Vision was (a little bit) Wrong
Grief doesn’t always work that way.
“…but what is grief, if not love persevering?” — Vision, “WandaVision”, Episode 8.
This line struck a chord with a lot of people when it aired. During a time of loss and yearning in the period of COVID-19, the writers and showrunners came up with a line so powerful and resonant that you wouldn't expect to be spoken about in the setting of a Marvel property. The audience (and fans, specifically) was treated to a crash course on how to process and make sense of the world they were living in, feeling some form of relatedness to Wanda who was trapped in the sadness bubble she created for herself.
However poignant this line is, especially with it being said by an android meant to be the ultimate form of the villainous and conquering Ultron, it isn’t true all the time. Merriam-Webster defines grief as deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement and then defines bereavement as the state of being deprived of something or someone. However, sometimes grief is just… a tremendous and unstoppable tsunami of sadness.
While grief can be love persevering, grief can also take the form of love yielding, succumbing, surrendering, and even going so far as tormenting. Grief lingers. You can accept that someone is gone from your life but still feel heartbroken, crushed by the love you were prepared to give for so much longer.
One can walk out from your life in any sort of form and meaning and the love you keep for them might seem like perseverance for a while. However, the same love would also feel like a stab wound, a wound where taking the knife out would cause you even greater loss, so you’re left with no choice but to keep the knife in, holding on to the pain for longer than you even realize.
Forgive my cynicism. I know it’s something that a team of writers came up and while I appreciate the beauty of it, I don’t think in reality grief can’t always be reframed as a reminder that we loved once and that love will remain within us, hence creating the argument that grief is love persevering. From a recent heartbreak, I feel that the following quote on grief is much more realistic:
“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ― Jamie Anderson
It’s been about a week and I find myself finally being able to grieve. My schedule hasn’t allowed me the time to process all the grief I’m feeling, and I realize that having the time to grieve is a privilege as some people can’t afford to spend the time to do so. I’m lucky enough to have a bit of time to process it all, to hopefully not hate, and also not let my grief destroy me.
It’s not easy to feel grief proportionally, having all the love in one’s heart but nowhere to direct it. It’s difficult to see it simply as love persevering, however profound and right the android is.
Thanks for reading, trust no one, and see you in the next post.
