half of my life. But I’m still here, and if Hilary’s death and the closing of America’s theaters didn’t kill me, then I figure I’m in it for the long haul. I hope you are, too.

And here is a recent Twitter thread from Seitz:

This weekend marks the seventh anniversary of my mother's death. I still find that grief visits me suddenly and out of the blue, though I don't live with it as a constant low-level thrum like I used to. The really unexpected thing that's happened, though, is that she's gone -- but my relationship with her isn't. I still find myself wrestling with her life and how it affected mine, the love and the conflicts, in just about every interaction I have with my own child.

Anyway, I'm grateful to Teachout and Seitz for their willingness to grieve publicly. I suspect their acts will help others find comfort. We all grieve, sooner or later. You can't prepare for it, really. But maybe you can take solace in knowing you're not alone.